respect the rights of a minority, when those rights are interpreted so
as seriously to hamper, if not to forbid, the majority from obtaining
the essential condition of individual freedom and development--viz. the
highest possible standard of living. But this absurdity becomes really
critical and dangerous, in view of the fact that the American people,
particularly those of alien birth and descent, have been explicitly
promised economic freedom and prosperity. The promise was made on the
strength of what was believed to be an inexhaustible store of natural
opportunities; and it will have to be kept even when those natural
resources are no longer to be had for the asking. It is entirely
possible, of course, that the promise can never be kept,--that its
redemption will prove to be beyond the patience, the power, and the
wisdom of the American people and their leaders; but if it is not kept,
the American commonwealth will no longer continue to be a democracy.

IV

THE BRIDGE BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND NATIONALITY

We are now prepared, I hope, to venture upon a more fruitful definition
of democracy. The popular definitions err in describing it in terms of
its machinery or of some partial political or economic object. Democracy
does not mean merely government by the people, or majority rule, or
universal suffrage. All of these political forms or devices are a part
of its necessary organization; but the chief advantage such methods of
organization have is their tendency to promote some salutary and
formative purpose. The really formative purpose is not exclusively a
matter of individual liberty, although it must give individual liberty
abundant scope. Neither is it a matter of equal rights alone, although
it must always cherish the social bond which that principle represents.
The salutary and formative democratic purpose consists in using the
democratic organization for the joint benefit of individual distinction
and social improvement.

To define the really democratic organization as one which makes
expressly and intentionally for individual distinction and social
improvement is nothing more than a translation of the statement that
such an organization should make expressly and intentionally for the
welfare of the whole people. The whole people will always consist of
individuals, constituting small classes, who demand special
opportunities, and the mass of the population who demand for their
improvement more generalized oppo