The Iron Within

The climax of jubilation finally came and went. Would the rest of the year be an anticlimax? Perhaps, but it also might provide some time for further reflection and attention to some omissions. Despite the bestselling 1876, remarkably little was said or remembered about America's Centennial celebration. The occasion a century ago was exuberant, boisterous and, above all, confident. Amid the Philadelphia Exhibition's 13 acres of new, awe-inspiring machinery, President Grant pulled a lever to release the first jet of steam and tens of thousands of Americans oohed and aahed: wool was combed, water was pumped, newspapers were printed, cloth was sewn, shoes were stitched together. More in keeping with the public mood, Author William Dean Howells exulted: "It is in these things of iron and steel that the national genius most freely speaks."

In this year's Bicentennial celebration, thoughtful commentators were not boasting of iron and steel--or computers and rockets--the outward manifestations of national power. They were preoccupied with the inner nation. Does it still contain the iron and steel of character necessary to maintain the American enterprise? Many fear that the U.S. has been fatally weakened by its material success. It is certainly possible to find signs of satiety, decadence and disorder. But the evidence points more strongly to a new optimism, and to an occasionally grim determination to be harder on ourselves, clearly underlined by the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the death penalty (see THE LAW).

Henry Adams' obsession with the dynamo remains an essential element of the American spirit. Yet in their inward-looking mood, Americans in 1976 are urgently trying to recover things that were taken for granted in 1876.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.