of these communities in the South had a prewar economynin which cash played only a small part. Public educationnwas marginal. Contacts with a larger world did not exist.nThen, in a burst of nahonal activity, came the campnconstruction, the building of new roads and airfields, andnthe honky-tonks that kept the troops amused. Many meager,nhalf-forgotten communities had a crash exposure to andifferent world. People moved out of the Plains states tonwork in the aircraft factories and shipyards on the WestnCoast.nIndeed the great national migration to California begannin earnest during the world war and has continued evernsince, with profound effect on the politics of the UnitednStates. World War II ushered in a new era of technologicalnchange. The sleepy East Tennessee area around the smallntown of Oak Ridge became the center of atomic energyndevelopment. The greatest impact was on the people whonwere caught up in the war effort. Soldiers stationed innAustralia and New Zealand brought war brides home tonVermont and South Dakota. The country was mixed upnand blended anew as it had not been since the turn of thencentury. Perspectives were widened beyond anything thatnmight have been anticipated in the 1930’s. My horizons inn1940 were Charleston’s Broad Street and King Street andnthe nearby beaches. Three years later I was viewing Hollywoodnwith wonderment—a microcosm of the change thatnwas in progress. Other young Americans were dispatched tondistant South Pacific atolls and the jungles of New Guinea.nUndoubtedly, we all became less regional in outlook, lessnprovincial, for good or bad. This set the stage of the changesnin morality that would surface in the 1960’s. The countryngained sophistication and lost much of its simplicity. Thenold verities suffered as windows were opened that let in,nfirst, a gentle breeze of change, and then, a hurricane thatntransformed American society.nEven as profound underlying changes were at worknduring the early 1940’s, Americans went to war or to warnwork with a resolute and bright spirit. I am reminded of thisnin reading Don Ball’s account of America published in ThenDecade of the Trains—the 1940’s. “During the 1940’s,” hensays, “America ‘worked.’ It seemed to be an era of goodntimes and almost innocent merriment—even with the darknand terrible war. The forties were, as some say, natural—nwithout pretense or guile. Still, responsibility was a meaningfulnterm in the forties; no one forgot Pearl Harbor andnthe fact that a job had to be done … it was a time to enjoynyet not waste life. America’s pride, friendliness, and gracenwere never for a moment lost during the war.”nChanges set in motion by World War II took two decadesnto work their way through society and alter it radically. Onencan’t help wondering what would have been the course ofnAmerican society if the war had not taken place. ThenUnited States most probably would be a much quieter placenwith closer links to its roots. Technological change wouldnhave been infinitely slower, for war always creates technology.nThe level of sophistication would be much lower,nperhaps much as it is in such an isolated spot as NewnZealand. The internal migrations would not have takennplace in equal volume. The South might well be poorer,nbut the old cities of the Northeast and Midwest might alsonbe healthier in every way. The West Coast would not bencongested with people to the same degree. Crime mostnprobably would be much less of a problem. The wholentenor of national life undoubtedly would be more restrained,nmore pedestrian. The dangerous and weird wouldnbe less conspicuous in American life. The cultural revolutionnof the 1960’s would not have occurred. The familynwould be stronger. This is not to say that American life,nwithout the fact of World War II, would have been entirelynplacid. The consequences of the Depression would havenbeen felt in the 1940’s and later in profound ways. ThenDepression—an experience in American history, almost asndecisive as the Civil War—exposed fundamental flaws innAmerican life. It made clear that the American mechanismnof government was inadequate to deal with the complexneconomic system that had emerged. The Depression alsonbrought to the surface the radicalism that had come into thencountry in the late 19th century as a result of unrestrictednimmigration from countries where hostility towards governmentnwas endemic and the product of severe repression.nThis hostility was automatically manifested towards the newncountry, despite its freedoms, on the part of a number ofnnewcomers, even as others sought to become completelynAmericanized and part of the established culture. Hardntimes caused the hostility to bubble up in the 1930’s,nespecially as the children of the migration gained a higherneducation and came to articulate their inherited hostility.nIrving Howe, in his book A Margin of Hope (Harcourt,nBrace, Jovanovich), recounts the rise of a hostile intelligentsianin New York City in the 1930’s and recalls socialism asn”an encompassing culture. . . . Almost everyone seemednto be a Socialist of one sort or another. . . . Only radicalismnseemed to offer the prospect of coherence, onlynradicalism could provide a unified view of the world.”nMr. Howe also notes, in connection with the rise of thenNew York intellectuals, that “This was probably the firstntime in American cultural history that a self-confidentngroup of intellectuals did not acknowledge the authority ofnChristian tradition.” I was hardly out of the service before Inmade contact with the New York intelligentsia that was soninfluential and also so isolated from the America in which Inhad my roots.nDuring my year at the Cambridge School, I encountered,nfor the first time, liberal political and social sentiment,nbut it was very much New England liberalism. NewnYork leftism was unknown to me at the time, and I wouldnonly discover it, in a tentative way, when I began to perusenissues of The Nation in the library at Emory University. Itndidn’t touch me, however, until 1946, and I certainlynwasn’t thinking about societal goals during my time in thenMarine Corps. I was concentrating strictiy on myself andnthe frustration of my personal interests, such as music, thatnhad begun to take hold during my year in Massachusetts.nIndeed I never heard anyone in my time of service everndiscuss the goals of the war, apart from smashing the Japsnfor their sneak attack at Pearl Harbor. The labors, tedium,nand petty annoyances of military service wholly occupiedneveryone’s attention—an unpleasant sergeant who tried tonget our squad to wash the captain’s automobile, endlessnfield stripping of our rifles, periodic midnight marches withnfull packs as punishment for talking after lights-out in thenQuonset hut. These were incidents that were at the centernnnNOVEMBER 19871 19n