By the social problem is usually meant the problem of poverty; but grave inequalities of wealth are merely the most dangerous and distressing expression of fundamental differences among the members of a society of interest and of intellectual and moral standards.

In its deepest aspect, consequently, the social problem is the problem of preventing such divisions from dissolving the society into which they enter--of keeping such a highly differentiated society fundamentally sound and whole.
In this country the solution of the social problem demands the substitution of a conscious social ideal for the earlier instinctive homogeneity of the American nation.

That homogeneity has disappeared never to return.

We should not want it to return, because it was dependent upon too many sacrifices of individual purpose and achievement.

But a democracy cannot dispense with the solidarity which it imparted to American life, and in one way or another such solidarity must be restored.