Fear, But Not of Entanglement

Traditional American optimism and traditional American isolationist sentiment have both gone to pot. The American people are gloomy about their post-war future --but they want the U.S. to take larger part in world affairs after the war is over.

These are the striking results published in FORTUNE'S December issue of one of the most extraordinary polls ever conducted by the FORTUNE Survey.

Gloom. The evidence of national pessimism, a trait entirely alien to the U.S., is exceptionally well documented. It is a gloom that is not due to fear that the Allies will lose the war--72.5% expect them to win it (only 7.0% actually expect Hitler to win). But after the war 69.9% expect that people will have to work harder, 60.5% that pay will be lower, 43.2% that prices will be higher, 60.7% that there will be a great deal of unemployment.

This gloom reflects the change in public attitude on a subject of perennial American optimism: the hope of each generation that its children will have better opportunities of success than it enjoyed. Only 37.3% of the people think that their sons' opportunities will be better than their own (22 months ago 59.9% thought so). Today, of all classes in the nation, only Negroes still have high hopes for their offspring.

One reason for this general pessimism may well be that 50.2% of the people believe that the war is going to last from two to ten years longer. The majority also believe that Government regulation will be as great or greater than at present, that the New Deal will continue or be strengthened. But the majority believe that this will be a good thing. Their vote apparently shows that, while they believe the New Deal should and will continue, they do not expect it to save them from the things they fear.

World Affairs. All their gloom is apparently not caused by fear that the U.S. is being dragged into war. Interventionist sentiment, for backing England until Hitler is beaten, has increased since October from 51.4% to 54%. Today there are big majorities for using the Navy, the Air Force and even the Army to back up U.S. foreign policy, if necessary.

But most extraordinary is the vote for bigger participation in world affairs after the war: 58.4%. Asked to particularize, 82.1% of those in this group voted either to join an international union of democracies to keep order, or to join forces with Britain for that purpose, or to try doing it all by ourselves.

More than this: 61.6% voted that the U.S. should get either some foreign territory or trade rights in other countries in return for what we do to beat Hitler. (Only 24.6% voted "no".) Evidently the U.S. people have again begun to think in imperialist terms.

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