To explain American optimism the material organization of life must also be taken into consideration. Basing itself on the use of a continually improved machinery, this organization is perfect. American prowess has adjusted machinery to life. Innumerable means of transportation insure the maximum of comfort. Machines, large and small, help the American to solve the servant problem. Elevators, typewriters, telephones, calculating machines, motor cars, steam, electric or automatic engines have been invented to save human labor and exemplify the axiom that “time is money.” The Middle Ages expressed their religious faith in the cathedrals. American comfort displays itself in the Pullman car and the hotel palace. In politics the average American has every reason for believing that he is the best governed citizen in the world. Sovereignty lies entirely in his hands, for better, for worse. American politics has its defects and even its vices (incompetence, graft, bossism, etc.), and yet, when all is told, the system of American government appears as the most convenient appliance ever invented to answer the direct needs of the governed. Taxes are paid and furnish a good revenue. Two big parties, and only two, divide the country about equally and without serious strife. There are cliques, and, perhaps, more than elsewhere, graft. But the American voter is an optimist. He looks straight before him and fulfills his functions as a citizen with an almost sacramental solemnity. There are politically discontented people in the United States, and their number is increasing, but they are still a small minority. In spite of several incidents which cannot be ignored (see Upton Sinclair’s novels on strikes, bribes and socialistic riots), the United States is the only country where socialism has a small chance of succeeding, and the only one where it is not yet in power. The reason for this is that America is the country where man suffers least and where he is least exploited. Labor is well paid and it is wisely regulated. Competition is free and the distance between capital and labor smaller than in other lands. And yet Babbitt, the representative average American, is not happy. Upon his discontent we should make a few reservations. First and above all, let us remark it, the current pessimism to-day in the United States is not a pessimism of the masses but of the élite. The case of Sinclair Lewis and the people he puts on the stage in his novels is remarkable on this point. To make him a pessimist without qualification would be inaccurate. Carol Kennicott represents the average American woman, Babbitt the average American man. Both of them experience tragic moments, but, all in all, they never despair, and return to the fold with, seemingly, the approval and blessing of the author. After this preamble, I come to the analysis of Sinclair Lewis’ novels. * * * * *