es any considerable amount of
grinding poverty constitute a grave social danger in a democratic state,
but so, in general, does a widespread condition of partial economic
privation. The individuals constituting a democracy lack the first
essential of individual freedom when they cannot escape from a condition
of economic dependence.

The American democracy has confidently believed in the fatal prosperity
enjoyed by the people under the American system. In the confidence of
that belief it has promised to Americans a substantial satisfaction of
their economic needs; and it has made that promise an essential part of
the American national idea. The promise has been measurably fulfilled
hitherto, because the prodigious natural resources of a new continent
were thrown open to anybody with the energy to appropriate them. But
those natural resources have now in large measure passed into the
possession of individuals, and American statesmen can no longer count
upon them to satisfy the popular hunger for economic independence. An
ever larger proportion of the total population of the country is taking
to industrial occupations, and an industrial system brings with it much
more definite social and economic classes, and a diminution of the
earlier social homogeneity. The contemporary wage-earner is no longer
satisfied with the economic results of being merely an American citizen.
His union is usually of more obvious use to him than the state, and he
is tending to make his allegiance to his union paramount to his
allegiance to the state. This is only one of many illustrations that the
traditional American system has broken down. The American state can
regain the loyal adhesion of the economically less independent class
only by positive service. What the wage-earner needs, and what it is to
the interest of a democratic state he should obtain, is a constantly
higher standard of living. The state can help him to conquer a higher
standard of living without doing any necessary injury to his employers
and with a positive benefit to general economic and social efficiency.
If it is to earn the loyalty of the wage-earners, it must recognize the
legitimacy of his demand, and make the satisfaction of it an essential
part of its public policy.

The American state is dedicated to such a duty, not only by its
democratic purpose, but by its national tradition. So far as the former
is concerned, it is absurd and fatal to ask a popular majority to