The American Experiment

*What you have inherited from your fathers,
earn again for yourselves, or it will not be yours.*
—JOHANN WOLFGANG von GOETHE
In terms of size and natural resources, the United States is one of the great nations of the world. It covers 3,000,000 squares miles from sea to sea, plus Alaska and Hawaii. Immense productive capacity has given its people a very high standard of living.
But the true greatness of a nation may have relatively little to do with its size or its ability to produce goods. We can talk of the greatness
of the city-state of Athens in the fifth century before Christ, even though its area was smaller than Rhode Island and its population one-thirtieth that of modern New York City. The glory of Athens lay in the fact that it produced people whose ideas and actions have affected the world ever since. The lasting greatness of the United States must rest on something more than material things. What ideals has this country preached and tried to practice? What in American life, in addition to mere abundance, has made this country a desirable place to live?
Outstanding characteristics of "Americanism" have varied from period to period and section to section, but the following can be traced from colonial times to the present. (...)