The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1897-08-25
COMMON AMERICANS.
| w. ID. Howells Considers Their Needs and
Discusses ''The Modern Mood"


On the threshold of new century, the
portal of the future, we see more clearly
than ever that America is the home Of
work, of endeavor, of the busy effort in
which man loses the heavy sense Of self as
be can In no pleasure and tastes the bappi-
ness OF doing something, making some
thing, creating something. Our problem
Is how to keep the chance Of this free to
all; how to find work for all; how to rem
der drones impossible, either rich drones
or poor drones, voluntary or Involuntary.
Perhaps the vastness of this problem Is
what has rendered vs. less SELF satisfied In
the presence of others difficulties, such
difficulties as we surmounted when we
LETT royalty end yapk behind epd t{ystea
our lives, our fortunes and our sa6fed
honor to the common good will Of com
mon men. They are still confronted over
there in the old world with questions
which we solved century ago, but our
problem is nc0 the less serious for that.
We do not fee! the gay buoyanoy of our
homage under the burden, but we are not
discouraged, though we are so much more
serious. We have been little drunk with
our prosperity. Our luck has gone to our
heads perhaps, but we have not forgotten
our duty, which is not the duty of people
to prince, of class to class, but of man to
man. We recognize fully that we are in
each others keeping as no people ever
were before, and that if we are true to
ourselves, equal to our opportunities, there
Is no good that we may not achieve for the
common advantage.
l think that much of the self criticism
which has characterized us in these later,
hos xxriG DC off of n
fashionable confidence we have in our
destiny, which is one with our duty as
we'll as our glory. We have it laid upon
us to leave no question unasked which, if
answered. may help us to know our duty.
What has been our fault that we have any
knotty problem after 100 years of absolute
freedom and of almost unbroken prospect
ty? In what have we been false to ourselves?
How have we failed to remember that
there Is no good but the good of all? What
are the recoverable chances that we have
thrown away? What Is the secret of our
stupidity, our heedlessness, our blindness?
We ask all this in terms of greater or less
severity but, whatever we find the answer
to be, not one of us dreams of looking for
the remedy outside of democracy. No one
proposes to revert to u former condition Of
any sort whatever. 1t is not pretended,
even in the widest burlesque, that we
could by any manner of means help our
selves or save ourselves through monarchy
or aristocracy or autocracy. These things
are logically SO impossible for us that we
are not even afraid of them. We intend
the good of all. That is what we under
stand America to mean, and those forms
have been found by quite sufficient expert
ment never to be for the good Of any.
Would change-a wholly unimaginable
change TO them-put food in the mouths,
clothes on the backs, knowledge In the
heads of the common peopleP We ourselves
are the common people, and we know
what the common people need.-"The
Modern American Mood" W. d. Howells,
In Harper's Magazine For July.