For the past three years I have been living in the midst of the social revolution in Europe. A great deal of it has been active revolution, with the machine guns in the streets. During this time I have often wondered how much of this unrest was being communicated to America or how much we were developing here on our own account.
Looking at America from the point of view of Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, I have wanted to know—
First—How the Bolshevik revolution in Russia affected America.
Second—Whether the class war into which the World War developed had hit America too.
Third—How the United States was readjusting itself to the inevitable social changes.
At the time the Bolsheviki seized the power in Russia, we Americans who were there used to say to one another as we discussed the industrial and social problems that faced the world, “At home we are going to work this thing out another way.”
Are We Working Out the Problems in Another Way?
For several weeks I have been able to search for the answers to my own questions. I have been going about the United States studying the social and industrial unrest. To some of my questions I have answers which are satisfactory, at least to myself. Behind others I must still leave interrogation points. In addition I have seen things I had not thought of, some of them tranquilizing, others disquieting.
In this and the succeeding articles I shall give my impressions of the unrest in America and its significance from my point of view.
In the first place, I am overwhelmed by our wealth. I had been away long enough to forget how rich we were, and we have in the mean while grown much richer. That fact is of prime importance. Being rich, there is not the gruelling struggle for existence that makes the problems of unrest in Europe dangerous. It eases off enormously on whatever strain there might otherwise be.