The Soul of Democracy Part 5

If the primary purpose of democracy is thus, not immediate results in government, but the education of the citizen, on the other hand, democracy rests, for its safety and progress, on the ever better education of the citizen. Under the older forms of human society, laws may be pa.s.sed and executed that are far in advance of public opinion.

That cannot be done in a democracy. The law may be a slight step in advance, and so perhaps educate public opinion to its level; but if it goes beyond that step, after the first flurry of interest in the law is past, it remains a dead letter on the statute books--worse than useless, because cultivating that dangerous disrespect for all law, which we have seen growing upon us as a people.

Thus from either side, the problem of democracy is a problem of education. It rests upon education, its aim is education. In a democracy, the supreme function of the state is, not to establish a military system for defense, or a police system for protection, it is not the enforcement of public and private contract: it is to take the children and youth of each generation and develop them into men and women able to fulfill the responsibility and enjoy the opportunity of free citizenship in a free society.

XVI

MENACES OF DEMOCRACY

Since modern democracy is a new thing under the sun, so its menaces are new, or, if old, they take misleadingly new forms. For instance, the greatest danger in the path of our democracy is the world-old evil of selfishness, but it does take surprisingly new form. It is not aggressive selfishness that we have primarily to dread. There are those, it is true, who believe we may soon be endangered by the ambitions of some arrogant leader in the nation. The fear is unwarranted, for our people are still so devoted to the fundamental principles of democracy, that if any leader were to take one clear step toward over-riding the const.i.tution and making himself despot, that step would be his political death-blow. No, we are not yet endangered by the aggressive ambitions of those at the front, but we are in grave danger from the negative selfishness of indifference, shown in its worst form by just those people who imagine they are good because they are respectable, whereas they may be merely good--for nothing.

Plato argued that society could never have patriotism in full measure until the family was abolished. A singular notion that any school boy to-day can readily answer, yet here is the curious situation. Family life, among ourselves, in its better aspects, has reached a higher plane than ever before in any people. More marriages are made on the only decent basts of any marriage. This is the woman's land. Children have their rights and privileges, even to their physical, mental and moral detriment. It is here that men most willingly sacrifice for their families, slaving through the hot summer in the cities, to send wife and children to the seash.o.r.e or the mountains; yet it is just here that men most readily unhinge their consciences when they turn from private to public life.

Some cynic has said that there is not an American citizen who would not smuggle to please his wife. Of course the statement is not true, but if you have ever crossed the ocean on a transatlantic liner, and watched the devices to which ordinarily decent men--men who would be ashamed to steal your pocket handkerchief or to lie to you as an individual--will resort, in order to lie to the government or steal from the government, you begin to wonder if the cynic was not right. The law, obviously, may be unjust: if so, protest against it and seek to have it changed, but while it is the law, does it not deserve your respectful obedience, unless you would add to the dangerously growing disrespect for all law?

Next to the menace of selfishness is that of ignorance, and this, too, takes confusingly new form. It is not ignorance of scientific fact and law, dangerous as that is, that threatens, but ignorance of what our inst.i.tutions mean, of what they have cost, of the ideal for which we stand among the nations. The celerity with which, even during the past two decades, the younger generation has abandoned old standards and ideals, is an ominous ill.u.s.tration. It is true:

"New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient goods uncouth; 'They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth."

Those words of Lowell's are as fully applicable to the present crisis, as to that for which Lowell wrote them; but to give up the past, without knowing that you are letting go, is surely not the part of wisdom.

A third menace shows in that fickleness of temper and false standard of life that cause us to admire the wrong type of leader. Probably one half of all the attacks on men of unusual wealth and success come from other men, who would like to be in the same situation with those they attack, and have failed of their ambition. Part of the attack is sincere, no doubt, but if you a.s.sumed that all the abuse heaped upon conspicuous men came from moral conviction, you would utterly misread the situation.

On the other hand, men of moral excellence make us ashamed. Now it takes a rarely magnanimous spirit to be shamed and not resent it. We are apt to feel that, if we can pull another down, we raise ourselves.

To realize this, consider the growl of joy that comes from the worse sort of citizen and newspaper when some public leader is caught in a private scandal. As if pulling him down, raised us! We are all tarred with his disgrace. There are, indeed, two ways of stating the ideal of democracy: you can say, "I am just as good as any one else," which in the first place, is not true, and, in the second, would be unlovely of you to express, were it true. You can say, on the contrary, "Every other human being ought to have just as good a chance as I have," which is right; and yet you will hear the ideal of democracy phrased a dozen times the first way, where it is expressed once in the second form.

That democracies are fickle is one of the oldest criticisms upon them.

We had thought that we were not subject to that criticism, and in the old days we were not. We had the country debating club and the village lyceum. We were an agricultural people, sober and slow-moving. We had few books, they were good books and we read them many times. We had few newspapers, we knew the men who wrote in them, and when we read an editorial, our mind was actively challenged by the sincere thinking of another mind.

To-day, everywhere, we have moved into the cities. The strength of the country-side is sobriety and slow incubation of the forces of life. Its vice is stupidity. The strength of the city is keen wittedness, versatility, quick response. Its vice is fickleness, morbidity, exhaustion. We have our great blanket sheet newspapers, representing a party, a clique, a financial interest, with writers lending their brains out, for money, to write editorials for causes in which they do not believe. We have the mult.i.tude of books, incessantly and hastily produced; we read much, and scarcely think at all. We have got rid of the old "three decker" novel, reduced it to a single volume, and then taken out the climax of the story, publishing it in the corner of the daily newspaper, as the short story of the day, so that he who runs may read. If he is a wise man he will run as fast as he can and not read that stuff at all. We have our ever increasing "movies," with their incessant t.i.tillation of the mind with swift pa.s.sing impressions, as disintegrating to intellectual concentration, as they are injurious to the eyes. The result of it all is an increasing fickleness of temper, so that the same people who shout most loudly when the popular hero goes by, the next week cover his very name with vituperation and abuse, if he offends their slightest whim.

This evil breeds another: fickleness in the people means demagoguery in the leader, inevitably. We have said to our public men--not in words, but by the far more impressive language of our conduct--"get money, power, success, and we will give you more money, power and success, and not ask you how you got them nor what ends you serve in using them."

That so many have refused the bribe is to their credit, not ours; we have done what we could to corrupt them.

Finally, we are the most irreverent people in the world. We believe in youth, we scorn age. We have splendid enthusiasm, we do not know what wisdom means. One hears college presidents say--half jokingly, of course--that there is no use appointing a man over thirty to the faculty these days. So one hears Christian ministers, in those denominations where the minister is called by the particular church, say there is no use trying to get another call after one is fifty! Of course, it is not true, but it is true enough to be a serious criticism upon us. For what other vocation is there where the mellowness that comes only from time and long experience, from presiding at weddings and standing beside open graves, sharing the joys and sorrows of innumerable persons, is so indispensable, as in the pastor, the physician of the spirit? Still, we will turn out some wise, shy, mellow old man, just ripened to the point of being the true minister to the souls of others, and replace him with a recent graduate of a theological school, because the latter can talk the language of the higher criticism or whatever else happens to interest us for the moment. Obviously, we pay the price, but think what it indicates of our civilization.

XVII

THE DILEMMA OF DEMOCRACY

We have seen that the gravest menaces of democracy are the faults in mind and character in the mult.i.tude. Selfishness, fickleness, ignorance, irreverence in the people, with demagoguery in the leader-- these are the menaces of American democracy. How then can the people be trusted, since democracy depends upon trusting them? This is an old indictment, searching to the very heart of democracy. Plato made it of ancient Athens, while, more recently and trenchantly, Ibsen has made it for all modern society.

The argument runs thus: democracy means the rule of the majority. Well, there are more fools than wise men in the world, more ignorant than intelligent. Thus the rule of the majority must mean the rule of the fools over the wise men, of the ignorant over the intelligent. Such is the significant indictment, and we are compelled to admit that our political life is filled with ill.u.s.trations that would seem to substantiate it. The ward bosses, the demagogues and grafters who are given power by the mult.i.tude, one campaign after another, would seem to justify the pessimism of Plato and Ibsen.

Is there not, however, a subtle fallacy in the very phrasing of the indictment? The majority does not "rule": it elects representatives who guide. That is something entirely different. When the worst is said of them those representatives of the people are distinctly above the average of the majorities electing them. Take the roll of our presidents, for instance. With all the corruption and vulgarity of our national politics, that list, from Washington, through such alt.i.tudes as Jefferson and Lincoln, to the present occupant of the White House, is superior to any roster of kings or emperors in the history of mankind.

What does this mean? It means that _the hope of democracy is the instinctive power in the breast of common humanity to recognize the highest when it appears_. Were this not true, democracy would be the most hopeless of mistakes, and the sooner we abandoned it, with its vulgarity and waste, the better it would be for us. The instinctive power is there, however: to recognize, not to live, the highest.

How many have followed the example of Socrates, remaining in prison and accepting the hemlock poison for the sake of truth? Yet all who know of him thrill to his sacrifice. Of all who have borne the name, Christian, how many have followed consistently the footsteps of Jesus and obeyed literally and unvaryingly the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount? Of the millions, perhaps ten or twenty individuals--to be generous in our view; but _all the world recognizes him_.

Here, then, is the hope that takes the sting from the indictment of Plato, Ibsen and how many other critics of democracy. Plato said, "Until philosophers are kings, . . . cities will never have rest from their evils,--no, nor the human race, as I believe." Once, perhaps once only, Plato's dream was realized: in that n.o.blest of philosopher emperors, wholly dedicated to the welfare of the world he ruled with autocratic power; yet the soul of Marcus Aurelius was burdened with an impossible task. It is one of the tragic ironies of history that, in this one realization of Plato's lofty dream, the n.o.ble emperor could postpone, he could not avert, the colossal doom that threatened the world he ruled. So he wrapped his Roman cloak about him and lay down to sleep, with stoic consciousness that he had done his part in the place where Zeus had put him, but relieved that he might not see the disaster he knew must swiftly come.

How different our dream: it is no illusion of a happy accident of philosopher kings. We want no arbitrary monarchs, wise or brutal: from the n.o.blest of emperors to the butcher of Berlin, we would sweep them all aside, to the ash-heap of outworn tools. Our dream is the awakening and education of the mult.i.tude, so that the majority will be able and glad to choose, as its guides, leaders and representatives, the n.o.blest and best. When that day comes, there will be, for the first time in the history of mankind, the dawn of a true _aristocracy_ or rule of the best; and it will come through the fulfillment of democracy. A long and troubled path, with many faults and evils meantime? Yes, but not so hopelessly long, when one considers the ages of slow struggle up the mountain and the swiftly multiplying power of education over the mind of all.

XVIII

PATERNALISM VERSUS DEMOCRACY

The contrast between paternalism and democracy in aim and method is thus extreme. Paternalism seeks directly organization, order, production and efficiency, incidentally and occasionally the welfare of the subject population. Democracy seeks directly the highest development of all men and women, their freedom, happiness and culture, in the end it hopes this will give social order, good government and productive power. It is willing, meantime, to sacrifice some measure of order for freedom, of good government for individual initiative, of efficiency for life.

Paternalism seeks to achieve its aims, quickly and effectively, through the boss's whip of social control. Democracy works by the slower, but more permanently hopeful path of education, never sacrificing life to material ends. Paternalism ends in a social hierarchy, materially prosperous, but caste-ridden and without soul. Democracy ends in the abolishment of castes, equality of opportunity, with the freest individual initiative and finest flowering of the personal spirit. Which shall it be: G.o.d or Mammon, Men or Machines?

There is no doubt that efficiency can be achieved most quickly under a well-wielded boss's whip, but at the sacrifice of initiative and invention. Moreover, remove the whip, and the efficiency quickly goes to pieces. On the other hand, the efficiency achieved by voluntary effort and free cooperation comes much more slowly, but it lasts. Moreover, it develops, hand in hand, with initiative and invention.

The negro, doubtless, has never been so generally efficient as before the civil war, in the South, under the overseer's whip; yet every negro who, to-day, has character enough to save up and buy a mule and an acre of ground, tills it with a consistent and permanent effectiveness of which slave labor is never capable. In the one case, moreover, there is the average economic result, in the other, the gradual development of manhood.

Organize a factory on the feudal lines so prevalent in current industry.

Get a strong, dominating superintendent and give him autocratic authority. Quickly he will show results. Always, however, there is the danger of strikes, and if the strong hand falters, the organization disintegrates. On the other hand, let a corporation take its artisans into its confidence, give each a small proportionate share in the annual earnings. Each worker will feel increasingly that the business is his business. He will take pride in his accomplishment. Gradually he will attain efficiency, and work permanently, without oversight, with a consistent earnestness no boss's whip ever attained,

The experience of the National Cash Register Company at Dayton, Ohio, proves this. The experiments of Henry Ford are a step toward the same solution. So, in lesser measure, is the plan of the Steel trust to permit and encourage its employees to purchase annually its stock, somewhat below the current market price, giving a substantial bonus if the stock is held over ten years.

If you wish an ill.u.s.tration on a larger scale, consider the ma.s.s formation tactics of the German soldiers, in contrast to the individual courage, initiative and action of the French. There are the two types of efficiency in sheerest contrast, but beyond is always the question of their effect on manhood. France has saved and regenerated her soul; but Germany--?

Further, the breakdown of paternalistically achieved efficiency has been evident in Germany's utter failure to understand the mind of other peoples, particularly of democracies. She had voluminous data, gathered by the most atrociously efficient spy system ever developed, yet she utterly misread the mind of France, England and the United States. The same break-down is evident in Germany's failure in colonization in contrast to England's success.

For offensive war, it must be admitted, the efficiency under the boss's whip will go further. For defensive war, or war for high moral aims, it is desirable that the individual soldier should think for himself, respond to the high appeal. Thus for such warfare the efficiency of voluntary effort and cooperation is superior. An autocracy would better rule its soldiers by a military caste; there can be no excuse for such in a democracy. Thus, the utmost possible fraternization of officers and men is desirable, and social sn.o.bbery, the snubbing of officers who come up from the ranks, and other anachronistic survivals, should be stamped out, as utterly foreign to what should be the spirit of the military arm of democracy.

Further, in estimating the two types, one must remember that paternalism may exercise its power in secret and that it accomplishes much in the dark. Democracy, on the other hand, is afflicted and blessed with pitiless publicity. Thus its evils are all exposed, it washes all its dirty linen in public; but the main thing is to get it clean.

When it comes to invention and initiative, as already indicated, democracy has the advantage, immediately, as in the long run. We are the most inventive people on earth, and that quality is a direct result of our democratic individualism. It is a significant fact that most of the startling inventions used in this War were made in America--but _developed and applied in Germany._ There, again, are evident the contrasting results of the two types of social organization. The indefatigably industrious and docile German mind can work out and apply the inventions furnished it, with marvelous persistency and effectiveness, under paternal control. We have the problem of achieving by voluntary effort and cooperation a persistent thoroughness in working out the ideas and inventions that come to us in such abundant measure.

The path of democracy is education.

XIX

THE SOLUTION FOR DEMOCRACY