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Barrett Wendell has received President Roosevelt's two letters in Geneva, where Wendell is spending a few days between his lecture in Paris and those in the provinces of France. Wendell appreciates Roosevelt's approval of his article. Wendell also wants Roosevelt to know how much he admires him and how Roosevelt's career has strengthened the ideals of the United States. It is those ideals that Wendell has been trying to "set forth" in France. Wendell says the countries abroad believe the United States to be a new, materialistic country, and he hopes to show why that is not true. Wendell will not be home again until the new term starts at Harvard in the fall.

Prof. Gonzalez taught philosophy at Central Philippine University. He has written two books of essays. Call of the Heights and The Bamboo Flower, as well as a number of philosophical essays. For distinguished achievement in his field, he was awarded the degree Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa by Central Philippine University on April 23, 1967. Both freedom and ideals are valid and necessary for individuals and society, and for humanity in general as, in a sense, the macrocosmic whole within which the individuals interact and gain a meaning (and even a reality) which they do not achieve as discrete, unique and merely self-regarding monads. Yet, in the very nature of life itself, the two stand in antinomial relation, in a state of rising and ebbing tension. The result is an intriguing, even recurring problem for both the individual and society and for individuals in their intercourse with one another. Today in many lands, societies and communities ideals are on the defensive and, in some places, even threatened with dissolution. The disenchantments and the “vital devastating doubts,” caused by the two World Wars and by the failure of systems to match and manage the “vitalities of life,” have rudely shaken men’s faith in the validity, utility, and power of ideals. Having thus lost their trust in ideals, men naturally turned to freedom in the belief that only through existential freedom can they achieve not only an escape but even redemption from their malaise and their predicament.

Photocopy of a newspaper clipping of an (incomplete) article titled "Ideals Held America's Salvation" written for the June 7, 1970 issue of the Baltimore Sun by Pearl S. Buck who explains the difficulty she experienced on her return to the United States from China between what she was taught about America as a child and what she saw on her return home and how she came to believe that America's salvation as a nation lie in its commitment to its ideals.

The best thing that can be done for the American people, according to Gifford Pinchot, is to keep the ideals of Theodore Roosevelt "steadily before them."

Shlomo Bardin speaks of the "Importance of Being a Dedicated Person", at the House of the Book at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute (Brandeis, Simi Valley, Calif.)., California Audiovisual Preservation Project (CAVPP)

Samuel Huntington wrote about the conflict between American ideals and American institutions in 1982, identifying four episodes in which the U.S. attempted to restore the values of liberty, equality, liberal democracy, and popular sovereignty to the institutions of government. The U.S. may well be experiencing a similar episode after the experience of September 11, 2001 and subsequent security reforms. Secrecy, necessary for the function of the military and capable governance, poses a challenge to each of the foundational American ideals. Reconciling the requirements of secrecy with the people's demand for transparency and publicity poses several challenges to the U.S. government. Changes in information technology, culture, and social dynamics all exacerbate the existing tensions between the executive, legislature, media, and the people. The U.S. military exists between these actors and must balance the requirements of defending the nation while adhering to its values. Current dynamics in the domestic and international arena could lead to significant challenges to the state, apart from as well as involving the military. In order to preserve necessary secrecy while implementing American values, the U.S. should guard against the instantiation of a garrison state, prevent the formation of a praetorian class, preserve a diversity of views despite insider threats, reform institutions based on the existing threat and strategic interests rather than political equities, and trade spectacle revelation for meaningful discourse about the meaning of American democracy.