“The greatest defect in this romance of the bayou region of Louisiana is that it is somewhat overlong. Individual sentences and paragraphs are frequently overgrown with too rank a growth of adjectives.”
+ − N Y Times p20 D 5 ’20 500w
PETERSON, SAMUEL. Democracy and government. *$2 Knopf 321.8
20–104
According to the author’s initial assumption that “a government carries into effect ideas,” the book naturally falls into two parts: What persons should have the legal right to determine finally the ideas to be carried into effect; and in what manner the ideas to be carried into effect should be selected, and how they should be carried into effect. Accordingly part 1, The ruling power of the state, discusses the difference between autocracy, oligarchy and democracy as one of conditions rather than of law, and defines a democratic government as a government of the intelligent members of the ruling race. Part 2, The organization of the government, is an inquiry into how the ideas to be carried into effect may be selected as reliably and carried into effect as certainly and efficiently as possible. The contents under part 2 are: Governmental functions; Legislative organization; Administrative organization; Judicial organization; Direct legislation. There is an index.
Booklist 16:331 Jl ’20 + N Y P L Munic Ref Lib Notes 7:39 O 20 ’20 60w Outlook 126:558 N 24 ’20 180w R of Rs 61:560 My ’20 50w R of Rs 62:672 D ’20 30w
“A book which, while blazing no new paths, is well designed to assist the reader in forming a reasonably critical view of the state is Samuel Peterson’s ‘Democracy and government’ which treats fundamental political theories with knowledge of their historical importance, yet with hard-headed sociological insight. The author is always frank, and, while he has pronounced views of his own, he cannot be called a doctrinaire.”
+ Springf’d Republican p8 Ap 13 ’20 400w