the highest possible standard of living.

But this absurdity becomes really critical and dangerous, in view of the fact that the American people, particularly those of alien birth and descent, have been explicitly promised economic freedom and prosperity.

The promise was made on the strength of what was believed to be an inexhaustible store of natural opportunities; and it will have to be kept even when those natural resources are no longer to be had for the asking.

It is entirely possible, of course, that the promise can never be kept,--that its redemption will prove to be beyond the patience, the power, and the wisdom of the American people and their leaders; but if it is not kept, the American commonwealth will no longer continue to be a democracy.
IV THE BRIDGE BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND NATIONALITY We are now prepared, I hope, to venture upon a more fruitful definition of democracy.

The popular definitions err in describing it in terms of its machinery or of some partial political or economic object.