This theory recognizes the necessary and proper existence of the sub-groups, whether family, religious, racial or ethnic units. Human beings live naturally in comparatively small units, which can be easily recognized and whose loyalty is habitual (some would even claim, instinctive). These groups then join with others into larger units of synthesis, by accepting the common purpose of the whole in place of the conflicting purposes of each. Just as the individual becomes a loyal member of a family, the family of a Protestant church or a Jewish people, so that church or ethnic unit becomes, in turn, a unit in the larger whole of the American people. Group intolerance is thus sacrificed to America in increasing proportion and scope; while group individuality preserves the democratic ideal by which a man is an end in himself. The personal satisfactions and welfare of the immigrants themselves cannot be advanced by compelling them to give up everything they hold dear—instead, the attempt will prove subversive of the hoped-for unity by the usual result of group resistance. But all these values can be retained in a higher synthesis, a gradation of loyalties, an integration of minds in a true group mind. The traditional Hebrew phrases for the Jewish people are {Am Israel}, the People of Israel, and {Keneseth Israel}, the Congregation of Israel—grasping thus both the racial and spiritual elements in one conception. To quote Berkson: [126]This conception which identifies the Jewish people with its cultural and spiritual aspirations comes very close to the view that nationality is essentially a psychological force. [127]The “Community” theory would make the history of the ethnic group, its aesthetic, cultural and religious inheritance, its national self-consciousness the basic factor. [128]The “Community” theory endeavors to meet all the justifiable considerations presented in each of the other proposals. It seeks especially to avoid such a scheme of adjustment as would tend to force the individual to accept one solution as against another. It leaves all the forces working; they are to decide what the future is to be. Professor Dewey put the matter similarly: [129]The way to deal with hyphenism is to welcome it, but to welcome it with the sense of extracting from each people its special good, so that it shall surrender into a common fund of wisdom and experience what it especially has to contribute. All of these surrenders and contributions taken together create the national spirit of America. The dangerous thing is for each factor to isolate itself, to try to live off its past, and then to attempt to impose itself upon other elements, or at least, to keep itself intact and thus refuse to accept what other cultures have to offer, so as thereby to be transmuted into authentic Americanism. Dr. Drachsler represents the same point of view: