Jefferson’s dream of an idyllic rural republic faded away. Nor were the rewards of industry and finance equitably distributed during the generation after the war. The rich grew richer and poor grew poorer, and the number of those unable to manage in an economy that required special skills, mounted. By the 1980’s an official survey discovered some 20 million citizens without enough food to satisfy their hunger.

The physical plant, too, deteriorated. Railroads were abandoned and, as transportation by automobiles and airplanes used up petroleum resources of the nation, the costs saddled on future generations rose. Industry moved to the Sun Belt and, as in earlier years when millions of blacks moved from an impoverished South to a prosperous North, now millions of Hispanics from the Caribbean countries sought a new Promised Land. With rising costs the richest nation in the world found herself with an ever-mounting debt, and unable to provide for the health and welfare of the victims of the new economy. For the first time in history, what had been a model of equality found itself confronted with the threat of a class society.