Popular misgovernment in the United States

POPULAR MISGOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES


BY ALFRED B. CRUIKSHANK
1920 MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY

PAST FAILURE AND FUTURE DANGERS OF UNLIMITED SUFFRAGE
Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God. —Washington
Great numbers of discerning Americans must by this time have been brought to realize that something practical must shortly be done in this country by the believers in private property and private property rights to safeguard the nation from its threatened invasion by Bolshevism, Socialism and other various forms of anti-individualism, or else we are in for a hard and possibly a bloody struggle to maintain the very fundamentals of our social and political systems. From time to time in this country as in every other there occur periods of extraordinary danger to the political structure. In the past we have had several such episodes, the most noted being that of the secession movement culminating in 1860 and 1861. The seriousness of the present menace of communism in its various forms is due not so much to the strength of the communist faction, considerable though it be, as to the weakness of our civic structure consequent upon the long continued and increasing general distrust and suspicion of our actual political agencies and the confirmed popular dissatisfaction with their operations. Meantime, nothing adequately effective either in the way of strengthening our institutions or of disarming opposition thereto is being done or has even been proposed. A lot of vigorous denunciation has been directed against native and foreign Bolshevism, all thoroughly deserved and not without effect on the public mind, but falling far short of positive acts of defense or protection. Bolshevism is in the field not merely as an abstract doctrine, to be answered with words, but as an active and aggressive force which must be met by measures of active resistance. Such measures to be effective must take the shape of the creation of practical means and methods of offense and defense. The case is not one which admits of trifling; the attack is fundamental, the danger is vital, and cannot be effectually met by superficial expedients.