ABSTRACT
The American dilemma, as public wealth grew and became more available, was that all Americans except a relatively few idealists and malcontents hungered for private gain and advancement. Most had to look on helplessly as some among them went far ahead in wealth and emoluments, thanks to background and personal qualities: program, patience, imaginative hold on economic essentials, courage, or a superior brand of unscrupulousness. And even when an average American could find someone to look down upon, by fooling a farmer or city dullard, outwitting a horse trader, avoiding legal writs and licenses, or using bankruptcy as a means for evading debts, his ego was still in jeopardy. The new need for scapegoats was partially a function of a more impersonal character in later American society. One of the results of the disparity between wealth and degradation was to begin the career of scapegoats selected to explain public troubles, a career that had no end in sight.
