Civilization in the United States: An inquiry by thirty Americans
General
Civilization in the United States: An inquiry by thirty Americans
United States -- Civilization
There were a few other simple rules which we laid down in the
beginning. Desirous of avoiding merely irrelevant criticism and of
keeping attention upon our actual treatment of our subjects rather
than upon our personalities, we provided that all contributors
to the volume must be American citizens. For the same reason, we
likewise provided that in the list there should be no professional
propagandists--except as one is a propagandist for one’s own ideas--no
martyrs, and no one who was merely disgruntled. Since our object was to
give an uncompromising, and consequently at some points necessarily
harsh, analysis, we desired the tone to be good-natured and the temper
urbane. At first, these larger points of policy were decided by common
agreement or, on occasion, by majority vote, and to the end I settled
no important question without consultation with as many members of the
group as I could approach within the limited time we had agreed to have
this volume in the hands of the publisher. But with the extension of
the scope of the book, the negotiations with the publisher, and the
mass of complexities and details that are inevitable in so difficult an
enterprise, the authority to decide specific questions and the usual
editorial powers were delegated as a matter of convenience to me, aided
by a committee of three. Hence I was in a position constantly to see
the book as a whole, and to make suggestions for differentiation, where
repetition appeared to impend, or for unity, where the divergence was
sharp enough to be construed by some as contradictory. In view both of
the fact that every contributor has full liberty of opinion and that
the personalities and points of view finding expression in the essays
are all highly individualistic, the underlying unity which binds the
volume together is really surprising.
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