Now let’s contrast Number 1 and Number 2. There are some large words there, but if we take it a piece at a time we shall at least see that there is a tremendous difference between the two shades of meaning.
In Number 1 politics means the fair and unprejudiced study of how a nation should be governed, but in Number 2 politics means How much can you get out of it regardless of the general welfare!
In Number 1 the object is the “peace, prosperity and safety of the state,” but in Number 2 the object is to “carry elections and secure public offices”—“party intrigues; political wire-pulling; trickery.”
It is Number 1 we are considering primarily. True, if our daily bread depends on politics, we are also interested in “how much we can get out of it,” but we mean by this how much we can get justly and honestly—our equal share along with everyone else. “Equal rights to all, special privileges to none.”
No, no! I’m not advocating the People’s Party principles just because I quote one of their watchwords. That motto is not theirs alone, but that of every honest citizen, no matter to what party he belongs. It is merely an expression of the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence. Whatever I may believe personally, it is no part of my business to plead the cause of any political party in our Department. We have nothing to do with parties. Our object is to consider how our nation is governed and how it should be governed—national, state, county, township and city governments, under whatever names these divisions may be called in different places.
We are primarily concerned with definition Number 1. We want to know how our nation should be governed. After that we will consider Number 2, and see how it is governed.
Now, considering the awful amount of writing and talking there is about politics, the infinite number of questions there are to decide, and the unending difference of opinion on these questions, we can see at the outset that we can’t decide it all in two numbers of our Department. Nor in a hundred. We are not going to try to. All we want is an intelligent idea of the general situation and of our duty in the matter.
What is government at bottom? In the beginning there was no government or organization of any kind, not even the family organization. Each man or woman lived his or her own life separate from all others. The first organization came about when a man and woman decided to live together and raise children. They soon found that when they had a child to take care of they could not go on independently of each other as they had before. They had two things to do—to care for the baby and keep it safe every minute from wild beasts and other people, and to secure food for themselves and their child. If they both went hunting for food there was no one to watch the baby; if they both watched the baby, there was no way of getting food. They saw that they had to have some arrangement. They had to divide the labor. So the woman tended the baby and the man went hunting for all three. Each of them gave up a little of the former independence and received a new thing in return—help from another person. Thus the “family” began. It was the first step towards society and government. They gave up part of their freedom in return for help from others.
People lived by hunting animals and gathering fruits and berries at first. If a man laid by any food for his family, another man was likely to take it away while he was away hunting. He found it pretty hard to have to do anything himself and he at odds with other men. Pretty soon it dawned on him that it would pay to make some “arrangement” with those other men. He wouldn’t rob them, if they didn’t rob him. Later he arranged with a few of them to keep their families close together so that some of the men could protect them while the other men hunted for all. In some such way began the “town.” Each of them gave up a part of his freedom in return for help from others.
When many towns had sprung up these towns began to see they could to advantage make “arrangements” among themselves (just as individual men had done) for protection and other purposes. Thus the “state” or country came into existence. Each town gave up part of its “independence” in return for help from other towns.