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"Not only are manufacturing and commercial classes to be found in the United States, as they are in all other countries, but, what never occurred elsewhere, the whole community is simultaneously engaged in productive industry and commerce." Producing goods now seems to interest the populace less than it did then, with the result that America imports more goods from other nations than it ships out. I am at a loss to explain this change. I can only point to one development that strikes an outsider as extraordinary. Huge companies devote great energy to buying and selling one another. The American genius for commerce has discovered a method for generating vast profits without the inconvenience of making anything of value.
On the Condition of Blacks
I had few expectations that whites and blacks would ever exist easily and peacefully together here: "If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States; that is to say, they will owe their origin, not to the equality but to the inequality of condition." I am heartened that this matter turned out better than I imagined. Wherever I turn, I see blacks in positions of authority and prominence. My initial exposure to television leads me to conclude that the most beloved person in the country is a black man named Bill Cosby. Though America has freed itself from the most visible manifestations of racial injustice and intolerance, I cannot truly say that whites and blacks have resolved all of their differences. Few whites any longer are willing to display open prejudice, but this silence does not always reflect their true feelings. Blacks, for their part, often have conflicting emotions about succeeding in America; gratifying rewards may come, but not the conviction of full acceptance in society. Complicating these tensions is the existence of a class of blacks who seem permanently excluded from the opportunities of American life. Concentrated most visibly in the decaying centers of older cities, these people produce a disproportionate amount of violence, crime and fear. These depredations are bad enough, but worse still is the prospect of wasted lives and generations: children born out of wedlock in turn bearing children who have neither the training nor the chance to break the cycle of their hopelessness. Unless blacks and whites learn how to address this problem with appropriate frankness and sensitivity, I fear that a small portion of disaffected people may make life so intolerable for all that a terrible correction will enforce safety at the expense of liberty.
America remains an inexhaustible subject, and the most I can offer is scattered readings of history still in the process of being written. If my remarks strike any as too critical, I am sorry but not apologetic. As I wrote once: "Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is very seldom offered to them by their friends." I am a friend of Democracy. My birth and training inclined me to aristocratic interests, but my heart led me to America. It is still the place among all others where the play of human nature is allowed the greatest latitude, for good and ill. It is still the place that can make itself even better by deciding to be so.