s fear of
finding ourselves, our city, our section, out of touch with the
prevalent tone and temper of the country as a whole. It is one of the
forfeits we are bound to pay when we play the great absorbing game of
democracy.

We are now ready to ask once more whether there is a truly national
type of American humor. Viewed exclusively from the standpoint of
racial characteristics, we have seen that this question as to a
national type of humor is difficult to answer. But we have seen with
equal clearness that the United States has offered a singularly rich
field for the development of the sense of humor; and furthermore that
there are certain specialized forms of humor which have flourished
luxuriantly upon our soil. Our humorists have made the most of their
native materials. Every pioneer trait of versatility, curiosity,
shrewdness, has been turned somehow to humorous account. The very
institutions of democracy, moulding day by day and generation after
generation the habits and the mental characteristics of millions of
men, have produced a social atmosphere in which humor is one of the
most indisputable elements.

I recall a notable essay by Mr. Charles Johnston on the essence of
American humor in which he applies to the conditions of American life
one familiar distinction between humor and wit. Wit, he asserts, scores
off the other man, humor does not. Wit frequently turns upon tribal
differences, upon tribal vanity. The mordant wit of the Jew, for
example, from the literature of the Old Testament down to the raillery
of Heine, has turned largely upon the sense of racial superiority, of
intellectual and moral differences. But true humor, Mr. Johnston goes
on to argue, has always a binding, a uniting quality. Thus Huckleberry
Finn and Jim Hawkins, white man and black man, are afloat together on
the Mississippi River raft and they are made brethren by the fraternal
quality of Mark Twain's humor. Thus the levelling quality of Bret
Harte's humor bridges social and moral chasms. It creates an atmosphere
of charity and sympathy. In fact, the typical American humor, according
to the opinion of Mr. Johnston, emphasizes the broad and humane side of
our common nature. It reveals the common soul. It possesses a
surplusage of power, of buoyancy and of conquest over circumstances.
It means at its best a humanizing of our hearts.

Some people will think that all this is too optimistic, but if you are
not optimistic enough you ca