Our religious hatreds created sectarian
organizations, and these react again in the national soul, which would,
I believe, willingly pass away from that mood, but finds itself
incarnated in organizations habituated to sectarian action, and its
energies are turned into these hateful channels unwillingly. So a
drunkard who now realizes that intemperance is rotting his nature is
conquered by the appetites he set up in the past, and with his soul in
rebellion he yet satisfies the craving in the body. The individualism
in our economic life reacts on the national being, and prevents
concerted action for the general good. We have yet to create harmony of
purpose in our economic life, and to bring together interests long
separated and unmindful of each other, and make them realize that their
interests are identical. It is one of the commonplaces of economics
that urban and rural interests are identical: but in truth the townsman
and the countryman have always acted as if their interests were opposed,
and they know very little of each other. I never like to let these
commonplaces of economics pass my frontiers unless they give the
countersign to the challenge for truth.
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