Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1973 Concepts of Americanism, 1919-1929. James Wallace Webb Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Webb, James Wallace, "Concepts of Americanism, 1919-1929." (1973). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 2439. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/2439 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. 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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 3 -2 7 ,8 8 1 WEBB, James Wallace, 1938- CONCEPTS OF AMERICANISM, 1919-1929. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1973 History, m o d e m University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan © 1973 James Wallace Webb ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Concepts of Americanism, 1919-1929 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by James Wallace Webb M.A., Louisiana State University, 1963 May, 1973 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Preface The purpose of this dissertation is to trace the history and explore the meaning of the idea of "Americanism" during the period from 1919 to 1929. As such it is part of the larger study of nationalism. I accept the view of those historians of nationa­ lism, such as Hans Kohn, Carleton J. H. Hayes, and Boyd C. Shafer, that nationalism is a state of mind. It is an idea, an attitude, and an emotion. It is the idea that men's highest loyalty should be toward the nation. A nation is a group of people who are be­ lieved to be a nation by themselves and by others. Some historians have maintained that overemphasis on nationalism as an idea leads the historian to view nationality as an act of sheer will or belief and to ignore the solid fact of common interests in the creation of nations and nationality. Obviously, common interests have played an important role in the creation of nationalism. It must be remembered, however, that common national interests themselves are partly a matter of perception. The ideas, if any, that people have of their common interests are determined by the books arid newspapers they read, the schools they attend, and the values they share, as well as by their common economic, political, or military interests. The idea of nationalism, as many scholars have pointed out, is often consciously taught.'*' ■*The historical treatments of nationalism as an idea include such standard works as Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism (New Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iii Nationalism is an idea. Ideas depend on perspective or point of view. It follows that different nations may have different con­ cepts of their nationhood. Moreover, different groups within each nation may have different concepts of their nation. This disser­ tation is a part of the history of the national ideas of a particular nation, the United States. American nationalism, like most nationalisms, involves loyalty to what some consider to be the institutions, traditions, religion, and language of the nation. The American nation, however, was founded before there were any "national" traditions. America has neither a common religion nor an exclusive language. American nationality, therefore, has probably come to involve identification with a particular ideology to a greater degree than most other nationalities.2 Although York, 1967); Boyd C. Shafer, Nationalism, Myth and Reality (New York, 1955); Carlton J. H. Hayes, The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism (New York, 1931); and Hayes, Essays on Nationalism (New York, 1926). Hayes, however, defines a nation as a language group. More emphasis is put on material interests in the creation of Nationalism in such works as E. H. Carr, Nationalism and After (New York, 1945), and David M. Potter, "The Historian's Use of National­ ism and Vice Versa," American Historical Review, LXVII (July, 1962), 924-50. An interesting effort to synthesize the elements, such as language, values, and economic interests, that go into the creation of nationality, is Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communi­ cation (New York, 1953). On the teaching and learning of national­ ism see Shafer, Nationalism, 182-83; Morton Grodzines, The Loyal and Disloyal (Chicago, 1956), 7, 15, 23-25; Gordon W. Allport, The Nature of Pre.judice (Abridged Edition, Garden City, New York, 1958), 41-45; and particularly Richard L. Merritt, Symbols of American Community, 1735-1775 (New Haven and London, 1966). 20n the importance of ideology in American nationalism see Hans Kohn, American Nationalism: An Interpretive Essay (New York, 1967), 3-7 and Yehoshua Arieli, Individualism and Nationalism in American Ideology (Baltimore, 1966), 17-28. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv Clinton Rossiter identified that ideology as conservativism, I have come to agree with Louis Hartz and Yehoshua Arieli that liberalism, in the sense of economic, or possessive individualism, has been one element at the heart of American national ideology. Inherent in liberalism was the idea that property was or should have been the result of the property owner's labor and his virtue. In this context, those who are usually called conservatives in America, and so called in this dissertation, were simply liberals who maintained that the distribution of wealth as it existed accurately reflected the distri­ bution of hard work and virtue among individual Americans. All had had an equal opportunity to gain wealth, and those who had succeeded had demonstrated their superiority. Since equal opportunity already existed, the government should do nothing to redistribute wealth or to change the conditions under which wealth was gained. Those called liberals in America, and in this dissertation, believed that equality of opportunity was an ideal yet to be attained and that change was necessary in order to create it.^ Although the element of economic individualism is at the core of the ideology of most Americans, it is not the only one. I have found that the idea that America should be a well organized team, with all classes cooperating for their common economic good, was just as important in the 1920's. In this context, the differences between ^Clinton Rossiter, Conservatism in America (New York, 1955); Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American Political Thought Since the Revolution (New York, 1955); Arieli, Individualism and Nationalism in American Ideology. On possessive individualism see also C. B. MacPherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism, Hobbes to Locke (Oxford, 1962). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without