The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1923-07-07
NY72YtCQ1
IndiOiduQlism
A Timely Message to
the American People
By HOOVER
SecI etar., 81 Commerce.

N
mary force Of American c~iyiliza-
n zion for three centuries. 1t is our
sort of in|dividualisIn that has sup
piled the motivation Of Americas po-
litical, economic and spiritual institu-
tons in all these years. II has proved
its ability TO develop its Institutions
with the changing scene. our very
form of government is the product Of
the i~rdiyidualism If our people, the
demand for an equal opportunity. for
4 fair chance.
The American pioneer is the epic
expression Of that indiydualisn, and
TIE pioneer spirit is the response to
the challenge of opportunity, 10 the
challenge of nature, to the challenge
of life. to the call of the frontier. That
spirit need never die for lack Of So e.
thing for it to achieve. There will al
ways be a frontier to conquer or to
hold as long as men think, plan and
dare. Our American individualism has
received much of its character from
our contacts with the forces Of nature
on a new continent. 1t evolved gov
eminent without official emissaries to
show the way it plowed and SOW ed
W. score of great states; it built
roads, bridges, railways, cities it car
ried forward every attribute Of high
civilization over a continent. The days
Of the pioneer are not V There are
continents Of human welfsre Of which
we have penetrated only the coastal
plain. The great continent Of science
is as yet explored only on its borders,
and ii is only the pioneer who will
penetrate the frontier in the quest for
new worlds to conquer. Tie very
genius of our Institutions has been
given to them by the pioneer spirit.
Our individualism Is rooted in u very
nature. 1t is based on conviction born
of experience. Equal opportunity, the
demand for a fair chance. became the
formula of American indiyidualism
because ii is the method of American
achievement.
After the absorption of the great
plains of the West came the era of
industrial development with the new
complex of forces that it has brought
US. Now haltingly, but with more
surety and precision than yer before
and with a more conscious understand
ing of our mission, we are finding solu-
ton of these problems arising from
new conditions, for the forces of u
social system can compass and COM
prise these.
Our individualism is no middle
ground between autocracy-whether
of birth, economic or class Origin-and
socialism. Socialism of different varie-
ties may have something TO recon-
mend it as an intellectual stop-look-
and-listen sign. more especially for Old
World societies. But it contains only
destruction TO the forces that make
progress in our social system. Nor
does salvation come by any device for
concentration of power, whether po-
litical or economic, for both are equal
ly reVersions to Old World %autocracy
In new garments.
Salvation will not come to US out
Of the wreckage of indlvidualism.
What we need today is steady devo-
ton to a better, brighter, broader in
diyidualism-an individualism that
carries increasing responsibility and
service to our fellows. Our need is not
for a way out but for a way forward.
We found our way out three centuries
ago when our ~forefathers left Europe
for these shores, to set up here a COM
monwealth conceived In liberty and
dedicated to the development of indi-
~viduality.
There are malign social forces other
than our failures that would destroy
our progress. There are the equal dan
gers both of reaction and radicalism.
The perpetual howl of radicalism ia
that ii is the sole voice of liberalism
that devotion to social progress IS its
field alone. These men would assume
that all reform and human advance
must come through government. They
have forgotten that progress must
come from the steady lift Of the indi-
vidual and that the Measure of ma
tional idealism and progress is the
quality of idealism in the individual.
The most trying support of radicalism
comes from the timid or dishonest
minds that shrink from facing the re-
suit of radiealism itself but are de-
voted to defense of radiealism as proof
of a liberal mind. Most theorists who
denounce our i~ndividualism as a social
basis seem to have a passion for ignor.
ance of its constructive ideals.
An even greater danger is the de-
structive criticism of minds too weak
or too partisan to harbor constructive
Ideas. For such, criticism is based
upon the distortion of perspective or
cunning Misrepresentation. There is
never danger from the radical himself
until the structure and confidence of
society has been undermined by the
enforcement of destructive criticism.
Destructive criticism can certainly
lead TO revolution unless there are
those willing TO withstand the malice