Chapter I: Preface

This study, which was submitted as one of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, has meant the assembling of personal and theoretical interests of various types. It has two chapters of pure theory on which the practical application is based. To the student of social philosophy or sociology, then, chapters 1 and 2 will contain the essentials of the study. The general reader, not interested in the technical basis but in the conclusions, may prefer to omit these chapters from the reading, and to proceed from the introduction directly to the applications of this theory in American history and specifically to the problem of the Jew in America, as developed in chapters 3 to 9.

Grateful acknowledgments are due to Professor Edgar A. Singer, Jr., of the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Julius Drachsler of the College of the City of New York, and Mr. Leon L. Lewis, Secretary of the Anti-Defamation League, for their very stimulating aid, both prior to and during the writing of this study, and to my wife for her assistance in the preparation of the manuscript.

Lee J. Levinger

_Wilmington, Delaware, May, 1925._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction: A Statement of the Problem 9

I. The “Group Mind,” a Definition and a
Description 18

II. Groups in Contact 32

III. Intolerance 45

IV. American History, a Development of Groups 56

V. The World War and Its Aftermath 67

VI. The Ku Klux Klan and Other Group Reactions 74

VII. Anti-Semitism 85

VIII. The Retort to Anti-Semitism 96

IX. The Future of the American Mind 111