(3) It educates people, want good government and know how to get what they want. And yet the American people believe that in the long run these conditions are bound to come. It has great faith in Lincoln's saying, " You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Here again is the opportunity for the work of the good citizen in finding out the best methods of government and in getting these methods adopted. The third reason why we believe in democracy as rule by the people is that this makes people more intelligent, free, and responsible. The great purpose of national life, the great purpose of America, is after all not so much to manage things as to help all its people to live the best life. Now to live the best life we must have efficient government, we must have capable legislators and judges, we must have good roads and good schools. But all these important things are not, after all, the most important. The most important thing is that every citizen should know what is wise and best and should try to do it. Some things can be told us and taught us by others. But the greatest lessons of life we learn only by deciding things for ourselves. We learn by our mistakes and failures sometimes even more than by our sucA little child has to be taught at first many things which the race has been finding out through many centuries. He has to be taught what to eat and what to let alone. He is taught to be truthful and honest, to be fair and kind. But, in an important sense, no one is really taught these things by any one else. It is when we have to decide for ourselves that we really learn in a much deeper way. When I decide cesses. 66 99 66 for myself that I will cheat, I am deciding not only involves choice Further, it is only when we have some choice in mat- for responters that we consider ourselves fully responsible. And sibility to be responsible is the mark of a complete man. A child is not fully responsible, for he does not understand fully what he is doing; and besides, he is in part controlled by his parents. A weak, or careless, or bad man is not fully responsible; he does not stand up squarely to his acts; he may be careless about paying his debts, or may fail to carry out contracts, or to support his family. Then the law steps in and compels him to fulfil his obligations. A thoroughly upright and honorable man will be responsible for all his acts. He feels responsible for them just because they are his; and this, as we said, means that he had some choice before he performed them. So in government; if we are to be responsible, that is, to be full-grown moral persons, we must have a chance to decide what kind of a government we shall have. And, on the other hand, when we do have this opportunity, we must stand up and take the consequences. We cannot evade our responsibility. We cannot charge our troubles to a king or a "boss" or to any one but ourselves. For we have chosen our own rulers and are making our own laws. If we do not like the rulers or the laws it is our business to choose new rulers and make better laws. It is just this responsibility which we cannot evade or throw upon any one else that makes democracy a great education in right living. If America had had an absolute monarch like the Czar of Russia (who freed Russian serfs by a decree in 1861), slavery might have been abolished very easily. But people would never have been led to think about it and to ask whether it was right or wrong. If some of our great cities could be governed entirely by the United States army, they would be cleaner, more healthful, more beautiful, and there would be less killing and stealing in them. Yet if the people never had to make any effort to have a good government, should we not lose something very important in life? The fourth reason for self-government is that governments responsible to the whole people are less inclined to aggressive warfare and more likely to maintain peace and good faith. Wars have repeatedly been undertaken to add to the glory of a king and the power of a dynasty. Bismarck, in his Memoirs, recites how he tried to induce the King of Prussia to enter the war which resulted in the annexation of SchleswigHolstein, by pointing out to the king that each of his ancestors had added something to the territory of Prussia. France, under Louis XIV, Russia, under Peter the Great and his successors, undertook aggressive wars of conquest. Under democratic government, France has been increasingly peaceable and Russia marked its abolition of the rule of the Czar by declaring at once that it had no desire for conquest. The United States has increasingly valued peace. In the words of President Wilson: "Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor States with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an oppor tunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs. "A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. . . Only free people can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end, and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own." Checks and balances CHAPTER XXXVIII THREE OBSTACLES TO SELF-GOVERNMENT: GOVERNMENT; LONG BALLOT F democracy is so good a school for training people IT to be intelligent and responsible, how does it hap pen that we have so much bad government? It may seem that after more than a hundred and twentyfive years of self-government, the American people ought to be both intelligent and responsible. Several reasons may be given for the defects in our government. Probably no one cause will account for all of our difficulties. But before we attribute these difficulties to democracy, we need to recall that we have not always had self-government in any large degree. In particular, three obstacles may be noted which have prevented government by the people. As we have seen, men like Hamilton and Madison, who were prominent in shaping the Constitution, were very much afraid of government by the people. They thought it must be restrained. They provided a system of checks and balances. The whole scheme of requiring four separate approvals of a measure-by the House of Representatives, by the Senate, by the President, and in cases where any one could raise a question. of constitutionality, by the Supreme Court-is admirably adapted to prevent anything from becoming a law unless all interests agree. But the system of checks and balances did not pro |