What kind of America is waiting for Jimmy Carter? What is the mood of the country he will govern ? To find out, TIME correspondents across the country talked to people from all levels of American society about their morale, their current concerns, their hopes and fears about the future, their expectations for the new Administration. Herewith the report from Washington Bureau Chief Hugh Sidey, followed by reports from New England, the Middle Atlantic, the South, the Midwest and the West:
The quadrennial celebration of the near future is upon the U.S. From hamlet and city will come the bits and pieces of the American mosaic, and as they move down Pennsylvania Avenue this Thursday, they will reflect for one afternoon the diversity and genius of the nation, its joy and its confusion. There will be floats, mummers, horse platoons —and hope.
But even while the nation is looking cautiously ahead, it is also reaching back, trying to get a grip on its soul. There were cheers and gasps of admiration a few months ago for those square-riggers in the Hudson, spectacular symbols of a graceful youth. Later there were good-natured chuckles when the regulars of George Washington's command sloshed by boat across the now leaden and polluted waters of the Delaware River—as they had 200 years ago—to surprise the Hessians in Trenton the day after Christmas. In most hearts there was a residue of admiration for the courage that began this experiment in liberty.
The search through the past is much more than just the Bicentennial celebrations and their lingering afterglow. It is people looking for smaller dimensions, for more simplicity in their lives. It is folks digging for roots, trying to build bulwarks against the tide of social disintegration that has washed over so much of the country in the past two decades. George Gallup has found that a lot of Americans are going back to religion for guidance on how to live in these crowded and affluent times. The number of Americans who believe religious influence is increasing has tripled since 1970; 42% of all adults now go to church during a week. It could be, said Gallup, that we are at the beginning of a religious revival.
With 150 million Americans living in cities of 50,000 or more, the U.S. is still very much an urban nation. But the Census Bureau finds that the majority of the population has shifted toward the South and West for sun and casual living, and also for a private corner of the space that remains. All over the country, demographers have noted, the urge is to go small—out of central cities to suburbs, out of suburbs to smaller towns.
In growing numbers, the kids are trying to stay down on the farm—or get out to one. Agricultural schools have more city-born students than farm-bred ones. In the shadowed interiors of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, some of the brightest spots are the rehabilitated neighborhoods where people are drawing together in common interest to find again those small human graces that sustain all existence.