CHAPTER XI[ToC]
The Tools of Democracy
The tools of democracy are certain civil actions, certain inventions, certain habits. They can be used against us—but only if we fail to use them ourselves.
The greatest tools are civil liberties which we have been considering as "rights" or "privileges". The right to free speech is a great one; free speech probably was originally intended to protect property; it preserves liberty; the rights of assembly, of protest for redress, of a free press all have this double value, that they guarantee the integrity of the private man and protect the State.
The great debate on the war brought back some long forgotten phenomena: broadsides, street meetings, marches, and brawls. Before they began, virtually all the civil rights were being used either by newcomers to America or by enemies of the American system. The poor had no access to the radio; they used a soap box instead and genteel people shrank away; the Bundist and the American Communist assembled and protested and published and spoke; the believers in America waited for an election to roll around again, and then did nothing about it. The enemies of the people sent a hundred thousand telegrams to Congressmen, signing the names of dead men to kill the regulation of utilities, but the believer in the democratic process didn't remember the name of his Congressman. Bewildered aliens got their second papers and were inducted into political clubs; the old line Americans never found out how the primaries worked.
Public Addresses
A dangerous condition rose. No families from Beacon Street spoke in Boston Common; therefore, whoever spoke on the Common was an enemy of Beacon Street; all over America the well-born (and the well-heeled) retired from direct communication with the people, and all over America the privilege of talking to the citizens fell into the hands of radicals, lunatics, and dangerous enemies of the Republic—so that in time the very fact that one tried to exercise the right of free speech became suspect; and Beacon Street and Park Avenue could think of no way to protect themselves from Boston Common and Union Square—except to abolish free speech entirely. They did not dare to say it, but the remarkable Frank Hague, Mayor of Jersey City, said it for them: "Whenever I hear anyone talk about civil liberties, I know he's not a good American".