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# Part I - America at Mid-Century

## Chapter I - American Horizons Today

Contemporaries have peculiar difficulties in understanding the nature of revolutions through which they may be living. All their past experience will tempt them to seek to deal with novel and vast circumstances in terms of familiar categories of thought. Portentous events often are understood as such only by posterity.

Thus one of the most difficult tasks any nation confronts is to adapt the lessons of its past to swift and often turbulent changes. For while history records the consequences of former actions within their own framework of time and circumstance, each new generation is faced with the necessity of determining the degree to which traditional principles can be applied to new situations. So long as development is gradual, present solutions emerge naturally from past experience and traditional modes of behavior are a sufficient guide to master new challenges.

It is different, however when there occur transformations which transcend in scale what has come to seem familiar. Then the lessons of the past may stand in the way of coming to grips with reality of the present challenge. The very extent of previous accomplishment may inhibit the adaptation to vast changes.

We find ourselves in such an epoch today. As the 20th century nears the end of its sixth decade, America looks out across the wide oceans that

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gird its flanks upon a shrinking, overcrowded world, agitated by revolutionary ferment. Both within our borders and beyond, enormous transformations in every area of human existence -- in the structure of society, in political ideology, and in scientific knowledge of the physical world -- are reshaping the patterns of man's existence at a speed without precedent in history. Caught up in an accelerating historical process, American stands confronted with the urgent necessity of adapting its traditional ideals and modes of behavior to a perplexing and portentous future. For the fate of freedom depends to an important extent on the courage and skill with which the United States shapes its future.

The crucial question challenging America today, therefore, is: how do we envisage our destiny and responsibilities? What is the relevance of our national purpose to events in constant and often violent flux?

These may seem strange questions to other peoples in other lands, to whom America often appears to stand on a pinnacle of power and well-being. Heights, however, hold hazards and power presents unpredictable perils -- and responsibilities. Whether the American people like it or not, they constitute in their exuberant, tumultous, diversified democracy, a planetary power whose destiny will inevitably affect the destinies of every other nation on earth. The irony of our situation is that the U.S. has arrived at its present position of world influence not as a consequence of conscious aspiration, but rather in spite of a vast reluctance to accept its fate and fulfill its global role.

Yet around the world, from the English Channel to the Yellow Sea, in ancient

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As the country becomes filled with an ever greater premium will be placed on the skill of the society in adjusting the competing claims on the economy. In the past, the frontier provided a substitute for this problem of balancing competing demands. But with the increasing role of government and the assumption of worldwide responsibilities, with outlays for defense and social welfare, we must realize that we are "poor" in relation to _all_ the things we may wish to accomplish. We can achieve a great deal and we can envisage a level of well-being never previously attained by any society. But we cannot realize all our goals simultaneously. We can maintain our dynamism only through self-restraint by all social groups, of industry as well as labor lest we substitute for the depressions of other periods an inflationary spiral which will as surely undermine our social morale and our economy.

Yet the economic problem is not the most vexing confronting our society. For by any standard the prospect of our economy is impressive. Since World War I, the national output of goods and services has been augmenting at a rate of four percent a year and in the next 20 years it is expected to double. If our historic growth rate is maintained -- and there is no reason to suppose that it will not -- the national income which was $390 billion in 1955 will be $814 billion in 1975.

These are astronomical figures which have a bewildering rather than clarifying effect. Hence let us translate them into magnitudes which can be more readily comprehended. The estimated population of 1975 will represent

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220 million, about 70 million households. If the $700 to $800 billion of gross national product is divided into 70 million shares and -- since only about three-quarters of gross national product becomes part of our individual income -- each share is reduced by three-quarters, the result is an average income per "spending unit" of approximately $7,500 at current prices.

This figure must be considered in the light of the expected characteristics of the 1975 economy. There is no doubt that it will be earned in a work week of 35 hours or less, for the trend of worktime has shown a steady decline over the past decades. It may further be assumed that this average income will be supplemented with an amount of "free" (i.e., socially supported) services considerably larger than today: the trend of welfare services has shown a steady tendency to increase. It is probable that the dependability of this income will be greater than that of most incomes today, not only by virtue of more effective public control over economic fluctuations, but by some growth of private responsibility for the "guaranteeing" of incomes. Both these factors point toward increased income stability. And finally we must picture the $7,500 family income as a more "typically" representative figure than the corresponding average income of about $5,500 today. Of course we do not know what the actual distribution of income will be in 1975. But it is certainly in line with the trend of the past to expect to find the great bulk of the nation's families within the $5,000 to $10,000 range.

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These figures, it must be clearly stated, are not predictions of what *will* be, but of what *can* be. It is the projection of the opportunity realistically within our capabilities. It is a blueprint for an economy for which we have all the necessary material, energy and skills.

Our task, of course, is to convert opportunity into reality. But what is significant here is not the quantitative magnitude of the figures. It is the qualitative meaning of the level of life which such figures makes possible. Against the background of the fact that the average income for all professional and semi-professional families in the United States in 1954 was just over $7,300 and that of "managerial" families just under $7,500*, the promise of the economy of 1975 represents the upgrading of an entire society to the point where its representative family enjoys an income comparable to that of the upper middle class today. Hence the signal factor of the potential future is that it represents the first approach to a society in which the average person enjoys not merely the perquisites of civilized existence but a modest share of its luxuries as well. Such a social environment has never before existed beyond the confines of a limited sector of the community. Its realization represents a new dimension of social experience.

This extraordinary possibility is the proper measure of the opportunity before us. It is not, let us hasten to say, a vision of Utopia. At the very best, 1975 will be far from a perfect society. Laggard sections of the community will

* *United States Statistical Abstract*, 1956, Table 368, p.306.

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undoubtedly remain. Great and necessary works will remain to be performed. Vexing, perhaps even grave problems of economic policy will assuredly as- sert themselves. Nevertheless these hard realities at best obscure the under- lying achievement itself. If the American economy performs according to its capacities, we shall have created a society different in kind, as well as de- gree, from any heretofore.

Yet, if the future holds great opportunity, it also poses grave problems. There is danger in the sheer magnitude of the achievement before us, and in the natural feelings of pride and eagerness which the vision of a society of universal abundance inspires. The danger is that of confusing *more* with *better*, and of assuming that because we may bring about an environment of relative plenty, that this will necessarily be an end in itself.

It will not. Indeed, if the prospect of a society of wealth "solves" some age-old questions of economics it opens new questions of a still deeper nature. There is not, in a society of abundance, the same easy rationale for much economic endeavor, for the pursuit of private gain, or for the high esti- mation of economic activity itself, which prevails in a society has not had to ask itself for what purpose it worked so hard, saved so much, built so furiously. The answer was apparent in the needs of the people themselves. But when those needs have been met and more than met, when additional economic effort yields not a diminution of discomfort but a mere proliferation of luxury, the question of the purpose of economic activity itself cannot so easily be evaded.

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This is not to suggest that the motives, the institutions, and above
all the pragmatic adaptability of our economic system will not continue to
serve us well. Rather it highlights the probability that the question of
<u>quality</u> will come to have a higher degree of social importance than quantity;
that the meaningfulness of work will weigh more heavily in the scales than
its monetary rewards. It suggests, in a word, that with the solution of some
of the problems of want, society will have the means and the motive to turn
its attention away from an absorption in wealth. The real justification of
our domestic achievements is not the mere creation of wealth for wealth's
sake, but the bringing into being of a society in which each individual may
realize to the full whatever capacities for self-expression which he may
possess. The material mechanism of American society must be made the
servant of life and not its master. Otherwise, our society will succumb to
the nemesis of too much leisure, too much prosperity and too few challenges.
Thus our domestic challenge is to our imagination and our vision. The in-
ternal need of America at mid-century is to define a new concept of frontier,
to find new scope for the national genius heretofore directed to the conquest
of the physical environment.

And yet our domestic problems and opportunities for all their vast-
ness are dwarfed by the challenges of the world beyond our shores. It is a
world in turmoil where familiar forms are disintegrating and millions are
searching for a new orientation. Western Europe for centuries the center of

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world affairs must adjust to circumstances of diminished influence while in
the vast periphery of Eurasia and in the continent of Africa new nations are
taking the place of colonial empires. These transformations are running
against the background of two brooding threats: the danger of the new weap-
ons technology literally capable of obliterating mankind and the existence
of an intransigently hostile group of states, the Soviet bloc, eager to ex-
ploit all dissatisfactions for its own ends and prepared to threaten or em-
ploy all means to achieve its ends.

The revolution abroad has gained such urgency because modern
technology has shrunk distances as it has made states more interdependent.
For the first time in history international relations have become truly global.
Classical history was confined to the Mediterranean. In Europe's Middle
Ages the policies of powers in different parts of the globe were conducted
in almost complete isolation from each other. Until the outbreak of World
War II diplomacy was in effect the province of the major European powers.
But today isolated states no longer exist. When ideas can travel around
the globe in a matter of minutes and missiles will soon come into being
which can reach any part of the world from any other, when self-sufficient
economies no longer exist, isolation is impossible for any state. Hence-
forth foreign policy must be elected on the assumption that any measure is
likely to have world-wide consequences.

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As states have become more interdependent, the scope of inter-national relations has multiplied. The conduct of diplomacy is no longer confined to a small social group. Its implications reach into every aspect of social life. Foreign policy has become democratic; it is no better than the popular support behind it; its targets are not merely governments; in its deepest sense it must be a symbol for peoples all over the world.

This is well illustrated by what has been called the "revolution of rising expectations," the revolt of man against misery, the demand for participation in decisions that affect his own destiny, the stirring of economic and social aspirations within hitherto underdeveloped lands. In such countries the collapse of colonialism and the swift transition from an agricultural into a tribal society has been a disturbing process, the moral and psychological implications of which may prove more significant in the long run than economic or material ones. Discontent and impatience may create a psychological climate in which the promise of material advance may seem more important than the loss of freedom. Unless the newly independent peoples recognize the relevance of democratic principles to their lives and problems it may require the reality of communist enslave-ment to bring home to many regions that material progress is hollow and meaningless if not coupled with respect for the dignity of the individual. And by then of course, it will be too late, either for them or for the rest of the world.

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Thus one of the most vital tasks which the United States and the Western World has to face is to project not only an economic but a spiritual concern, to engage in economic assistance not as an end in itself but as a means to project the values in which we believe and which insofar as they reflect universal aspirations can be the basis of a marked commitment. Our responsibilities include the sharing not only of dollars and machines, but also of institutions and ideas.

We have reason to be optimistic in this task for the revolution in the formerly colonial states is the outgrowth of concepts regarding freedom and the dignity of man we hold in common. Most of the leaders of the newly independent states were educated in the West and drew their revolutionary inspiration from the tenets of the British, French and American revolutions with their doctrine of the inalienable "right" of self-government. Thus the upheavals in the newly independent states and those still under colonial rule represent one of the greatest conversions of history. As the political principles of the colonizers regarding the nature of human liberty became diffused the basis was laid for the destruction of colonialism itself. The challenge of these countries is for the West to live up to its own values. They are playing a role drawn from a Western script.

The communist challenge on the other hand, is an attack on the very basis of these values. It is insidious because it used the traditional terms of freedom and human dignity as tools of a slavery unmatched in human

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history. It is irreconcilable because Leninist theory recognizes no lasting
peace between different economic and social systems. Its intervals of
peaceful coexistence have always been conceived as tactical pauses: to
prepare positions for the inevitable showdown.

Thus while the upheaval of the newly independent is an effort to
<u>enter</u> the international system based on the principles of respect for human
dignity and national sovereignty, the communist revolution is an attempt to
<u>subvert</u> this system. The thrust of communist imperialism has converted di-
plomacy into propaganda and international conferences into elaborate stage
plays which seek to win over those as yet uncommitted. The challenge of
communism is as much to our moral as to our material strength. Our con-
flict with it is over the hearts and minds of mankind.

Thus the world is rent by conflict at a moment when peace was
never more necessary. It is fragmented when all the pressures of history
and technology urge integration into ever larger units. Through the mil-
lions that man has been dominant on earth the structures of society have
grown ever larger -- from family to tribe, to clan, to feudal aggregates,
to nations, to coalitions of nations. At the present time man's loyalties
are governed by entities called nations. He has not yet reached the point
where his perspective is directed towards the larger community of mankind.

Yet in spite of the existence of hostile ideologies, the pressures
of technology as well as the demands of the human spirit impel that man

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arrive at this perspective. For many of our most urgent problems can be
solved only on a scale which if not yet global at least require larger units
than the current nation states. As the population of our planet inescapably
increases it is certain that all existing arable lands, as well as these
which may yet be developed by irrigation and fertilization will prove in-
adequate to supply man with food. We will then have to exploit the rich-
ness of the seas. But in so doing we will be faced with the choice between
strife and cooperation. We will define the limits of territorial waters? We
will own the oceanic mantle?

We have examples of international cooperation imposed by techno-
logical necessity such as in the assignment of wave lengths for broadcast-
ing. An ever larger array of such challenges are certain to present them-
selves. The spread of the peaceful use of atomic energy makes standards
of safety at least a regional and perhaps a global concern. For the disposal
of radioactive waste or the danger of malfunction affect everybody who may
be harmed by it and radioactivity recognizes no man-made frontiers.

The science of meterology opens still other prospects. It is possible
that in the future man may be able to control the weather to an important ex-
tent -- this notion is less utopian than the discovery of nuclear energy was
two decades ago. Man may succeed for example, in directing or channeling
the currents from the permanent cold air mass above the North Pole. If our
technological skill in this area should overturn our concepts of moral

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responsibility, masses of men may be doomed and the pattern of life of huge
areas transformed by the whim of impossible leaders.

III

These then are some of the vistas of America at Mid-Century. They
are a challenge to our imagination and our purpose, for the scale of experi-
ence which has shaped our traditional notions of policy is dwarfed by the
scope of the unfolding future. The radical nature of the changes before us,
and the incredible rapidity with which we have been catapulted into the
center of world affairs present our nation with a situation unique in our
history; we find ourselves today in a new world, wherein concepts formed
in the more tranquil past are proving inadequate guides. There is a dis-
continuity in our historical experience which makes it imperative to look
closely at our national traditions and national purposes and ask how they
can be given a new and cogent affirmation.

For the first 75 years of American history the philosophical con-
cepts of the astute and erudite men who brought the U.S. into being pro-
vided a safe and sure course in relatively untroubled waters. For the next
75 years economic expansion enabled the U.S. to flower dramatically into
one of the great nations of the world. The wisdom of our ideals and the
success with which we have transcended the recurring vicissitudes and
crises of our early history implanted in the American consciousness a belief

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in inevitable progress -- a conviction that whatever happened, whatever
temporary setbacks might supervene, the world is bound to get better and
man is destined to become ever happier.

But today we know that progress is not inevitable, that man is not
always essentially good, and that on the contrary evil sometimes triumphs
and retrogression occurs. The world before us will be quite different from
the world a single generation ago. We have never been here before. And
the danger is that we find ourselves bewildered and paralyzed by a lack of
any affirmative, dynamic philosophy applicable to this particular moment
of history. This is not to say that we possess no system of values or
national ethics. For it is there in the Declaration of Independence, the
Constitution, and all the other noble documents of our past and imbedded
in the way of life that has grown out of them. But our difficulty and our
prime necessity now is to re-define and adapt our traditional values to the
challenges of a world in stupendous upheaval.

A value system is crucial to the survival of any society or nation.
Society cannot carry tolerance of other value systems to the point of ac-
quiescing in its own destruction. It cannot treat its survival as negotiable.
Its values will determine the sacrifices it is prepared to make to insure its
survival. In any conflict, spiritual or physical, the side with a stronger
faith has a decided advantage. It is willing to make greater sacrifices be-
cause its purpose will be stronger.

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Beyond the elementary needs for survival lie the positive goals of a society, both domestic and international. The distinction between different societies is to be found in the "positive" part of their actions, in their view of the nature of man and his place in the universe. If we did not have such values we would not greatly care what happens as long as our immediate security were assured.

The actions of a society can consequently be placed into two categories. Certain measures are dictated by the requirements of survival; others are produced by the desire to create a world harmonious with a society's aspirations and values. The first category of actions is _imposed_ by the environment; it is defensive. The second class of actions is an attempt to _shape_ the environment; it is constructive. Without a well-defined value system or even if the existing one is not clearly understood any nation is liable to drift aimlessly in the stream of history. Its actions will prove haphazard. Its policies evolve from impromptu reactions to crisis situations. It will become, inevitably, a prisoner of events.

Unfortunately, this has been America's _modus operandi_ for most of the last century. Time and again the U.S. has mustered its immense, latent energies only at the 11th hour, when confronted with an obvious, immediate, deadly danger. We entered World War I only after German submarines had sunk American ships, invaded American waters and threatened

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to dominate the Atlantic Ocean. We entered World War II only after Japan
had bombed Pearl Harbor and threatened to dominate the Pacific Ocean.

On the domestic scene improvisation has also been the rule. We
were plunged into the Civil War because North and South could not agree
on a common set of values involving slavery; the Emancipation Proclamation,
which finally enunciated the evil of slavery and the American ideal
of freedom for all men, was formulated only after the nation was catas-
trophically involved in war. By the same token, the new economic and
social concepts that emerged in the 1930s were the products of an economic
crisis that threatened the foundations of American society -- and that no
one had believed could occur. In each such emergency, the U.S. only be-
latedly mobilized its resources, creative skills and innate idealism to com-
bat concrete and inescapable dangers. In none of these emergencies did
the nation perceive its peril in advance or act soon enough to forestall the
ultimate violent storm.

The explanation for our apparently myopic behavior lies deep in the
American heritage. For the U.S. has been, at least since the passing of
the philosopher-statesmen who directed its first formative decades, a
nation inclined to operational rather than abstract or conceptual thinking,
to action rather than reflection, to facts rather than theory. By and large
Americans today like to regard themselves as a *practical* people. We tend

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to be scornful of prophets, idealists and philosophers. Yet the fact remains
that this nation was originally populated and established by men who were
influenced by ideas -- by apostles of political and religious freedom, by
scholarly and courageous men of reason who had studied the teachings of
British and French rationalists like Locke and Voltaire, by Inquisitive, versatile
philosopher-statesmen like Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and by men
of good will like Roger Williams who invaded and conquered the wilderness
to foster the intercourse between man and God. It may be asserted that all
the great charitable and public welfare institutions, the churches, the endowed
foundations, the universities and medical schools, the hospitals and the
whole complex of public education, are the creations of men who today are
often linked disparagingly in the category of "do-gooders." No social
problem has ever been solved, no social advance has ever been achieved,
except through the driving force of concepts previously formulated by men
of reason, foresight and an aspiration to do good.

More than a century ago, the astute French observer, De Tocqueville,
discerned the pragmatic predilection of our society. Commenting on the
American approach to the unfolding vistas of science, he wrote: "In America
the purely practical art of science is admirably understood . . . On this head
the Americans always display a clear, free, original and inventive power of
mind. But hardly anyone in the United States devotes himself to the essentially

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theoretical and abstract portion of human knowledge." As a consequence of this tendency, as it has been extended to politics and the conduct of external affairs, America has met each recurring crisis on the basis of a last-minute decision made by men temporarily endowed with authority, and shaped more by immediate circumstances than a lasting standard of values. Along with our distrust of conceptual thinkers, we have also tended to distrust any system of thought, any articulation of long-range principles and ideals.

Over and above our antipathy to abstract thinking, we have also cultivated a historical image of ourselves which has served to impede the formulation of any basic definition of the abiding national interest. It has been mirrored in part by our Puritan inheritance -- the ethical conviction that power is essentially evil, inevitably corrupts, and may be mobilized only temporarily for temporary power crises. Another distortion in our perspective has been created by our view of geography which asserts that the oceans are barriers rather than highways, that economic areas are necessarily defined by national boundaries, and that we can exist safely in isolation on our continental island without concern for contingencies beyond our shores. A third factor has been our recurring peacetime rejection of our military tradition. Though victorious in every war we have fought, each has been regarded as an unhappy, temporary episode induced by unfortunate

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temporary circumstances unlikely to arise again. We have approached our great wars of the 20th century somewhat in the light of technological exercises in production, quite divorced from the continuum of international politics or the problems of diplomacy which can be met by other methods in times of peace.

Is essence, we have adhered tenaciously to concepts of history engendered in the more stable past, and attempted to solve 20th century problems with a kit of tools manufactured in the 19th century. Today, the nature of our situation is such that the U.S. can no longer afford to conduct its affairs on the basis of 19th century images. Nor can we afford in a world in transition, wrecked by revolutionary upheavals in social and political thought and overhung by the dark menace of nuclear destruction, to continue to meet one crisis after the other by reliance on industrial strength, wealth, technology and inspired improvisation.

Action alone is not enough to meet the challenge to America today, for the challenge is not just a military one; it is not just political, economic or diplomatic; it is, most critically, philosophical. One can see most clearly in retrospect how abstract thought has shaped the course of nations in history. One may legitimately question whether the Soviet Union would ever have come into existence in its present form had it not been for the writings of Karl Marx; or whether Hitler would ever have enjoyed his brief, brutal interlude of power had it not been for Nietzsche

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and his minor exegeticists. And one need only contemplate the influence
of John Dewey on American education, the influence of Albert Einstein on
science, technology and modern warfare and the influence of Sigmund Freud
on the whole diverse field of social morals and mental health, to discern
the incalculable effect which conceptual thinking exerts -- though often be-
latedly -- on the behavior of mankind.

To act with assurance in the face of vast challenges, both domestic
and international, to meet the competing philosophical challenges that di-
vide men everywhere on earth, it is crucial for the U.S. to articulate in
positive terms its national purpose, to define the values that have enabled
it to flourish, and to affirm the principles which may ultimately conduce to
the creation of a world environment in which our form of society may safely
exist. At the present time there appears to be no philosopher, no Locke, no
Jefferson, no Thomas Aquinas to synthesize the lessons of the past and pro-
vide a directive for present and future action. This very lack of a philosopher
for our time is in itself a symptom of our bewilderment. For a society inevit-
ably finds a spokesman for its deeply held convictions. The absence of such
a spokesman suggests perhaps that we are not sure today what we do believe
in. Although we have at our disposal both an immense capacity for gathering
facts and data, as well as the whole intellectual archive of western civiliza-
tion, we have been unable, as yet, to employ it in a way that gives direction
to our national efforts. Without such direction all our tremendous economic and

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technical power may prove self-destructive. Any society, to be vital, requires
a set of beliefs held firmly enough to serve as a rallying point against the on-
slaught of incompatible principles, and at the same time sufficiently universal
to encompass the aspirations of mankind as a whole. Not only the U.S. but the
whole world has need today of a new vision and a new set of purposes.

It is possible -- at least we would like to think it possible -- that the
American tradition may impart direction to the aspirations of a diversified world.
For our nation is itself diversified. Indeed the unique characteristic of American
society, its distinguishing characteristic is its pluralism and diversity. The
genius of America is essentially its ability to synthesize the objectives of a
multifarious population and to reconcile, combine and coordinate them into a
community of outlook and a community of principles and ideals -- the binding
force of a nation. And it has been able to do so because the ideals on which
our society has been built -- the freedom of the individual, justice based on
moral law, peace and order preserved not by force but by reason, and advance-
ment of the general welfare -- seem to reflect universal aspirations.

We can no longer speak today of "the outside world." The world has
become an international community of which we are inextricably an important
part. If we can rediscover and reaffirm the philosophical heritage that has
been built into our national life, we may then find the means whereby we can
project it to the fellow men beyond our shores -- how we can bring peace to a
divided and belligerent family of nations, justice to a world of injustice and
inequality, freedom to a world of multiple enslavements, welfare to a world of
misery. This is the unfinished moral business of civilization.

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nations like Britain and France, in newborn nations like Pakistan and Indonesia, and in the vast hostile territories of the Soviet Union and Red China and their satellites, the eyes of millions are fixed on the United States, endeavoring to discern in what direction its course will lie.

II

What then are some of the vistas of America's future? Today the overwhelming majority of Americans are, or soon can be, comfortably fed, clothed and housed. The steady increase in American productivity has not only eliminated much of the physical misery with which our forefathers had to cope, but has endowed us with a hitherto unimaginable amount of leisure and opportunity for education and creative effort. The task of progressing beyond our present happy plateau is thus complicated by security itself -- and its inevitable concomitant complacency.

We are blessed with perhaps a greater freedom of choice than any other society. But paradoxically our choice is rendered more difficult by virtue of our very achievement.

Where most of the world remains either still oppressed by the gulf between past hopes and present realities, or, as in the case of still undeveloped countries, undergoing the throes of what has been called the "revolution of rising expectations", the U.S. in many areas of national life faces the problem that reality has become at one with its aspirations. It has achieved a standard

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of well-being and opportunity for its citizens that would have been considered unobtainable even a generation ago, while at the same time preserving its heritage of individual freedom. But the necessity of employing our prosperity and freedom creatively, of ennobling our material triumphs with cultural attainment, still looms as an obligation which no free society can ignore.

At the present juncture, both the population and the national economy are expanding at phenomenal speed. If the existing birth rate maintains itself, the population of the U.S. will reach 220 million by 1975. By the year 2000 it will have swollen to 365 million, equal to the present population of India. The fact that most of this increase will occur in metropolitan areas -- specifically 90% of it in the suburbs of cities -- suggests what grave problems lie ahead in the realm of community planning, public housing, highway construction and transportation. One can envisage the American landscape a few decades hence, as the stone and concrete of ever expanding cities creep slowly outward across the green countryside. It has been forecast that in time the entire Atlantic seaboard will become a single homogeneous urban mass, an unbroken paved apron, extending from Boston to Miami. And as cities expand and farmlands and pastures shrink, the problem of supplying food and transporting it to metropolitan markets will become acute. The possibility of water shortages, even now critical in some parts of the nation where hills have been deforested, soil eroded and underground water tables depleted, will necessitate conservation measures on a new and enormous scale.

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As the country becomes filled with an ever greater premium will be placed
on the skill of the society in adjusting the competing claims on the economy.
In the past, the frontier provided a substitute for this problem of balancing
competing demands. But with the increasing role of government and the as-
sumption of worldwide responsibilities, with outlays for defense and social
welfare, we must realize that we are "poor" in relation to _all_ the things we
may wish to accomplish. We can achieve a great deal and we can envisage
a level of well-being never previously attained by any society. But we can-
not realize all our goals simultaneously. We can maintain our dynamism only
through self-restraint by all social groups, of industry as well as labor lest
we substitute for the depressions of other periods an inflationary spiral which
will as surely undermine our social morale and our economy.

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arrive at this perspective. For many of our most urgent problems can be solved only on a scale which if not yet global at least require larger units than the current nation states. As the population of our planet inescapably increases it is certain that all existing arable lands, as well as these which may yet be developed by irrigation and fertilization will prove inadequate to supply man with food. We will then have to exploit the richness of the seas. But in so doing we will be faced with the choice between strife and cooperation. We will define the limits of territorial waters? We will own the oceanic mantle?

We have examples of international cooperation imposed by technological necessity such as in the assignment of wave lengths for broadcasting. An ever larger array of such challenges are certain to present themselves. The spread of the peaceful use of atomic energy makes standards of safety at least a regional and perhaps a global concern. For the disposal of radioactive waste or the danger of malfunction affect everybody who may be harmed by it and radioactivity recognizes no man-made frontiers.

The science of meterology opens still other prospects. It is possible that in the future man may be able to control the weather to an important extent -- this notion is less utopian than the discovery of nuclear energy was two decades ago. Man may succeed for example, in directing or channeling the currents from the permanent cold air mass above the North Pole. If our technological skill in this area should overturn our concepts of moral

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III

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technical power may prove self-destructive. Any society, to be vital, requires
a set of beliefs held firmly enough to serve as a rallying point against the on-
slaught of incompatible principles, and at the same time sufficiently uni versal
to encompass the aspirations of mankind as a whole. Not only the U.S. but the
whole world has need today of a new vision and a new set of purposes.

Suggested reorder Page 1, Chap. I

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Contemporaries have peculiar difficulties in understanding the nature of revolutions through which they may be living. Portentous events often are understood as such only by posterity. While history records the consequences of former actions within their own framework of time and and circumstance, each new generation is faced with the necessity of determining the degree to which traditional principles can be applied to new situations.

It is different, however when there occur transformations which transcend in scale what has come to seem familiar. Then the lessons of the past may actually stand in the way of coming to grips with reality of the present challenge. The very extent of previous accomplishment may inhibit the adaptation to vast changes due to the temptation to deal with them in terms of familiar -- and successful -- categories of thought. Thus, one of the most difficult tasks any nation confronts is to adapt the lessons of its past to swift and often turbulent changes.

Nancy Hanks
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The very extent of previous accomplishment may inhibit the adaptation to vast changes because of the temptation to deal with them in terms of familiar categories of thought.

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The crucial question challenging America today, therefore, is: how do we envisage our destiny, and responsibilities? What Is the relevance of our national purpose to events in constant and often violent flux?

These may seem strange questions to other peoples in other lands, to whom America often appears to stand on a pinnacle of power and well-being before succumbing in her history.

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## II

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At the present juncture, both the population and the national economy are expanding at phenomenal speed. If the existing birth rate maintains itself, the population of the U.S. will reach 220 million by 1975. By the year 2000 it will have swollen to 365 million, equal to the present population of India. The fact that most of this increase will occur in metropolitan areas -- specifically 90% of it in the suburbs of cities -- suggests what grave problems lie ahead in the realm of community planning, public housing, highway construction and transportation. One can envisage the American landscape a few decades hence, as the stone and concrete of ever expanding cities creep slowly outward across the green countryside. It has been forecast that in time the entire Atlantic sea-board will become a single homogeneous urban mass, an unbroken paved apron, extending from Boston to Miami. And as cities expand and farmlands and pastures shrink, the problem of supplying food and transporting it to metropolitan markets will become acute. The possibility of water shortages, even now critical in some parts of the nation where hills have been deforested, soil eroded and underground water tables depleted, will necessitate conservation measures on a new and enormous scale.

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As the country becomes filled with an ever greater premium will be placed on the skill of the society in adjusting the competing claims on the economy. In the past, the frontier provided a substitute for this problem of balancing competing demands. But with the increasing role of government and the assumption of worldwide responsibilities, with outlays for defense and social welfare, we must realize that we are "poor" in relation to <u>all</u> the things we may wish to accomplish. We can achieve a great deal and we can envisage a level of well-being never previously attained by any society. But we cannot realize all our goals simultaneously. We can maintain our dynamism only through self-restraint by all social groups, <u>by</u> all industry as well as <u>all</u> labor, lest we substitute for the depressions of other periods an inflationary spiral which will as surely undermine our social morale and our economy.