The Ghost in the White House / Some suggestions as to how a hundred million people (who are supposed in a vague, helpless way to haunt the white house) can make themselves felt with a president, how they can back him up, express themselves to him, be expressed by him, and get what they want

by Gerald Stanley Lee

The other nations want to know that America has a technique for getting its way with itself.

The nation that has the most self-control will be the nation that as a matter of course and of common safety will be asked in the crisis, by the other nations, to take the lead in controlling order, in controlling or insuring the self-control of others.

The other nations want to know—if they are going to let us have our way with them—put over what we like to call our superior democratic open way upon them, that we have a vision—a vision of human nature and of modern life which is better, clearer, more practical and timely than their vision.

The other nations want to know,—if we are to have our way, that we not only have a vision of what our way is—a national vision, but a technique for expressing and embodying that national vision. To deserve our way with them they must know we have a vision which can be proved, which is historic—the facts of which—specifications, dates, names and places, can be placed in their hands.

The other nations if they are going to let us have our way with them, will want to know by observation that America has not only a vision and a technique for embodying a vision, but that when her vision proves to be wrong (as during the war) America has a technique for being born again.

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II

THE VISION AND THE BODY

I have dwelt already on what a body for the people would be like and how it would work.

I would now like to touch on two facts—the fact that there is a particular and desperate need of a vision for the soul of the American people at this time, and the fact that the body to express the vision grows logically out of what already is and that this body is going to be had.