at least of yielding additional revenue, pending a readjustment of such industries which would place them in a position, unprotected, to compete in the markets of the world on an equal basis.

The tariffs being instituted or revised upwards by many foreign countries of late, offer an opportunity for the United States to show business sagacity and statesmanship of the first order by refusing to retaliate, at least for the time being. To retaliate would only complicate the situation and place the country in an even less favorable position for securing payment of its foreign accounts and for providing future markets for its exportable surplus. The losses sustained during the past two years by exporters in this country ought to offer sufficient proof that a sale of commodities for which no payment, or only partial payment, is made leads to embarrassment or ruin in foreign as well as domestic trade. The foreign tariffs in most instances are being levied on non-essentials, as no government can hope to stand which compels a discouraged citizenship to pay an unnecessary tax upon products essential to a country's economic well-being. If in addition some revenue is raised through tariffs, the country benefited is to that extent in a better position to liquidate its foreign obligations. In

that, the United States should have a genuine interest, unless it prefers to tax its citizens indefinitely to pay the coupons of the liberty bonds offsetting its loans to foreign governments. Furthermore, it is perhaps quite conceivable that a creditor nation of influence will be in a position, if necessary, to ask and receive relief for any of its industries which are subject to unjust discrimination with respect to tariffs imposed on the same commodities imported from other countries.

The adoption of a policy of nonretaliation might lead quite naturally to the ultimate solution of the tariff problem which, undoubtedly, is to be found in the negotiation of special trade treaties, either between nations or through a centralized agency made up of the nations of the world, based upon the principle of equality of treatment. The impossibility of establishing reliable comparative values at present and international political complication, however, require the postponement of that method of solution until world conditions have become sufficiently stabilized to permit analysis. Confronted with such such a situation and facing a deficit larger than the total pre-war federal budget, the interests of the nation at large seem to lead to a tariff designed primarily to provide revenue, and to aid rather than hinder its foreign trade.

THE

HE problem of democracy is to find the institutional means of reconciling efficiency with popular concepts of justice efficiency for group achievement with justice in sharing the benefits. Efficiency demands strong executive leadership. Justice demands an institutional means of appeal to group conscience. The demand for reconcilement has given us the most fundamental tenet of the world's prevailing political faith-the principle of popular sovereignty.

The mechanics of democracy have now developed to a point where the chief interest centers in a device adapted to making popular control effective without interfering with efficiency. The principle has long been known and used-that of "economic-blockade"but the institutional means have been at fault. It has been with a view to making this principle effective that budgets and budget procedures have been and are now being devised.

despotism fear and of republics virtue or patriotism, but that each may fail by having too much, Faguet lays down the proposition initially that democracy is rendered incompetent by too much of what the people conceive to be virtue -by reason of conceptions that are essentially democratic but in the nature of things opposed to efficiency.

Starting from these general ideas [those of Montesquieu] I have wondered what principle democrats have adopted for the form of government which they favor [i.e. the principle underlying our constitutions]. And it has not required great effort on my part to arrive at the conclusion that the principle in question is the worship and cultivation, or, briefly, the "Cult" of incompetence or inefficiency. (p. 14.)

Faguet's argument in support of this proposition is that the morality of democracy is unsound, and by reason of this it is incapable of or rather unwilling to permit the development of the institutional agencies that are effective.

Because this assumption is not uncommon nowadays, it is worth while to review the evidence and the argument made use of to convince the reader. A careful perusal of the text discloses that the evidence relied on is a miscellaneous assortment of historic happenings, which he sums up in the sentence: "It is intellectual incompetence and moral incompetence which is sought instinctively in the people's choice."

The

If possible it is more than this. people favor incompetence, not only be cause it looks on moral competence from the wrong point of view, but because it desires before everything, as indeed is very natural, that its representatives should resemble itself.

So far as logic is relied on in his appeal to reason, his syllogism is this:

First Premise (assumed, not stated): The purpose of political organization being to enable its membership to avail itself of the benefits of coöperationthe competence of a group to achieve its objectives depends on: (1) a sound morality-a morality which will prove effective as a bond of union, and (2) specialization-an arrangement of the personnel through organization suited to the allotment of tasks to persons especially qualified by training and experience.

Second Premise (to establish which the volume was written): The "Cult" of democracy is opposed to both: The morality of democracy is unsound; its bond of union prevents specializationoperates to eliminate the competent from the public service.

Conclusion: Democracy, "The Cult of Incompetence!" Democracy unfit to survive!

The philosophy of democracy is "unsound," he tells us, because "high morality is imputed to those who share the dominant passions of the people"; and in representative government “the people desire that the rep

resentatives should resemble itself."

tent persons from service and in its institution building refuses to provide for "specialization" not alone because it "imputes high morality to those who share the dominant passions of the people," but

In addition to this sentimental reason, is another, which is extremely important, for it goes to the very root of the democratic idea. What is the people's one desire when once it has been bitten by the democratic tarantula? It is that all men should be equal.... Democracy is irresistibly, one may say,

thus led

to exclude the competent.

This thesis so ably maintained is important not alone by reason of the reception given to Faguet's indictment but because it seems to justify an attitude and practices that have been opposed to the successful working of democratic government from the earliest times-an attitude and practices that are responsible for the very happenings pointed to by democracy's critics to prove its shortcomings.

THE FALLACY OF FAGUET'S REASONING

Faguet's first fallacy is found in the falseness of the assumption, that it is "unsound" to impute "high morality

sensibilities.

to those who share the dominant passions of the people." What are these dominant passions? The controlling emotion among all peoples at all times has been what they are pleased to call "justice." These "dominant passions" have had their rise in moral sensibilities. Seer, prophet, poet, artist, in word, color and song, have interpreted them, and found sympathetic response; and the harmonies of feeling thus aroused have been the ties that have held when all else has failed. The strongest bond that associate groups have known is the common impulse to strive for the right and to unite in opposition to that which is thought to be socially wrong. The sentiments

which we recognize as group conscience and which find expression in common phrase as ideals have proved to be the only sure foundation upon which great coöperative institutions may be built. It is insistence on these ideals and standards for judgment that is characterized as the unsound morality of democracy insistence on the point that those who are entrusted with the exercise of powers shall be inspirited with a desire to serve and that in service they shall exemplify that high idealism which, impersonated, the people bow down before and worship as their God. This is the morality that Faguet finds it necessary to challenge in order to establish his conclusion.

His second fallacy is found in reliance on a false interpretation of history his unsupportable fact-conclusion that democracy is opposed to high "specialization" and that, by reason of adherence to the ideal of equality, competent persons are excluded from public service. The very opposite is true: In response to the impulses and demands of democratic constituencies for service, the amoebic type of institution (the type in which the king was law-giver, judge and executive) has passed out; and in its place democratic governments have grown to be the most complex, the most highly specialized of all political organisms. And the further fact is to be noted that instead of the "cult" as such putting a premium on mediocrity, the greatest leaders of modern time have grown up in the service of democracy. It is true that men of commanding ability have been exiled; but not for the reasons assigned. Demagogues have found their way into public favor, but not because the people prefer demagogues; rather because those who were opposed to democratic ideals in practice have perverted the institutional means designed to protect the people against demagogues.

We come now to Faguet's conclusion that democracy is essentially a "cult of incompetence" and is unfit to survive: Not only has he failed to establish it by reasoning process that such should be the case, but the empirical judgment of history is that the conclusion is false. History tells us that out of the heroic struggles within and between politically organized groups, the very ones whose institutional right to exist is questioned have been the ones that have risen triumphant. The monarchies, the aristocracies, the oligarchies, and all of the political rubrics established on the "isms" of class morality and class privilege have gone down. They have not only been "weighed in the balance and found wanting," but they have been cast off by society while democracy has been embraced.

ESSENTIALS OF COÖPERATION

This brings us to these positive assertions-the preachment of this essay: That the essentials of effective coöperation are: (1) strong executive leadership, and (2) good-will of the coöperating membership; and that democracy as a cult recognizes these as essentials and seeks institutionally to provide for them. From which, if conceded, the conclusion follows that, insofar as there has been incompetence or inefficiency (and we all can find much of it), this has been due to failure to provide an institutional means adapted to the realization of ideals or to the subversion or impairment of the institutional means of achievement already established.

As opposed to the view expressed by Faguet, it is asserted that democracy is a cult upon which may be erected a polity capable of developing the highest efficiency. In this lies the strength of democracy. Recognizing that the purpose of political association is to enable citizens to avail themselves of

the benefits of coöperation, recognizing that coöperation is made possible only through leadership and good-will, let us stop a moment for reflection. Does democracy provide for both? Is goodwill necessary to strong leadership? And is the morality of democracy such as makes for good-will?

LEADERSHIP AND GOOD-WILL Can any other conclusion be drawn than this: That democracy stands out above all others as the cult of goodwill? What is this cult? It can be summed up in four words: "Service," "liberty," 'equality," "brotherhood." In the meaning of these four words are wrapped up the ideals that form the basis of the social ethics of democracy. The most fundamental of all is "service." This is the basis of all of the world's highest idealism. In its widest application it is the very soul of patriotism-it is the standard in the weights and measures used by democracy for all its individual and group valuations. Present-day interpretation compels a morality that carries with it the notion that, on the day of judgment and at all times when choice is to be made, service to one's fellows must stand above self. When applied to the whole group, the moral concept "service" is expressed in terms of "brotherhood."

"Service" speaks in terms of duty. In order that this concept may have an appeal binding on the conscience, however, there must be a class vision of corresponding rights. A common consciousness of right which we call "justice," therefore, asserts that the politically organized community shall be "free," this freedom being conditioned only by the concept of "equality." Under conditions of inequality, enforced through institutional restraint, "liberty" was first given a negative meaning. But with slavery abolished,

the concept of liberty is interpreted as "the right of self-determination," and thus is given an unselfish significance. By "the right of self-determination" is meant the right of the individual to choose what service he shall undertake to render to the group-the right of each member to choose his own career and make the most of it so long as he chooses to do something that is serviceable. Thus the only restriction to be placed on the individual is the broader right of society-a concession to goodwill-the right of the group to decide what is serviceable and what is not. The only restriction imposed on the individual is that he shall gain his liberty through the service gate: that he shall gain his freedom, economic and spiritual, by service to others.

Thus, adopting this view of liberty, only those who are not social-minded are not free. Democracy sets up no barriers to self-determination except against those who claim for themselves privileges which are not accorded to others, or who assume that their own judgment of right, warped as it must be by self-interest, is superior to the group conscience. As against this holier-than-thou attitude, democracy weaves into its moral fabric its ideal of equality—that each shall have an equal right of self-expression, an equal right to appeal to the group conscience, and an equal opportunity to achieve success in whatever specialized field of service to his fellows he may choose.

IDEALS OF DEMOCRACY

It is clear also that this fundamental morality in the interest of establishing and maintaining good-will carries to all the institutional organs and agencies of democracy-to its leaderships and its followings, to the individual members and to "the people" as a political aggregate. Making practical application of this concept of social justice to every