The Soul of Democracy / The Philosophy of the World War in Relation to Human Liberty

by Edward Howard Griggs

XIV

THE TRANSFORMATION OF DEMOCRACY

The nineteenth century was the period of rapid growth in adhesion to those ideals of democracy for which the War is being fought. It is not so well recognized that during the same hundred years democracy was so transformed as to be to-day a new thing under the sun.

Up to the time of the French and American revolutions democracy rested largely upon certain abstract ideas of human nature. Rousseau could argue that in primitive times men sat down together to form a state, each giving up a part of his natural right to a central authority, and thus justifying it. We now know that nothing of the kind ever happened, that society had undergone a long process of development before men began to think about it at all. We continue to repeat the splendid at all. I refer, of course, to the women of antiquity. Where respectable, these were the head of the household slaves, scarcely removed from the condition of the latter. The few women who did achieve freedom of thought and action, and became the companions of cultivated men—the Aspasias of antiquity—bought their freedom at a sad price.

So Rome is called a republic, and it is true that, during the first half of her long history, freedom gradually broadened down from the patrician class to the plebeian multitude. When Rome reached out, however, to the mastery of the most impressive empire the world has seen, she never dreamed of extending that freedom to the conquered populations. If she did grant Roman citizenship to an occasional community, to enjoy the rights and exercise the privileges of that citizenship, it was necessary to journey to Rome. It was the city and the world: the city ruling the world as subject.

The same principle holds with the republics developing at the close of the middle age, in Italy, in the towns of the Hanseatic League and elsewhere. Always the freedom achieved was for a city, a group or a class, never for all the people. Our dream, on the contrary, is to take all the men and women in the land, ultimately in the world, and help them, through the free and cooperative activity of each with all the rest, on toward life, liberty, happiness, intelligence—all the ends of life that are worth while. If we demand life for ourselves, we ask it only in harmony with the best life for all. We want no special privilege, no benefit apart, bought at the price of the best welfare of humanity. "We," unfortunately, does not yet mean all of us, but it does signify an increasing multitude, rallying to this that is the standard of to-morrow.

A third transformation, at least equally important with these, is in the invention, for it is no less, of representative government. Political thinkers, such as John Fiske, have tried to make us understand what this invention means: we do not yet realize it. The development of representative government is the cause, first of all, of the tremendous expansion of the area over which we apply democracy. Plato, in the Laws, limits the size of the ideal state—the one realizable in this world—to 5040 citizens. Why? Well, the exact number has a certain mystical significance, but the main reason is, Plato could not imagine a much larger body of citizens than 5000 meeting together in public assembly and fulfilling the functions of citizenship.

We have extended democracy over a hundred millions of population, dwelling on the larger part of a continent; and if one travels North, South, East, West, to-day, one is impressed that, in spite of unassimilated elements, everywhere men and women are proud, first of all, of being American citizens, and only in subordinate ways devoted to the section or community to which they belong. This has been made possible by the invention and development of representative government.

That is not all: it is representative government that takes the sting out of all the older criticisms of democracy. Plato devotes one of the saddest portions of his Republic to showing how in a brief time, democracy must inevitably fall and be replaced by tyranny. With the democracy Plato knew this was true. It was impossible for Athens to protect and make permanent her constitution. She might pass a law declaring the penalty of death on any one proposing a change in the constitution. It did no good. Let some demagogue arise, sure of the suffrage of a majority of the citizens: he could call them into public assembly, cause a repeal of the law, and make any change in the constitution he desired. There was no way to prevent it.

It is the invention and development of representative government that has changed all that. We chafe under the slow-moving character of our democracy—over the time it takes to get laws enacted and the longer time to get them executed. We may well be patient: this slow-moving character of democracy is the other side of its greatest safe-guard. It is because we cannot immediately express in action the popular will and opinion, but must think two, three, many times, working through chosen and responsible representatives of the people, that our democracy is not subject to the perils and criticisms of those of antiquity.

The voice of the people in the day and hour, under the impulse of sudden caprice or passion, is anything but the voice of God: it is much more apt to be the voice of all the powers of darkness. It is common thought, sifted through uncommon thought, that approaches as near the voice of God as we can hope to get in this world. It is not the surface whim of public opinion, it is its greatest common denominator that approximates the truth.

It behooves us to remember this at a time when changes are coming with such swiftness. Our life has developed so rapidly that the old political forms proved inadequate to the solution of the new problems. As a practical people, we therefore quickly adopted or invented new forms. Doubtless this is, in the main, right, but we should understand clearly what we are doing.

For instance, one of the great changes, recently inaugurated, is the election of national senators by popular vote. Our forefathers planned that the national upper house should represent a double sifting of popular opinion. We elected state legislatures; they, in turn, chose the national senators: thus these were twice removed from the popular will. It proved easy to corrupt state legislatures; the national senate came to represent too much the moneyed interests; and so, through an amendment to the constitution, we changed the process, and now elect our senators by direct vote of the people. This makes them more immediately representative of the popular will, and perhaps the change was wise; but we should recognize that we have removed one more safe-guard of democracy.

A story, told for a generation, and fixed upon various British statesmen, will illustrate my meaning. The last repetition attributed it to John Burns. On one occasion, while he was a member of Parliament, it is said he was at a tea-party in the West End of London. The hostess, pouring his cup of tea, anxious to make talk and show her deep interest in politics, said, "Mr. Burns, what is the use of the house of Lords anyway?" The statesman, without replying, poured his tea from the cup into the saucer. The hostess, surprised at the breach of etiquette, waited, and then said, "but Mr. Burns, you didn't answer my question." He pointed to the tea, cooling in the saucer: that was the function, to cool the tea of legislation. That was the function intended for our national senate. The trouble was, the tea of legislation often became so stone cold in the process that it was fit only for the political slop-pail, and that was not what we wanted. So we have changed it all, but one more safe-guard of democracy is gone.

So with other reforms, loudly acclaimed, as the initiative and referendum. With the new problems and complications of an extraordinarily developed life, it is doubtless wise that the people should be able to initiate legislation and should have the final word as to what legislation shall stand. On the other hand, if we are not to suffer under a mass of hasty and ill-considered legislation, if laws are to stand, they must always be formulated by a body of trained legislators, and not by the changing whim of popular opinion.

So with the recall, now so widely demanded in many sections of the country. In the old days, our candidates were most obsequious and profuse in promises to their constituents before election; but once elected, only too often they turned their backs on their constituents, went merrily their own way, making deals and bargains, in the spirit that "to the victor belong the spoils." Therefore we justly demanded some control of them, after, as before, election: hence the recall. Again the movement is right; but if the fundamentals of democracy are to be permanent, that body of men, concerned with the interpretation of the constitution and the fundamental law of the land, must not be subject to the immediate whim of mob mind, and the power to recall those judges occupied with this task would be a graver danger than advantage. They will make mistakes, at times they will be ultra conservative and servants of special interests, but that is one of the incidental prices we have to pay for the permanence of free institutions. The problem is to keep the basic principles of democracy unchanged, the forms on the surface as fluid and adjustable as possible.

It is these three transformations—the abandonment of the old abstract notions and the testing of democracy by its results, the expansion of its application over the entire population, and the invention and development of representative government—it is these three changes that make our democracy a new order of society, new in its problems, its menaces, its solutions.