Cte-lanJ j •Snvv\o&l Awen oa v̂ ĉi®*' • A l ) L 6"> Those who do not like our form of government—those who have ulterior motives to serve-therefore point to the bad legislation which the nation has had as proof of the fact that Democracy has failed. Usually our State legislators do not receive a sufficient amount of compensation to attract men of integrity and ability. We send to our legislative halls inexperienced men, who know nothing of economics and many of whom do not even understand the fundamentals of our' government. I would hazard the guess that ninety-eight per cent of the men who go to the legislative chambers in any State have never read the Constitution of the United States of America; I would hazard the guess that not five per cent of the men in the legislative halls today could recite the preamble to the Declaration of Independence; I would hazard the guess that not five per cent of the men in legislative halls today could define or state the purposes of government as they are outlined in the preamble to the Constitution of the United States. With all of the pressure that is exerted by the interests of one character or another with their lobbies, the strange part of our legis- lative procedure is that we do not get more bad legislation than we do. Taking into consideration the timber which we send to legislative halls to represent us, it must be admitted that in the past we have muddled through" reasonably well. C. DAILY PRESS The third outstanding weak spot in our Democracy and in our form of government, and by that I mean in its practical application, is the daily press of the United States of America. When the country was young and was being developed, and before we had developed a great capitalistic system in the nation, one man with a little capital, some genius, the power of independent thought, and some original ideas, could start a newspaper and convey his ideas to his readers. As time passed and our economic institutions developed into great capitalistic enterprises, operated by remote control through corporate ownership, our daily press drifted into political channels until it has become one of the large capitalistic ventures in America, requiring great capital with millions of dollars to operate. Consolidations, the purchase of corporate stock, has placed the control of the press in the hands of a very few men who dictate the policies of the press, who determine what news the people may or may not have, with the result that the nation is flooded day by day with DEMOCRACY—WEAK SPOTS 29 millions of tons of paper purporting to carry with it day by day the facts pertaining to the development of new institutions and social changes as they occur. These great newspapers by and large may be operated by men— and usually are—whose only genius in the newspaper field consists in knowing what kind of crime, what kind of divorce scandal, and the brand of feminine legs, that appeal to the sensibilities of the less educated in America. Their only power consists in a knowledge of the character of propaganda that can conquer the minds of a great people for the purpose of influencing their judgment, not by independent thought, but by prejudice. Certainly the American press has misconceived its responsibility to the American people, and the grave responsibility which it holds to- ward the perpetuation and the preservation of our democratic form of government. Many big publishers seem to have overlooked the fact that it is theirs to cultivate an appreciation of beauty, of art, and above all things to cultivate in a people, whose government comes directly from them, the faculty of independent thinking based upon positive fact. They do not seem to appreciate that in the last analysis Democratic institutions are theirs to develop in strength and beauty or to blight and destroy. Nothing can develop a Democratic Institution into its true fullness of beauty and service as readily as the development of independent thinking on the part of a great people. Many newspapers published today in America are subservient to the personal vanity of the capitalists who control the policies of the paper. One publisher can poison the minds of the whole people by mendacious stories, by half truths, by falsehoods, or even by the sup- pression of facts behind the news. It seems to me that the outstanding example of personal vanity in the newspaper field is the vanity of Mr. Hearst. He owns a large chain of newspapers, some of which I have read for years, and the striking and outstanding feature of his newspapers is the fact that the owner and publisher is the center from which its news radiates. I know of no publisher today who is so much in his own newspapers as is Mr. Hearst. I think the readers of his paper who do independent thinking for themselves must be convinced now of his own fickleness as shown by the rapidity of his change of front on major public questions. Great publishers do not seem to recognize the fact that they occupy the position of a despot without responsibility to anyone for the exercise of authority. That theirs is liberty without responsibility so long as they remain within the limitations of the law of libel. Theirs is a unique dictatorship planted in the middle of free in- 30 AMERICA UNDER THREE FLAGS stitutions which they may cultivate and build, or insidiously pervert and destroy. Those great newspapers either consciously or unconsciously have usurped the power of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government without any regard to our free institutions or the people at large. This is an awful responsibility which they have assumed. Until the radio was developed, what opportunity, I ask, did the American people have to obtain any basic facts if the great publishers controlled by the capitalistic class in America decided that these facts did not fit into their scheme of things, and would result in reactions detrimental to the propagation, cultivation, and building, of their own selfish institutions and the realization of their own personal selfish ambitions. If the daily press were not so stupid as to place its own selfish interests ahead of our governmental institutions, of our democratic institutions, of the building of a great social and economic nation; it could by the direction of an hohest and intelligent press and the dissemination of honest and intelligent facts and the cultivation of independent thought on the part of our people, require this great government of ours from its highest to its lowest unit to function more efficiently, much more cheaply, and build the confidence on the part of the people in governmental institutions which would be unwav- ering, and not subject to challenge by any ism which might raise its head in America. In addition to the vanities of the publishers themselves, the Ameri- can people are confronted with the vanities of the large advertisers, who in no small degree direct the policies of the public press. It must be remembered that the larger the advertiser the more capital there is standing in the background, the more incentive there is to exploit the common mass of minkind, in order that profits may be bigger, and the power of money may be greater. Unfortunately, sel- fishness forms no small part of the determined policies of the public press in America. XIII. THE APPROACH TO THE CURE As we observe and think about the deficiencies in our Democratic institutions, we naturally give some thought to how those deficiencies might be corrected. Perhaps there are two attitudes of approach to the problem, the Liberal approach, and the Communistic, Fascist ap- proach. A. THE LIBERAL APPROACH Those who believe in the Liberal approach to the corrective, desire to heal and to cure our free Democratic institutions from their present illness. That these institutions are sick, and have been sick for a number of years, goes without saying. That the illness has been pro- gressive in character since the World War everyone recognizes. THE APPROACH TO THE CURE 31 Many good people in America have been looking and thinking of ways and means whereby these institutions may be made more sincere and efficient through free discussion and cooperation. I have an abiding faith in the good common sense of the American people. I have not the slightest doubt that if the American people are given the facts from which to reason, they can work out their own problems through our representative form of government; through our own democratic institutions, and can arrive at their goal in the vehicle of free discussion and cooperation on the part of the people. Free discussion is the very ambit of Democracy, and co-opera- tion is the force by which Democratic institutions must be made effec- tive. If an intelligent and enlightened people were permitted by the dissemination of the truth, to create the habit of independent thought on the part of the rank and file of the public, there would be a positive and absolute refusal on their part to surrender the right to one man to operate their governmental agencies as he saw fit, or to surrender their right to one party to work its will through its political machina- tions upon a people on the theory that they were deaf mutes and slaves. Se/f-assertiveness would become prevalent and party responsibility would become keen. Political machines, as machine politics, would lose much of their effectiveness and force, and there would be developed on the part of the Party the power of consciousness, or responsibility, if after the election officials ceased to be Democrats or Republicans, but rather representatives of all the people. B. COMMUNIST, FASCIST APPROACH The Communist and Fascist approach to the cure of the deficiencies in democracies is substantially the same. They capitalize grievances which people endure under the existing order, whether the order itself be responsible or not. They point to poverty and say Democratic institutions have failed. They point to bank failures, and say to the man who lost his money "See what your form of government permitted the bankers to do to you?" They say to the farmer who lost his farm by mortgage foreclosure or tax sale: "If you had a Fascist or Com- munistic form of government this could not happen to you. Your government has failed you else you would not have been pauperized." I think sometimes we fail to recognize how effective this approach is when distress is so prevalent as it has been since 1929. I sometimes think we fail to recognize the fact that Fascism and Communism have obtained a foothold in a large group of our people, which can be uprooted only by education accompanied by co- operative intelligent action. We must remember that corrective measures lie primarily in free- dom of the people. Free discussion without limitation or hindrance. Discussion is not free if it leads to a concentration camp; discussion cannot be free if it leads to jail. 32 AMERICA UNDER THREE FLAGS The most absolute tyrant who ever lived in any age always con- tended that he was ruling in behalf of a majority of the people; that he was doing the things that a majority of the people wanted done; that he was doing the things which would redound to the good of the majority of the people, and he was able to rule on that basis because the majority of the people did not dare express ideas or thoughts contrary to the policies of the tyrant. Under these rulers tyranny went on and on and on until finally it was exploded in bloody revolu- tion. It must be remembered that Democracy gives the people not only the right to elect their rulers, but the right to criticise freely and without fear. Criticism, however, to be intelligent and constructive in its character must emanate from the minds and hearts of those who are in possession of the positive facts from which they may reason and draw sound conclusions. Wider powers conferred upon an executive in an emergency are not necessarily a dictatorship. A democracy which confers these wider powers, but at the same time reserves the right to recall them at will, is still a Democracy. There is a difference between economic liberty and political liberty. There is a wide difference between economic regulation and control, and the control and regulation of political liberty. In a democracy and under democratic institutions there may be a demand on the part of the people from whom the government emanates, and by whom it was created and who have the right of control for more regulation of our economic life in order that there may be pro- duced by that regulation a more integral nation. In securing that regulation our democratic institutions may confer upon any branch, either the legislative or the executive branch of government, the power of that regulation and control. With the growing complexity of our growing economic and social institutions, the development of technocracy and the actuating influ- ences of selfishness, greed and avarice on the part of those who con- trol the nation's wealth, we have passed the point in America where our Democracy can survive with our economic institutions unregulated, uncontrolled, and unrestrained to pursue profits, regardless of conse- quences, to the great mass of people. This proposition, however, is accompanied by a necessary corollary, that the more regulation our democratic institutions impose in our economic life, and the more power we confer upon any particular branch of our government under a Democracy, makes it the more necessary that we keep alive our free institutions and our political liberty. On account of the fallibility of those upon whom we confer powers, our development in this age must be largely by the trial and error method, and we dare not confer any department of government the power of absolutism under a state of lethargy, where not only we may CITIZENSHIP 33 have surrendered our economic liberty, but with it may lose our political liberty. When we lose our political liberty, free institutions are washed out. When we lose our political liberty, the right to free speech is gone. When we lose our political liberty, the right to worship as we believe may be denied. In other words, when we lose our political liberty, all of our rights guaranteed to us under the Bill of Rights in our Constitution may be taken away from us. Therefore, we may with perfect safety delegate to any branch of our government the power to regulate our economic liberty so long as we keep alive, preserve and maintain our free institutions, our political institutions, the right to think, the right to criticise, and are given true facts from which to reason out our own problems. XIV. CITIZENSHIP. The solution of all these problems lies in an intelligent and respon- sible citizenship. A full appreciation of the privileges of citizenship and a recogni- tion of the responsibilities which accompany it will enable us to approach these problems from the point of view of reason and intelli- gent action. Our citizenship has been so commonplace with us that we have not been inclined to attach to it very much importance. During our entire lives we have lived under its beneficent in- fluence; it has always been one of the elements of our daily life, and has become so much a part of us that we have not regarded it as a very significant attribute of our daily happiness and welfare. • I believe that due to the distress, the new theories of government which have been germinating, lawlessness, which has grown to propor- tions where our social structure is being threatened, people generally have begun to think more seriously of their citizenship than they have in years past. The germ of American citizenship was planted in the Declaration of Independence, and has developed in a century and a half of national life under the Constitution of the United States. The purpose of the founders was to create a government, which would elevate man to a position which his Creator intended he should occupy, in order that he might develop a life and a personality under the teachings as they are found in the Decalogue. They intended that the subjects of this nation might occupy not only the status of free men, but likewise that of sovereign citizens. They recognized the fact that the race and civilization itself does not stand still; that it either progresses or retrogresses; that man either grows or decays, and that governments being comprised of the same composite group follow the same cycle. If there has been any failure on the part of our government, and we must admit that during the past few years it has failed, the fault 34 AMERICA UNDER THREE FLAGS was not with the founders nor the system created, but is the result of our own shortcomings and the failure on our part to assume and discharge our responsibilities of citizenship. They formed for us a government recognizing that the rights which they intended to protect were inherent in human nature, and a part of man. They created a form of government which, when the responsi- bilities of citizenship were fully discharged, will enable man to enjoy those rights. The whole theory of our citizenship is based upon self-control, self-constraint, and a sense of mutual obligation whereby we grant to other citizens the same privilege of exercising the rights and privileges which we claim to exercise of our own right. The right to the pursuit of happiness recognizes the right of the individual citizen to work out his own destiny. Perhaps his opportunity has been curtailed, but the knowledge that the right exists is burned deeply into his heart and mind. What we demand now is a restoration of the opportunity. The demand grows more insistent as time passes. If there could be burned into the consciousness of our people the responsibility of citizenship as deeply as has been burned the feeling of their personal rights, then the exercise of our personal rights would automatically follow. The nation was originally conceived with the idea that its de- velopment should be under the theory of individual effort accompanied by punishment and reward as merited by the effort. When the nation was young this spirit of individualism worked without serious difficulty, but with the complexity of our institutions as I have already pointed out, we have diverted our course to a sufficient degree that a large group of people can no longer enjoy the rights which they know to be theirs. We must therefore obtain a new consciousness of citizenship to the degree that we are willing by cooperative effort and mutuality of obligation to work out our destiny. If this obligation will not be voluntarily imposed, then there is no alternative left excepting the interposition of the State and the imposition of that responsibility by force of law and government fiat. For every right guaranteed to us as citizens there is a correspond- ing duty. The rights of citizenship import responsibility. Neglect your responsibility, and the exercise of your rights is likewise weakened. If we maintain a conscientious sense of responsibility and duty, our right of citizenship will stand firm and the nation will grow in strength and beauty. Ours is a government of laws, and not of men. Laws enacted by the duly chosen representatives of the people through the exercise of the right of franchise under political liberty. This is the most sacred right possessed by our citizenship. CITIZENSHIP 35 That it is carelessly used and too little appreciated does not destroy the postulate that it is the very essence of human liberty, because in it we find the germ of political liberty. Too long in this country have we followed the principle that party loyalty and regularity mean more than honesty and integrity, that party emblems have become more important than issues, and that slogans and catch-phrases are more potent than fact and reason. Machine politics have entered the picture, and set up a vicious cycle and created for us an invisible government. This invisible gov- ernment is operated by those who are more interested in perpetuating themselves in power than they are in the welfare of a great people; by those, who are more interested in patronage than they are in under- lying principles of government. People hang their heads in shame at the thought of the John Dil- ingers and their kind; mad dogs of society who kill, pillage and rob; who rebel against organized society; who seek to live at the expense of others without honest or legitimate effort. We call them public enemies. We point to them as positive menaces to society. Yet while we do this, we see day after day the black hand of machine politics, pillaging society, plundering our citizenship, and destroying the economic security of a whole people. One method is no better than the other even though a little more gentle in its application. Both violate every right of citizenship. Both neglect every responsibility attendant upon citizenship. The black hand of machine politics has devised a thousand ways of robbing the public. It has become the greatest of all American rackets. I t is the public enemy No. 1, because it strikes at the very fundamentals of American citizenship; because it has become the instrumentality of exploitation and graf t ; and it is not an attribute of any specific party, but has entrenched itself in the party organization of both major political parties. We may concern ourselves about the Isms, but while we are doing it we should remember that if they succeed in their continued ascen- dency in America, they must climb the ladder of our own stupidity and pathetic apathy toward the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. The responsibilities of citizenship are deep-seated, and at the present time grave. As you enter New York harbor you may look upon the Goddess of Liberty holding high in her hand a torch, emblem- atic of the liberty which a great nation is supposed to hold. Today America holds the torch of liberty for all the world. If that torch should perchance fall, the entire world and its civilization may be plundered into an era of darkness and despair, which will destroy the happiness and contentment of men everywhere, and set back the progress of civilization for a century. I have faith enough in America and in her people to believe that her latent consciousness will be aroused sufficiently soon to erase from 36 AMERICA UNDER THREE FLAGS our history the evils of machine politics with its accompanying plunder, graf t , dishonesty, and special privilege, and again restore those fun- damental deals of our fundamental government, and to require their application to the practical affairs of life. The vehicle by which this awakening must come is free speech, untrammeled debate, serious reflection, and an honest public press. The first responsibility of citizenship is a full and complete under- standing of our institutions, and of our government. This means not only a loyal citizen, but an intelligent one as well. A negative sense of responsibility will no longer answer the purpose. We must have a positive sense of responsibility. Negative attitudes are not sufficient. Positive action is required. Cussing the government may be easy, but it is not helpful in solving the problems. Prejudices may be vital in political elections, because they require no mental effort, but they do not enlighten a citizenship charged with the responsibility of maintaining free institutions. An intelligent citizenship presupposes ability to view government from a constructive and not a destructive point of view; the ability to supplant a dishonest or unworkable program with an honest and workable one. We need today a new birth of the spirit of responsibility of citi- zenship, grounded upon the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, that government to be just must spring from the will of the people governed, and must operate for their equal benefit; that governments are created not as masters, but as instrumentalities originated by the people fpr the people's service. We are reaping now only the harvest of the seeds which we have sown. From the heights of idealism we plunged into a drunken debauch of speculation; into the depths of a greedy materialism almost as soon as the Armistice was signed. Privilege open, defiant and unafraid marched into possession of government and entrenched itself, and with itching fingers began to automatically exploit our citizenship under rules directly opposite to those under which our government was formed. They carried forward their plan and their program until the entire financial structure collapsed. No doubt that future historians, when recording the history of this period, will marvel at the complacency of our people when they permitted the stock market statesmanship to push into the back- ground of American life the idealism of the fathers. Human misery we have, and in abundance, but from the point of view of future history of the most beautiful, idealistic and practical government created, perhaps more important is the by-produce created by this human misery, resolving itself into a cynical conclusion of suffering millions that Democracy has failed in its mission. They have not yet discovered that it is not democracy which has failed, but that it is citizenship; that they themselves, due to their CITIZENSHIP 37 apathy and their failure to perform their duty, are responsible for our seven years of famine. It is not the form of government which is at fault. The defects in administration produces our catastrophies. The mission of Democracy is to make men strong, happy, pros- perous, independent sovereign citizens, according to their capacity, and their industry. Under our form of government the people are in con- trol if they want to control. The government came from them. The government belongs to them. What, therefore, could they gain by substituting some other form? There is only one safe Ism in America, and that is Americanism; an Americanism supported and maintained by a loyal and conscientious citizenship ready and willing to discharge their duties and responsi- bilities and to make some sacrifices in order to preserve and maintain a free government and political liberty. This duty we cannot delegate to someone else. It is our duty. Let us, therefore,' leave here with the high resolve to discharge that duty,— discharge it in the philosophy of Lincoln when he said: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in thè right as God gives us to see the right, let us go forward". Or in the words of Washington: "Let us erect a standard to which the wise and prudent may repair and leave the result in the hands of God." The task is ours. The stage in America is set for a new birth of freedom; for a new consciousness of duty and responsibility, religious and political. This is not time for panic, nor is it time for fear. Cold, logical thinking, honest and intelligent action, and victory will be ours. Individual lives blended together into a composite citizenship build a "nation. It is therefore the responsibility of every individual citizen, a personal responsibility, which is his to discharge, attuned to the sentiment expressed in the Battle-Hymn of the Republic, paraphrased just a bit: "In the beauty of the lillies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom That transfigures you and me. As He died to make men holy Let us live to make men free."