These Precious Premises

The National Broadcasting Company in conjunction with the Fund for Adult Education presents Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. Human societies, like people, become worthwhile only through their use of liberty. Providence has not created mankind entirely independent or entirely free.

It is true that around every man a fatal circle is traced beyond which he cannot pass, But within the wide verge of that circle, he is powerful and free, as it is with men, so it is with communities.

The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to freedom or servitude, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness.

These precious premises, a study in political optimism, item 14, in the series Democracy in America, prepared by the Division of General Education of New York University under the direction of George Probst, American historian. A series designed to bring to life the America of the 1830s, as recorded by Alexis de Tocqueville, and so to illuminate the image of democracy itself.

A study in political optimism, these precious premises, midnight, midnight, December the 2nd, 1851, 20 years after Tocqueville visited America, and this city sleeping in the winter night is Paris, still ancient and disordered, her great squares and boulevard still unbuilt.

But the man who is to build them is behind that lamplit window, working at his desk. He is short and unimpressive. He wears a large moustache and a small beard. He has a big nose and little eyes.

He has a sort of immobility of features as he sits quietly with his head on one side. He has a good-natured smile, although one of his friends once caught him with a tiger-like expression that frightened her speechless, but never mind, he conquered himself in the the instant and was kind again. Look at him carefully. Remember him well. He is the president