Copyright 1948 by the International Committee of Young Men's Christian Associations PRINTED IN U.S.A. Why This Book 7 1 The Perennial Crisis 11 2 The Fear of Democracy 24 3 Nevertheless 40 4 The Method of Democracy 58 5 Where We Can Begin 77 6 The Apparatus of Democracy 97 7 The Promise of Democracy 115 7 Why This Book The story of the origin and writing of this book is a proper part of the book itself and ought to be told briefly at the outset. Five years ago (in the Spring of 1943) I undertook a study of the citizen's role in world affairs-the part a plain man might play in the drama of issues which, for want of a less obnoxious term, we called foreign policy. In all public meetings and private conversations the question that rose like a refrain was, What can I do? At the suggestion of my friend, Clyde Eagleton, Professor of International Law at New York University, I set out to try to answer that question. I talked with leaders of adult education, with Congressmen and officials in the Department of State, with editors and professors, with lobbyists and servicemen. I investigated cases of democratic action wherever I could find them. I observed and analyzed various successful pressure techniques. 8 Why This Book The early product of this study was a batch of notes, a closetful of bulky materials, and then a manuscript of over 400 pages which attempted to answer the ever more recurrent question, What can I do? The answer I provided turned out to be only more lengthy, not more satisfactory, than the answer usually given questioners in public meetings when they were told to write their Congressman or identify themselves some movement the speaker happened to support. I had es- sayed to prepare a manual of arms for future peace but actually I had prepared only another political cookbook, seeking to instruct people in the use of all the old ingredients. The reason is now plain: I had made the mistake of assuming the present political setup to be adequate for real democratic endeavor. I had not fully appreciated the vitality or depth of the forces working beneath the general awakening of citizens to world affairs; nor did I understand the necessity of fashioning new political forms to accommodate these forces. Matters stood at this confused stage when, late in 1945, I was invited to take a post at the United States Embassy in London. Granted full leave from my position as an editor, I became a government employee. The experience during the year that followed gave me a certain perspective on my study and afforded two very important stimuli. First, as a government official, I got a close, if brief, view of government processes. I came to understand, as one can never understand from the outside, what a chain-driven contraption government is. I caught a glimpse of the ways in which even the most democratically pretentious of governments lingers on in the twilight of eighteenth century reverie, how it operates through levels and status and courtly deference. Why This Book 9 Second, my work as a part of the United States Information Service placed me in direct contact with a representative section of the British people. In all parts of England, in some parts of Scotland, and throughout South Wales, I met and discussed the problems of our time with youth groups, women's associations, with dockside political clubs, adult education bodies, business men, religious societies, students and teachers in schools and universities. Under these two stimuli--being associated with my own government in another country but in frequent touch with the unofficial people of that country--I began to perceive that in Britain as well as in America there were no real methods by which the sense of mass responsibility aroused in war could be carried over and given adequate expression in handling the problems of peace. The British might be more mature, more skilled in debate and political casuistry. But their leaders in the press and in the government seemed no more aware than the wiseacres back home that the challenge of change could not be met by a mere change of party. Tremendous latent energies stirred by the experience of war appeared to be ignored and they seemed likely to spend themselves in vapid meetings or populist movements or to squander themselves in old political games. From notes made at odd moments I prepared a monograph setting forth the need of revolutionary change as I saw it. This I discussed with friends in government and, by great good fortune, with the late Karl Mannheim, author of Diagnosis of Our Time and editor of the International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction. Mannheim was professor of sociology in the University of London. He had been one of the 10 Why This Book earliest victims of Hitler's wrath, and in Britain he had been one of the first men to suggest seriously to the universities there that there might be a science of society. A gifted critic and one of the kindliest of men, Mann-heim encouraged me to develop my argument further. He wrote: "Although many objections can be made and will be made, I think an important cause has been put forward so vigorously that one is really compelled to think out things anew." Upon my return to the United States early in 1947 I had occasion to test both the ideas and the methods I had set forth. I met with a group of citizens in my own community to consider the problems of democracy in the modern world. During the summer of 1947 I circulated the monograph for criticism and comment to some 200 persons in the United States and Great Britain. More than half of these reviewed it thoroughly and wrote detailed and searching criticisms. It was thus possible in rewriting and expanding the argument to correct misleading impressions and qualify statements most likely to be open to misinterpretation. The helpfulness of my critics enabled me to measure the basic ideas of the book against the interests and views of a diverse and representative group of citizens in both countries. Consequently the original monograph has been supplemented and greatly enriched by many specific contributions, and some of the critical comments have been inserted in the text. Chapter 1 11 The Perennial Crisis Surely never before in the long and troubled history of the race has the plight of man been so apparent as it is today. There may have been times when matters stood worse, but few knew or cared. Now, even in the most favored nations, we can almost taste the world's misery in our daily bread. This unprecedented awareness is one of the most obvious and, at the same time, one of the most overlooked features of our age. Although we become inured to the scareheads of the press and to the sonorous alarums of the radio, the sobering knowledge (reinforced by two world wars and the threat of a third) that distant occurrences may affect our lives as readily as a street brawl in front of our house has set off a whole new set of impulses among citizens everywhere. Yet the gloomy fact remains that these new impulses have as yet found no concrete means of expression. The responses of the people have increased immensely; the respon-siveness of our political system (even in the democracies) has 12 The Perennial Crisis increased not a whit. Indeed the citizen's opportunities for taking an active part in the major decisions that are made all about him have if anything lately diminished and, in one of the most crucial moments of history, he finds himself cut off from the very processes designed to control his destiny. Government as an instrument remains where it was a hundred years ago in terms of its power to relay the popular will. Meanwhile, it has grown more and more restrictive in character. Government is something that is done to us, not something in which we have a creative part. Citizenship is largely a matter of paying taxes, getting licenses, standing in line, avoiding penalties, filling out fortes. It does not occur to the common run of us that we can have any vital part in the conduct of public affairs. Political forces come to be looked upon as impersonal, and the result of the play of these forces comes to be regarded as "inevitable." To borrow a line from Sidney Wade, there appears to be little that any of us can do but stand around wringing our hands in bemused goodwill, while the rulers of humanity proceed with the carpentry of crucifixion. Nor can it be denied that there is every ground for the feeling of helplessness and insignificance that prevails among ordinary people. Minority groups represented by ener-getic lobbies can occasionally give people a sense of power. Now and then popular movements geared to the moment can sweep the land and influence legislation. By and large, though, the average person remains an animated pawn, pinched and reminded daily of the world in which he exists, yet kept powerless to do anything about it. The time has come to admit frankly that, under present The Perennial Crisis 13 circumstances, there is little the individual can do but go through the motions of protest. The truth of the business is that, if he is to have any responsible part in reconstituting his world, he must first of all change the circumstances. The problem, in a word, is vastly deeper than achieving popular support for some political scheme. Instead of talking about the ways in which the individual can influence his government, we must first consider ways and means by which the individual can change political and social procedures so that government will be susceptible to citizen influence. The limited and negative objective of preventing war will have to give way to a more ambitious and exacting program, with no less a goal than the full democratization of society. Whether we move toward actual democracy is no longer a matter for theoretical discussion. It goes to the very heart of the world predicament. Conversion to the democratic idea among countries claiming to be democratic is a necessary prelude to any enlightened social effort in the future. The thin; that matters supremely at this moment is to find and develop methods by which those of us who are ordinary citizens can assume some measure of control over the society of which we have become a passive part, can assert the authority and exercise the responsibility which, not only in government but in practically- all departments of life, we have cavalierly delegated to others. Three reasons underline the urgency of this step: First, the present system of vestigial, makeshift authoritarianism known as democracy is without spiritual thrust or power. Of the two leading countries that call themselves de- 14 The Perennial Crisis mocracies, Britain and the United States, one is in the doldrums and the achievements of the other can be passed over by critics as purely material and hence the product of special economic advantage. Under its present half-hearted acceptance, democracy has not much that is positive to offer in competition with other social philosophies or managerial schemes for society. In countries with democratic forms the emphasis falls almost entirely upon rights and freedoms. We are inclined to give a man the right to talk as much as he pleases and call the result democracy. Missing from our calculation is the view that regards democracy as a process by which all the people participate in deciding major issues that concern them. It is in this respect that the little democracy we enjoy now is a dangerous thing. It gives us the illusion of reality. By calling ourselves democratic (instead of relatively democratic) we are led to suppose that we have perfected the process. We are thus put in the untenable position of defending the fraction for the whole, the name for the fact. Worse still, our present system has all the weaknesses of democracy and none of its creative strength. With its haphazard regard for old-fashioned liberty, it is open to dictatorial subterfuges and hence to the invasion of any ideology that parades as democratic. The gains and threats of Communists through infiltration into "key positions" of various organizations of the democracies are a commentary on the oligarchic manner in which these organizations are conducted. Next, our present adulterated democracies continue to leave all important decisions to policy makers and bigwigs and thereby crowd into oblivion and impotence the vast bulk of The Perennial Crisis 15 the people. The practise of acting always from the top prevails not merely in government but in industry, education, charity, journalism--through the whole course of what we call democratic society. The result is bound to be a progressive decay of function among citizens, an oppressive conviction of uselessness. As Toynbee puts it in speaking of the industrial prolitariat, men are in society but not of it. The staggering number of alcoholics and neurotics bears gruesome testimony to the kind of society we condone. An increasing host of men and women are treated as outcasts because they are no longer able to adjust to the requirements of a competitive industrialism. Given no sense of importance, no real opportunity for co-operative action, no adequate consciousness of group cohesion, they are driven more and more in upon themselves. Less spectacular, but even more tragic, than the crowding of men and women out of the councils of society is the failure of our present undemocratic system to make full and extended use of human energies. In unions, churches, schools, offices, granges, clubs, industries, even in co-operatives, community organizations, and adult education associations, we find what Ritchie Calder has dubbed "the stage army of the good," an endless procession of worthy repeaters who turn up again and again in behalf of this and that worthy cause. Clear and fresh ideas could be had for the asking if only methods were worked out by which people could be given some sense of respectable participation rather than the mere right of rejection or consent to the actions of their social managers. What is usually laid at the door of human nature often properly belongs to our wanton neglect of the democratic process. 16 The Perennial Crisis Obviously the failure to use human resources and to diffuse responsibility is worst in politics because the problems that confront us today are primarily political. If the world problem is not straightened out, there is not much use in straightening out anything else. But the contempt for ordinary humans is in no way confined to the realm of politics. In all and sundry facets of social endeavor, we constantly encounter the spectacle of organizations carried on by a handful of willful men. The one-man committee is a standing joke and a standing requirement. "Too many cooks spoil the broth." Old wives tales with no relevance to the facts are adduced to support an autocratic regime in either a study club or a town council. The mass of persons concerned with almost any enterprise, whether it be the stockholders of a large corporation or the constituency of a university or the membership of a religious body, is looked upon as a rabble which must be sold on this or that idea which management initiates. The depressing consequence to be seen on every hand is that the business of the world is being carried on in the candle power of executive minds rather than with the immense power that might well be generated by the dynamos of democratic action. Few in authority can appreciate the mixture of frustration and unchannelled enthusiasm that marks the common lot of us today. It is a tenuous and impending evil that bewilders us, assuming weird shapes like the face of a thunderhead. Some of these shapes are deceivingly familiar. At times the threat resembles the mien of Stalin set on a thick Russian bear. A moment later it has mushroomed into the phallic density that rose over Hiroshima. Again the cloud may spread itself like a The Perennial Crisis 17 map, while flashes symbolic of gunfire play along the edges of trouble spots around the globe. Newspapers and magazines and books whirl before us a kaleidoscopic array of brightly colored issues. Our minds ricochet from the race problem to the housing problem, from the problem of foreign trade to the problem of displaced persons, from the British problem to the Russian problem to the Palestine problem to the problem of free enterprise. Woodrow Wilson once remarked, "By the time anything gets to me it's a problem." Today the public can say the same. In spite of all the news that is forced upon us, however, it would seem that the more we know the less we can do. We become victims of a kind of political somnambulism, moving vaguely about at the mercy of events. Our consciousness often seems to be a consciousness of images rather than realities. For this reason a good deal of our excitement over current affairs often seems superficial and bootless--and will prove to be unless we can bring our influence to bear upon events that bear incessantly in upon us. Cut off as we are, our view largely a stereopticon view, nonetheless we are beginning to see that there is really no such thing as "the world." What is happening before our eyes is only a dramatization of what is happening to us. Slowly but certainly we are beginning to perceive that the happenings of our day are not distant pantomime but real experiences in our own lives. It is as if a person injured by a machine and blotto from shock should suddenly notice that a hand has been cut off, only to recognize with a sickening return of consciousness that it is his own. It no longer means anything to us when we hear it said, 18 The Perennial Crisis America must do this, Russia must do that, Britain must do the other. We know inwardly that America and Russia and Britain do not exist as entities apart from their citizens. The old Churchillian flummery is dead and the abstractions of the history books need to be reduced to facts. There are no longer powerful nations and immense forces. There are today only peoples and persons, and these peoples and persons have suddenly been brought together by the amazing applications of science. There is in consequence only one problem and that is the creation of a world society under law. This leads to the third and most urgent reason for fullscale democracy: the changes necessary to meet the problems presented by an interdependent world are so profound that they will have to be authorized by peoples acting in concert. These changes will never be made by heads of state, who will always err on the side of caution. Present political leaders hold office on sufferance, and they can always plead the dumbness and conservatism of the people to cover up their own shortcomings and timidity. Nothing can be done to remedy this sluggishness until provision is made whereby the electorates of the several countries can declare their views on issues instead of candidates. At present the most obvious and drastic change needed is the curtailment of the sovereignty of nations. Nations must be modified and their powers of independent action sharply delimited, both for the purpose of reducing the possibility of war and for purposes of permitting a free movement of goods and peoples from one part of the world to another. The pomp of nations that pretend to be sovereign, with their customs The Perennial Crisis 19 duties, tariffs, separate currencies, leads not only to conflict but to absurdities in a world that has been unified by science and communication. Yet the establishment of a federation of nations--of whatever membership or dimensions--can only come about as the by-product of wide democratic action. A republic of nations with each nation a member state under a new sovereignty could not be imposed by diplomacy, even if diplomats were willing. There is no escape, then, from the need of examining, before we do anything else, the neglected inferences of the democratic idea. If these inferences be observed, the conflict which rages throughout the globe will be seen in a new light and can be thought out in new terms. It will be recognized as a conflict over method and procedure, a contest between those in all countries who would order the world through some particular decree or policy and those (likewise in all countries) who would reshape the world through techniques of co-operative action which peoples originate and carry out. The question is whether we are to determine how our affairs are to be run--or simply be told what to do; whether we are to continue with old machinery that alienates and neglects us or fashion new social methods by which we can form a world society and manage it after it has been formed. This is the issue that lies underneath and rises above all others. The world as constituted by modern science requires an increasing measure of control, the control and restraint of man. The question that touches most of us is whether this control is to be reached and administered through genuinely democratic processes or through authoritarian procedures (often disguised as democratic). 20 The Perennial Crisis If we accept this issue, however we may choose to phrase it, then we can at once elude some of the tragic deceits and errors of traditional politics. If we fail to accept this issue, we shall find ourselves repeatedly lured and tricked into a whole series of lesser controversies masquerading as important problems. And the real problem, the only issue that makes an ounce of difference in our lives, will continue to be ignored, tucked away and kept from sight and consideration behind a display of showy issues that yield themselves to spectacular treatment. There are those, for example, who say that the real issue of our time is between Russia and the West. One cannot doubt that the issue is involved in the relations between Russia and countries with democratic forms and traditions. But the mistake is to let the conflict assume a purely national aspect, for it is vastly deeper. The contending forces, representing belief in thoroughly democratic procedure on one hand and belief in toplofty authority on the other hand, are at work as much within the American government in Washington and within the British government in Whitehall as they are between the governments of Russia and the West. To be sure, the ideas which may be properly regarded as democratic are identified with certain national units. The United States and the British Commonwealth, together with France and other smaller countries, constitute the democratic facade. Or possibly the democratic ramparts. These nations, as nations, are likely to defend the presuppositions of democracy if these presuppositions are threatened by force. But at present these nations do not appear to be willing to do more than stand up for the democratic tradition against military attack. The Perennial Crisis 21 For this defensive posture there are sound reasons. The benefits and blessings that arise from even a moderate democracy contrast gloriously with the deprivations and outrages of a totalitarian scheme. The guarantee of elementary rights in Western civilization is so sacred that a kind of maternal viciousness is stirred when another system arises to endanger those rights. It is to our credit that we are not indifferent to the loss of the little we now possess. But the hidden danger is that in our enthusiasm for preserving the form of Western democracy we may overlook its substance and thwart its spirit. We may become sidetracked from the main issue and absorbed in a substitute: the conflict between a relatively democratic system and a thoroughly totalitarian regime. This, of course, is where we stand now. Unless we can steadfastly hold to the real issue, preoccupation with the substitute issue (which bears resemblance to the real one) will prevail and it is bound to result sooner or later in a collision of sovereignties and be threshed out by the old procedures of war. If war comes it will make a hash of humanity, leave the world a wreck if it leaves it at all, and leave us precisely where we are now as far as the real issue is concerned. The basic conflict will not be resolved by war at all. It will remain there, grinning, after we destroy half the race. Millions will die for an irrelevancy. Obviously the question that troubles our day is not how to defend a nation or group of nations committed to the democratic experiment, but how to extend this experiment so that it will transform the world into something resembling a society. We must, above all, avoid the error of supposing that the de- 22 The Perennial Crisis mocracies are really democratic and that they have no moral obligation to prove their claims. They cannot prove these claims by war, nor yet by a rhetorical defense of our pattern of life as is. Our claims must be proved by demonstration, by the project method, by a serious acceptance of the implications of democracy. These implications must literally be taken up afresh and thought out imaginatively as if discovered for the first time. No one at present knows the military strength of Russia. The Russians are thrice armed, however, because they have an aggressive philosophy. On the other hand, tenets which are common to the democracies are loosely held. They may be stoutly defended from time to time for the benefits they convey but by and large they are treated without the slightest degree of social imagination or enthusiasm. This simply means that at best the democracies are thrown on the defensive and that the initiative in the world struggle--the intellectual as well as the military initiative--rests with Russia. Russia thus appears to be cast in the role of a conspicuous advocate of progress and the democracies in the supernumerary role of defenders of a miserable status quo. If we fail to take democracy seriously and if we persist in defending it only for its present benefits, Russia will be given by our feeble faith every advantage. Energy bestowed upon further preoccupation with Russia will be not merely misspent; it will be diverted from the urgent and crucial extension of democracy within the democracies. To escape the perennial crisis that confronts us--the tedious succession of apparently unrelated problems that rack our statesmen and daily increase our feeling of futility--we The Perennial Crisis 23 must find a method by which all of us can take a direct and active part in the management of society, whether it be in the home, the school, the nation or the world. A democracy released from its present conventions will offer that method. Hope does not lie in any plan or policy or scheme worked out under present leadership. Hope for the future lies in finding a process through which some plan or policy or scheme may actually be fashioned by the people concerned and put into operation with the assurance that it has the valid and declared support of those it affects. Democracy can provide that process. We are today continually up against the proposition that a plan or policy upon which the majority of citizens might agree is still not acted upon for the simple reason that all major decisions under the present system are left to politicians at the top who have no real way of knowing what the people wish. It is not a particular plan that we need but a means by which some agreed plan can be put into operation. Democracy is the means. Nothing short of a democratic enterprise moving proportions, taking its departure from the practises and institutions we now cherish, will suffice to set up the machinery by which the common run of us can control the society that now controls us. A world made somewhat safe for democracy must become democratic in fact. Chapter 2 The Fear of Democracy 24 * To understand the fear and distrust with which democracy is regarded even in countries where its principles are professed, we need only to note the changes in procedure which would follow a full participation of the people in the management of their affairs. In politics, for example, judgments of the national government would no longer be rendered by decree of the President, or by an announcement of policy by the Department of State, or even by an enactment of Congress. The judgments would be made only after voters had voiced their views on clearly stated issues, without reference to parties or candidates, and had instructed the legislative branch of the government to act upon their request. The change, in a word, would mean that moot questions which are now left to representatives or executives would be answered by the people themselves through the national referendum, which would be advisory, or the national plebiscite, which would be binding. The Fear of Democracy 25 Such matters as funds for European relief, our policy in Germany or Palestine, the control of atomic energy, the broad revision of immigration laws, or the decision to enter a world government or a republic of nations would not be decided until the mass of the people had been permitted to declare their views at the polls after a reasonable period of discussion. Every adult would enter personally into the sorrows and deliberations of government; and to the inalienable right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would he added the further and likewise inalienable right of the individual to have a voice in the issues that will decide his future. So much for the picture in bold strokes. If democracy found its way into the affairs of the local community, the results would be equally shattering to the prestige and conceits of those who now, with the best of intentions, consider themselves the engines of society. Problems having to do with the aims of education, the regulation of taxes and transportation rates, would not be decided until the voters had made a forthright declaration of their preferences. All manner of procedures might be, reversed in novel ways under the contagion of democracy. A city that faced mounting problems of traffic would not be content to leave the whole matter to a band of hired experts but would provide opportunities by which taxi-drivers, truck-drivers, and motorists could meet together in small groups to hash over the problem and make recommendations. The dangers of overstating and thus misrepresenting the case for democracy were noted by a number of those who read the original monograph. Following is one comment by Chester S. Williams: "I think that it is a distortion and an impractical thing 26 The Fear of Democracy to suggest that the citizen has a responsibility for the technical jobs of carrying out basic policy. He can have an intelligent opinion and a persuasive part with respect to TVA without knowing how to run TVA and without interfering with the technicians who are doing the job. For my part, I am convinced that representative government would break down if every detail is referred to the citizen. The problem is to organize participation in planning of basic policies, in grappling with problems before the technicians work out answers. To be practical, the citizen's time and energy must be concentrated on the issues that need consent and understanding. Once we get a Pure Food and Drugs Act, we have got to depend upon technicians to carry out the details and we only need to be concerned when someone points out that our purposes are being by-passed or mismanaged. I don't believe that you are asking for `pure democracy' in the sense of the old town meeting in which all of the citizens dealt with the details of the local bridge or the buying of a new pump." C.W.F.-Correct. Even a fully, democratic society would require administrators, chiefly to carry out the directives of the voters. The main need, as I see it, is for the people always to decide on broad courses of action. It would be, fatuous to assume that the business of the world or the country could be carried on by a series of mass meetings with the populace settling every detail. All the same, it is important that more and more "policy decisions," as the phrase has it, should be referred directly to the electorate. The emphasis should fall preponderantly upon the democratic approach, upon the provision for the citizenry to have a respected role in determining and deciding issues. It is hard at this stage to visualize ultimate democracy, and we recoil from it. Certainly one reason we don't have more democracy now is that persons in positions of minor power are afraid of it. It might spread from our political society to other phases of our life. The management of business firms, The Fear of Democracy 27 of universities, of manufacturing plants, of charitable institutions, of labor unions, indeed even of departments of government might begin to undergo decided and imaginative change. It is unlikely that an awakening of mass responsibility in our political society would leave untouched for long the toplofty executive and military procedures by which the most of our social life is today conducted. This realization accounts in part for our reluctance to accept even a moderate political democracy. So great are the long-term threats of democratic government as opposed to our present republican (i.e., representative and delegated) government that we will not take a profound step in the direction of democracy unless we are convinced that it is necessary to our survival. Part of the fear of democracy also springs from the philosophy of those who would let well enough alone, refusing to tamper with what has come down to us from the past. And a new nation is likely to be more hidebound and intractable than one with a long history. In an attempt to become established we have become thoroughly conservative and set in our ways. An Englishman once told me of seeing a sign on an American campus: "It is a tradition here not to walk on the grass. This tradition is effective at noon today!" A fierce and sentimental addiction to forms makes us shudder at change. It is much easier to say that the is system all right--only the people need to be improved. Basking in prosperity and enjoying all the accoutrements of power, we in the United States are prone to believe that the political devices which brought us thus far will see us through. Indeed, our 28 The Fear of Democracy belief goes deeper. We have developed a superstitious regard for our system. We believe that our inherited political forms, though essentially undemocratic save in their abstractions, are responsible for our present glory. We overlook the fact of unlimited resources, the fact that the British navy protected us in the crucial period of our development, the fact that no small part of our genius must be due to the infiltration here of many races out of many lands, and the unlimited opportunity we had for the expansion of our national holdings with only savages to deter us. Under the spell of national success, we spend a good deal of our time in the practice or admiration of political taxidermy. Institutions that were once alive have been stuffed and preserved out of deference, honored for the service they once performed rather than for their present usefulness. It is the likeness we admire. What would terrify us, if it were alive and functioning, is sleekly mounted on a pedestal and regarded with affectionate esteem all the greater because the object of our regard is safely dead. It is much simpler and easier to collect and caress the trophies of our democratic inheritance than it is to fashion up-to-date tools with which to work on our current problems. Consider the carcass of the political party. There is not a twitch of real life left in it, yet as a stuffed institution it has acquired such a measure of sanctity that to question its value makes one seem naive if not unsound. Most political theorists accept the party as basic merely because it has become a feature of the American tradition. Yet a moment's ingenuous thought will show that the political party as at present constituted is, seen in the startling light of post-atomic-needs, chiefly The Fear of Democracy 29 a catch-all of outworn hates and tired prejudices which are left to mould until an election brings them to life and ceremonial torture again. The procedure by which the party operates nationally is to find a candidate who can satisfy the most fantastic melange of unrelated elements within the party and at the same time bid for the votes of those outside the party. This person, once selected, is set upon the candidate chosen by the other party amid the huzzahs of his supporters. The two standard-bearers, as they are called, never meet, never call each other by name, never talk to each other, never even debate. They chase about the country in a frenzy of oratory, the parties all the while using them for the practice of political ventriloquism. Undergirding their efforts is a platform hastily put together by a few clairvoyant zombies at the national convention. That a platform should be written only after full discussion in all of the election districts and only on the basis of the declared and accumulated views of the people who comprise the party is a notion so far-fetched as to be sneered at by politicians. Those who set the pattern of political action still prefer mass hysteria to mass intelligence, pyrotechnics to commonsense. The function of a party is to win elections, whether that party be called Democratic or Labor, not to make vocal the silent thoughts of the people it presumes to represent. Here and there, of course, we encounter a man of conscience crying aloud within the party. Generally he is a bungling amateur who has taken up the game of politics out of a sense of civic duty and under the illusion that reform must be accomplished through existing institutions, hopeless though they are. His labors, as a rule, are stridently resented by the solid 30 The Fear of Democracy members of the party and, after a period of knocking and rattling, the machine lapses back into well-oiled decorum. At times the critic may be highly placed, a person of some standing, and difficult to ignore. If this happens to be the case, the party may depart from the dead norm of convention and, in defiance of catalogued routine, try out methods that are in key with the demands of a new day and a changed world. With few exceptions, however, politicians are not likely to perceive that democracy, whatever else it may or may not be, is a method. A good deal of the experimental and testing work that must proceed and accompany the democratization of society will have to be done in spite of those who now occupy positions of beloved authority. Under the present authoritarian system there are many of us who have status to preserve, prerogatives to protect, dignity to uphold, rights to guard, vestments of office to keep unspotted. We spend most of our energies, while claiming vaguely to be democratic, accepting and supporting practises that have nothing but usage or prejudice to recommend them. Obviously one obstacle to creative thinking in the field of democratic action is the fact that our ideas about democracy are frozen at the stage where we inherited them. And it is by no means certain that they can be thawed out under the intense pressure of present demands. In spite of the democratic manifesto which we proclaim to the world, the standard order of procedure in our time is from the top down. Even in the free institutions which the original impulse toward democracy bestowed upon us, we have slipped back more and more into despotism--genteel despotism, it is true, and generally regarded The Fear of Democracy 31 as democratic because it is good-natured and subject to periodic overthrow. A glance at the management of American education will serve to show how our ideas have been hardened by use. The whole system operates on executive lines and suffers only rarely the embarrassment of popular molestation. In this system the uncritical theory prevails that there exists a definite body of knowledge to be conveyed in a given length of time (broken up into fixed periods) by the honored process of schoolmarm instruction. The administration of public education is carried on by an elected--and sometimes, as in New York City, an appointed--board, presumed to be the custodians of exceptional wisdom until the tax rate gets too high or a scandal such as outraged Chicago stirs the public wrath. Any attempt to disturb the deadly routine of instruction is looked upon as sabotage. And the notion that the aims and functions of education should be determined in the local community by a close and continuous discussion among students, faculty, administration, and citizens is so visionary that it is not even seriously considered. The higher learning in America is a hopeless imitation of old-world scholasticism. Students and faculty and constituents have virtually no say in the actual workings of the college or university; and the college adds to the undemocratic character of secondary education one further evil, that of specialization, for specialists and scholars not only have no communication with their public but also none with each other. The point in referring to schools and colleges is simply to indicate that even the institutions most closely associated with our daily lives are untroubled by any deeply democratic