Paul Greenberg  Why do politicians pride themselves on being
working class, or at least having working-class origins? For the
same reason 19th-century presidential candidates were almost
required to have been born in a log cabin. Seven of them
actually were. Then there were those who would like to have been
for political purposes. It was a way of identifying with The
People.  The People, not The Masses. In this country, we don't
have Masses, unless you write for the Daily Worker. It would be
un-American.  Also unrealistic. Americans may be farmers, but
we've never been peasants. (Slaves, maybe.) It probably has to
do with having skipped the feudal period. The very first
Europeans to observe this strange new species of man in the New
World tended to comment on our lack of subservience. Which
cheered some, but horrified others.  "What then is the American,
this new man?" Crevecoeur asked in his "Letters from an American
Farmer" (1782), and answered: "He is an American, who, leaving
behind him all his ancient pr