money on hospitals and universities, clinics, foundations for scientific
research, and other gifts of inestimable benefit to the nation and
mankind. Although the munificence was on a Medicean scale, this private
charity was in accord with the older conception of democracy, and paved
the way for a new order.

The patriotic and humanitarian motive aroused by the war greatly
accelerated the socializing transformation of the business man and the
capitalist. We have, indeed, our profiteers seeking short cuts to luxury
and wealth; but those happily most representative of American affairs,
including the creative administrators, hastened to Washington with a
willingness to accept any position in which they might be useful, and
in numerous instances placed at the disposal of the government the
manufacturing establishments which, by industry and ability, they
themselves had built up. That in thus surrendering the properties for
which they were largely responsible they hoped at the conclusion of
peace to see restored the 'status quo ante' should not be held against
them. Some are now beginning to surmise that a complete restoration is
impossible; and as a result of their socializing experience, are even
wondering whether it is desirable. These are beginning to perceive
that the national and international organizations in the course of
construction to meet the demands of the world conflict must form the
model for a future social structure; that the unprecedented pressure
caused by the cataclysm is compelling a recrystallization of society in
which there must be fewer misfits, in which many more individuals than
formerly shall find public or semi-public tasks in accordance with their
gifts and abilities.

It may be argued that war compels socialization, that after the war
the world will perforce return to materialistic individualism. But this
calamity, terrible above all others, has warned us of the imperative
need of an order that shall be socializing, if we are not to witness the
destruction of our civilization itself. Confidence that such an order,
thanks to the advancement of science, is now within our grasp should not
be difficult for Americans, once they have rightly conceived it. We, who
have always pinned our faith to ideas, who entered the conflict for an
Idea, must be the last to shirk the task, however Herculean, of world
reconstruction along the lines of our own professed faith. We cannot be
renegades to Democracy.