men," the sociologists' term for those secure and swaddled servants of
giant corporations.

For growing numbers life was comfortable. Most lived better and
longer, sharing the American dream of homeownership and enjoying
the fruits of social mobility. Science and technology promised to eradi-
cate ancient problems. By 1955 Jonas Salk had perfected the vaccine
that conquered the dread disease of poliomyelitis, fear of which had for
years prompted parents to keep their children indoors away from
beaches and crowds during the August heat. No longer.

The spokesmen for corporate America offered a sales message, both
for the "free enterprise system" and for its products, that was relentlessly
upbeat. "Progress is our most important product," said General Elec-
tric's TV commercials. However self-serving such slogans were, the
era's prosperity did make converts even of some who had found fault
with the economic system in the bleaker 1930s. The era still had its
critics, though. Some argued that America's material wealth masked
spiritual and civic poverty. Others lamented the tawdriness of mass
culture as reflected in the American passion for automobiles--"insolent
chariots," one critic called them. As government subsidized highways
for autos, public transportation withered. While the family home em-
bodied the American dream, some commentators worried that it bred
privatism. On the other hand, William Levitt, pioneer of Levittown
developments, ventured that no homeowner could be a Communist.
"He has too much to do." Juvenile delinquency was much deplored.
Some linked it to communism; others, later, to the newer menace of
rock and roll. There were various national scandals. Politicians took
deep freezes, vicuña coats, money. College sports and, later, TV quiz
shows were blemished by cheating. A deeper blot was the nation's
complacency about "race relations."

Some spokesmen thought that the cure for these ills lay in religious
renewal. In the 1950s Norman Vincent Peale The Power of Positive
Thinking and other books with potent, if not profound, religious mes-
sages became bestsellers. The Reverend Billy Graham's monster revival
meetings earned him fame and welcome at Dwight D. Eisenhower's
White House. Previously unchurched, the President decided that at-
tending Sunday service befitted his role as national leader. Congress
stapled the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance. Hollywood
star Jane Russell claimed that when you get to know God, "you find
He's a Livin' Doll."

-5-