We are not unhappy; but neither are we happy, nor likely to become so, until our corner of the world, at least, is in far better order than it is at present or likely to be soon. There are two kinds of optimism. There is the optimism of retreat--the kind our critics set up as the harbinger of happiness. Our plutocrats preach this optimism, and those of our politicians who are fattening on the honors, salaries and spoils of office. “We are a great people,” they say. “Look at our national wealth. Look at our per capita circulation of money. Look at the totals of our production of everything for man and beast. Let us rejoice and do nothing to disturb our national prosperity. Let us stop thinking--or, rather, let the masses of the people give the plutocrats and the politicians in power a free hand to do the thinking and acting for the nation. Enough of this vulgar and irritating discontent! Enough of the coarse, low talk about wealth! Let us discuss art and literature and glory and grandeur!” All this with the most serious face in the world. All this with perfect honesty and a heart full of patriotism! The answer of the American people is cruel. “Rubbish!” they say. They are not optimists of retreat--for what but retreat is a progress that advances a class at the expense of the mass? Theirs is the optimism of advance--the advance of all. “We are indeed great,” they reply to the optimists of retreat. “Let us be greater. What Democracy we have had has carried us far. Let us have more Democracy. The masses are better off than they used to be, thanks to the sweeping away of some of the obstacles of class and caste. Let us sweep away the rest of those obstacles. What we have is good. It is the promise of better. Let us see that that promise is redeemed!” Happiness--in the customary, narrow sense--the sense put into the word by the long past with its reign of class and caste--that happiness we have not. But the joy of life--the vigorous, bounding hope that beats in the heart and throbs in the veins of the strong man growing in strength--that we have in ever fuller measure. Such happiness never has been in the past? Such happiness cannot be in a world of such abysmal natural inequalities? We deny it. We are here not to live by the past, by precedent, but to make a mockery of past and precedent. We are the children of Democracy, not the wards of aristocracy. We propose a wholly new world--and we are putting our proposals into effect. We have done well, though we have barely begun. We shall do better. Another century or so! We envy our grandchildren, not our grandfathers.