the challenge of Soviet Russia and sustain the heritage of Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt in “the fight for liberalism and for a better life for the common man.” “What I wanted to do personally for my own comfort and benefit was not important. What I could do to contribute to the welfare of the country was important. I had to enter the 1948 campaign for the presidency.” Having thus entered, he carried to the people “in every one of my campaign speeches” the aliencompassing revelation: “there was just one issue … to vote on—the choice between special interests and the public welfare.”
The man without depth is Ortega’s mass-man: self-satisfied and self-righteous, accepting nothing as sacred or private, enjoying without comprehending the fruits of civilization, scornful of nobility and distinction, cocksure, thinking and feeling “like everyone,” crowding into every precinct, terrified of loneliness.
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