CONSERVATIVES AND INDIVIDUALITY 43

two types of competitionthe one that leads to bloody

war and the other that is the mother of enterprise and

high achievement.

Thus the conservative is dedicated to true individu-

ality, the right and the duty of men and women to be

themselves; the conservative wants enlightened competi-

tion, differences of rank and station and wealth, life with

variety and even with risk. But he does not want a doc-

trinaire "Individualism" that favors selfishness, private

illicit ambition, and "devil take the hintermosJ." on prin-

ciple. He does not want this any more than he wants a

stifling collectivism. He thinks that society ought to foster

true individuality, and that the proper checks upon a

ruthless individualism are private conscience and good

constitutions, not constant and direct political surveil-

lance of our economy and our private lives. The conserva-

tive is not an ideologue; that is, he does not yearn for

complete moral and political anarchy, or for a total "wel-

fare state" opposed to individual variety. He thinks that

our old established American society, in which private

ambition and public order are reconciled and mutually

checked, offers us the general solution to the problem of

the individual versus the state.

No society ever puts an end, once and for all, to the con-

flicting claims of ordered government and private ambi-

tion. The best we can hope for is a society in which men

and women recognize the general principle that the su-

perior natures are entitled to develop themselves, and

that the average natures are entitled to live in tranquil-

ity. There was a time, in the history of our country, when

it seemed that ruthless individualism might overthrow

this principle. But that time is gone by; and at present

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