 The National Broadcasting Company in conjunction with the Fund for Adult Education presents Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. The ideas of progress and of the indefinite perfectibility of the human race belong to democratic ages. The America of 1831 is devoted to equality, and equality suggests several ideas that would not have originated from any other source, and it modifies almost all those previously entertained. I take as an example the idea of human perfectibility and progress because it is a great philosophical theory everywhere to be traced by its consequence in the conduct of human affairs. The Cold Water Army. A study in American progress. Item 7 in the series Democracy in America, prepared by the Division of General Education of New York University, under the direction of George Probst, American historian. A series designed to bring to life the America of 1831, as recorded by Alexis de Tocqueville, and so to illuminate the image of democracy itself. A study in American progress. The Cold Water Army. Although man has many points of resemblance with the brutes, one trait is peculiar to himself. He improves. They are incapable of improvement. The idea of perfectibility is as old as the world. Equality did not give birth to it, but equality as imparted to it a new character. An aristocratic society can conceive improvement, but not change. An aristocratic society can imagine the future condition of the world maybe better, but not essentially different. But in a democracy, the image of an ideal, the always fugitive perfection, presents itself to the human mind. Thus it was that when my friend Beaumont and I set foot in the United States in 1831, we were stunned by the tumult. On every side, a thousand simultaneous voices demand the satisfaction of their social wants. Not a reading man, but has a draft of a new community in his vest pocket. We're all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform. We students of Yale therefore solemnly form ourselves into a band, and vow never to cease in our efforts, but totally to devote ourselves to the salvation of Illinois. Progress is the great topic of inquiry. Come, join the Cold Water Army, join us now, join us now, come join the Cold Water Army, join us, join us, join us. The sisters all we've heard your call, and join you in your melody. We wine, resign, the pledge we'll sign, and sing with you in harmony. Come join the Cold Water Army, join us now, join us now, come join the Cold Water Army, join us, join us, join us now. Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. Ancient injustices are no longer tolerable. This association calls for the end of sweatshops and the establishment of the ten-hour working day. The new College of Overland will ban tea, coffee, meat, fish, pepper and other condiments, gravy, butter, and practically anything with taste enough to be a temptation of the flesh. As the editor of the newspaper, I must ask for the heavenly compassion of my female readers for my persistence in the sin of celibacy. But I am so much engaged in building up the newspaper and reforming the age that actually I have scarcely time to say how'd you do? In a democracy, no one sits quietly in despair of improving his condition. Bread, rent, fuel, their prices must come down. The people will meet in the park, rain or sunshine at four o'clock on Monday afternoon to inquire into the cause of the present unexampled distress and devise a suitable remedy. Meetings are called to denounce the government and to deplore the laxity of the day. Would you believe it? They no longer arrest people who travel on Sundays. And even the male coach, carrying government dispatches, now goes its rounds on the day of the Lord. If this disastrous trend is not stopped, all is over. Not only with our private morality, but with public morality too. Societies are formed which regard drunkenness as the principal cause of the evils of the state. Man, shun that cup, touch not a drop therein, in youth it ruined me when filled with rum and gin. Societies are formed for everything. Matters have come to such a pass that a peaceable man can hardly venture to eat or drink or to go to bed or to get up, to correct his children or to kiss his wife without obtaining the permission and direction of some society. It is impossible to spend more effort in the pursuit of happiness. To take a hand in the regulation of society and to discuss it is his biggest concern. And so to speak, the only pleasure an American knows. Debating clubs are, to a certain extent, a substitute for theatrical entertainment. An American cannot converse, but he can discuss. And his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he were addressing a meeting. And if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will address the man he's talking to as gentleman. After all, gentlemen, reformers are metallic. They are sharpest steel. They pierce whatsoever evil or abuse they touch. They are armed in the might of principles, and gentlemen guard backs their purpose. They uproot institutions, erase traditions, revise usages, and renovate all things. Reformers are the noblest of creatures. Living in time, they work for eternity. Dwelling with men, they are with God. Forever seeking, forever falling to rise again, often disappointed, but not discouraged. The American tends unceasingly toward that unmeasured greatness so indistinctly visible at the end of the long track which humanity has yet to tread. We live in a period of the world and a stage of society favorable to every charitable institution and useful improvement. Never were the poor and miserable more generously taken care of. In these western countries of the earth we have equal strength and beauty of body. With them we have as improvable and elegant minds, and on less untoward and sired events alter our situation, may exhibit human nature in as favorable a point of view as it has ever yet appeared. It can hardly be believed how many facts naturally flow from the philosophical theory of the indefinite perfectability of man, or how strong influence it exercises, even on those who, living entirely for the purposes of action and not of thought, seem to conform their actions to it, without knowing anything about it. Remember Tocqueville, our conversation with Mr. Poinsett? Mr. Poinsett, of course, was also a man of considerable thought. He was indeed. He was a distinguished world traveler. He had been ambassador to Mexico. He was a personal agent of President Andrew Jackson. And finally Mr. Poinsett had a beautiful red flower named after him. We met him at a tavern in South Carolina and together we traveled back to Washington and talked and talked and talked. And in part we talked about American progress. We are told, Mr. Poinsett, that Americans are very economical when it comes to managing ships. Why? Well, Mr. Tocqueville, the American sailor possesses an activity and an economical bent. He has an understanding of his own interests. Price of labor is high. Ships cost more to build here than in Europe, but we look for other ways to make improvements. There's not an English or a French vessel crosses the ocean in as little time as ours, none that stays as short a time in port. I'll tell you something. The American has a quality, land or sea, which makes him singularly apt to succeed and make money. We have observed that. Of course you have, sir. Let me return to these American ships. Yes, Mr. Beaumont. I have heard it said that these beautiful fast ships of yours generally don't last very long. Well, well, Mr. Beaumont, I think you might begin by, well, you have to distinguish between ships built for sail and those built for your own use. I see. There is in the north a shipbuilding industry and in fact the vessels it produces do have a short life. But when we want to make a ship that we can use as long as possible, we find in the building woods of the south, particularly in the live oak of the Florida's, the best materials in the world. What makes our ships last such a short time is the fact that our merchants often don't have much disposable capital to begin with. This calculation on their part, provided that the vessel lasts long enough to bring them in a certain sum, a certain profit, well, that's all they expect. Besides, there's a general feeling among us Americans that prevents our aiming at the durable in anything. There reigns in America a popular and universal faith in the progress of the human mind. Americans are always expecting that improvements will be discovered in everything. But in fact, they are often right. Does everyone act on this sort of system? Certainly, Mr. Tocqueville. Any American sailor will tell you that ships aren't built to last because of progress. In the worlds which fall accidentally on a particular subject from an uninstructed sailor, I recognize the general and systematic idea upon which a great people direct all their concerns. The idea of perfection, of a continuous and endless bettering of social conditions. This idea is presented unceasingly in all its aspects. Our original purpose in visiting America was to study its prisons. And here, as everywhere, the American spirit of perfectibility pervaded everything. Tocqueville, do you remember our first sight of the great prison of Sing Sing? We were traveling up the Hudson River on a warm morning. The first warm morning. That had been quite cold up to then. And the American chatted to us. Eager, as always, to explain his country to the strangers from France. And here's another thing you'll want to know. And now you make a note of this, too. Yes, sir. If you're aiming to spend a little time with us, this may be useful to you. We think a man can do anything. Anyone told you that before? Not in so many words, but we have noticed a great flexibility. Well, that's what we believe. We believe a man can do anything. We believe if something needs to be done, then someone can do it. We believe that people can do what they want to. If they want something, they can get it. That's what we believe, and that's the way we act. If we think anything needs to be changed, and gentlemen, I mean anything. From the face of the planet itself to the most complicated of human institutions, if we think it ought to be changed, and we know it can be changed, and we know that we can change it, and we go right ahead and do it. Now, you remember that. We have noticed change and alteration on all sides. Good. And there's evidence coming into sight right around that bend. Well, where do you mean? That great stone building there is a machine for changing human nature. It's the new penitentiary of sing-sing. But that is our destination. That is what we've come to your country to study. Fine, gentlemen. You will find here that we don't give up even the most hardened criminal as hopeless. If man is capable of improvement, he will be improved in America. In America, there is not only belief in progress, but there are innumerable societies to promote progress. Oh, Beaumont, those societies. Americans of all ages, all conditions and all dispositions, constantly form associations. The thousand kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes. In this manner, they found hospitals, prisons and schools. If it is proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever at the head of some new undertaking, you see the government in France or man of rank in England, in the United States, you will be sure to find an association. The American Tract Society. The American Peace Society. The American Home Missionary Society. The General Union for promoting the Christian observance of the Sabbath. The American Association for redeeming females who have deviated from the paths of virtue. What is to say, societies are formed to resist evils that are exclusively of immoral nature. There is no end which the human will despairs of attaining through the combined power of individuals united into a society. Consider, for example, the societies for the abolition of slavery. And the fiery words of William Lloyd Garrison, who on January the 1st, 1831, four months before we landed in America, published the first issue of the Liberator and proclaimed the war cry of the abolitionists. I determined by every hazard to lift up the standard of emancipation in the eyes of the nation, assenting to the self-evident truth maintained in the American Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population. In Park Street Church on the 4th of July, 1829, in an address on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popular but pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seized this opportunity to make a full and unequivocal recantation and thus publicly to gasp pardon of my God, of my country and of my brethren the poor slaves for having uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice and absurdity. I am aware that many may object to the severity of my language but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think or speak or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm. Tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravager. Tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it is fallen. But urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not excuse. I will not retreat a single inch. And I will be heard. Here is the intensity, the fury, the fanaticism of the man who burns to bring progress, who burns to free the two million Negro slaves. But all this zeal was met with counter zeal. In the Southern states it became a crime for Negroes to read and Southern judges were severe in judgment. In Norfolk, Virginia for example. Of all the Negro race there cannot be found another so large a body as the millions of slaves in the United States at once so intelligent, so inclined to the Gospel and so blessed by the elevating influence of civilization and Christianity. But many now living will remember how and when and why the anti-slavery fury began and by what means its manifestations were made public. Our males were clogged with abolition pamphlets and inflammatory documents to be distributed among our Southern Negroes and induce them to cut our throats. These however were not the only means resorted to by the Northern fanatics to stir up insubordination among our slaves. They scattered far and near pocket handkerchiefs and other similar articles with frightful engravings and printed over with anti-slavery nonsense to work upon the feelings of ignorance of our Negroes who otherwise would have remained comfortable and happy. The prisoner is therefore sentenced to one month in jail for the crime of teaching a Negro child to read. But the abolitionists are not the only ones who are zealous in their wish for progress. As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have taken up an opinion or a feeling which they wish to promote in the world they look out for mutual assistance and as soon as they have found one another out they combine. From that moment they are no longer isolated men but a power seen from afar whose actions serve for an example and whose language is listened to. No the temperance banner floating free or are the temperance legions shouting victory through the land on to the battle on strike the battle. It is a song as the people themselves say composed, selected, arranged and adapted to the cause of total abstinence. Do you remember Tocqueville that man we met in Albany on the 4th of July the one who wanted us to join the Cold Water Army? Gentlemen, I happen to have here a few little pamphlets which I should be pleased if you'd carry back with you for the interest and edification of the French people. I've inscribed them all on the title page, EC Delevin's respects, and I hope you'll forgive the liberty. Oh, we are delighted. Let me see. Second annual report of the New York Temperance Society. Founded by myself in company with Dr. Lifflet Knot. Most interesting, evidently. What is a temperance society? It has to do with the evils of strong drink, I crusade against it. Oh, of course. We agree with you. Moderation in all things. Temperance, sir, does not mean moderation. As far as strong drink is concerned temperance means abstinence. Let me draw your attention to some of those fine colored plates. Section of the liver of a drunkard who died miserably some little while since in Poughkepsi. Oh. Interior of the stomach of a drunkard who perished in agony near Syracuse. Oh. Series of cross sections of the spleen. Thank you. We have seen sufficient. Well, they're fine pictures. I'm working now on something which I'll take the liberty of transmitting to you gentlemen seeing that you're from France. It's to be entitled Temperance in Wine Countries. And I'm sure you'll agree that your unhappy nation certainly qualifies in that category. Certainly, sir, the wines of France are the pride and delight of the civilized world. Not in this quarter, they're not. The cases I've collected, you'd be surprised if the New York Temperance Society has its way. And sooner or later it will have its way. Any kind of alcohol will be totally prohibited in this state and anywhere else we can prohibit it. But is not this an intrusion on the rights of the individual? If you do not like alcohol, well and good. But are all men to be forced to your mold? On what grounds do you propose these extraordinary things? On the grounds of morality. You gentlemen are strangers to America. You're from Europe. You're not acquainted with morality. You are not aware of the moral force and power of aroused public opinion as it's found and cultivated in this free land of ours. Are there a great many reformers in America who seek to influence others to their views on moral grounds? A very great many. Some of them, of course, are nothing more than infernal busybodies. There's a gang out to try and prevent Americans from indulging in their inalienable right to chew tobacco. That kind of thing is just nosy parkrism, far removed from the whole-hearted public decency of a movement such as our own. I'll leave all these pamphlets with you. Shall you be staying in town some day? Shall you be here over the fourth? What is our expectation? I trust the elevated tone of the proceedings will not be marred by strong drink and debauchery. However, we shall hope for the best and expect the worst. The first time I heard in the United States that a hundred thousand men had bound themselves publicly to abstain from spirituous liquors, it appeared to me more like a joke than a serious engagement. And I did not at once perceive why these temperate citizens could not content themselves with drinking water by their own firesides. I at last understood that these hundred thousand Americans, alarmed by the progress of drunkenness around them, had made up their minds to be patrons of temperance. They acted in just the same way as a man of high rank, who should dress very plainly in order to inspire the humbler orders with a contempt of luxury. It is probable that if these hundred thousand men had lived in France, each of them would individually, by himself, have memorialized the government to keep an eye on the saloons and public houses. And they were certainly effective. By 1835, there were 1,200,000 members of the American Temperance Society. There were 8,000 local affiliates and organizations in every state but one. It is a universal American idea that the promotion of public progress is the proper concern of the private citizen. And this idea can be found clearly and explicitly stated in the American press. I see no reason why the wildest dreams of the fanatical believer in human progress and perfect ability may not ultimately be realized. And each child so trained as to shun every vice, aspire to every virtue, attain the highest practicable skill in art and efficiency in industry. Loving and pursuing honest, untouched labor for the health, vigor, and peace of mind thence resulting, as well as for its more palpable rewards and joyfully recognizing in universal good the only assurance of individual good. Our estocratic nations are naturally too liable to narrow the scope of human perfect ability. Democratic nations to expand it beyond reason. Democratic nations care but little for what has been but they are haunted by visions of what will be. In this direction, their unbounded imagination grows and dilates beyond all measure. Nothing deters the American in his undertakings. Nothing discourages his efforts. He has a fund of energy in his soul to improve man and society. This same daring enterprise has given birth to American industry whose marvels astonish me. Those canals, those railroads which penetrate the continent, the businesses which enrich the commerce of all nations, the fertile fields, the magnificent cities and smiling villages everywhere, wealth and plenty. To democratic ages belong unquestionably the ideas of progress and of the indefinite perfect ability of the human race. You have just heard the Cold Water Army, a study in American progress, item seven in a series based on Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. This series presented by the National Broadcasting Company was prepared by the Division of General Education of New York University under the direction of George Probst, American historian. Produced in the studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by Andrew Allen. Script by Lister Sinclair. Music by Lucio Agostini. This series, Democracy in America, is made possible by a grant from the Fund for Adult Education as part of a general course of study of the nature of American society. Teachers of American history and American civilization and adult education leaders may be interested in using these dramatizations and other materials which are available for study and discussion at a reasonable charge. For information, write to American Foundation for Continuing Education, Post Office Box 749, Chicago 90, Illinois. Now this is Ben Grower inviting you to listen next week to The Heavenly Prison, Item 8 on Democracy in America. This has been an NBC Radio Network presentation.