America in the Dock

Joseph Dana Miller

[An unsigned editiorial reprinted from Land and Freedom, May-June 1927]

American democracy is on trial. From many ** quarters and from many authorities come accusative voices. Viscount Bryce, surely no unfriendly witness, recanting from his earlier enthusiasm for American democracy, Mussolini, and now Wells. Our democracy has been tried in the balance and found wanting; friends and foes alike are questioning the permanence and value of our experiment.

And it cannot be said that the defenders of American democracy have contributed much of value to the discussion. It is no answer to these critics of our instituttions to indicate our notable material achievements. Emerson's query to those who would exalt our prosperity is still pertinent, "Does the human soul prosper here?" The indispensable condition for the success of that form of government which in America is now on trial is what Henry George declared to be the law of progress, "Association in equality."

Without it political institutions must decline, the ballot be wrested to the service of privilege and interest in public questions tend to diminish as the voters' sense of the consciousness of their weakness increases. Elections will then continue to revolve more and more around questions which are in themselves of temporary importance, shibboleths of contending factions, or governmental favors to particular interests.

The latest eminent person to enter the ranks of the defenders of our democracy is Senator William E. Borah. There are few men in American public life today whose utterances are more entitled to thoughtful consideration. His splendid sincerity, his great courage, and his ability to embody political truths in arresting and striking phrases, have singled him out from the men of lesser judgement and greater timidity who sit in the seats of the mighty.

Wells attacks our democracy for its economic shortcomings, confusing the political with the economic status; Borah replying to Wells, indicates certain material triumphs and achievements in America as a convincing proof of the value of our democracy. But in so doing he abandons the ground to Wells.

Both are in error, of course. Both limit their concept of democracy, now to a too narrow and now to a too inclusive definition. Wells assays our low cultural standards, and cries, "Behold the failure of democracy;" Borah exhibits the achievements of Ford and Edison, and cries, "Behold the success of our democracy."

The civilization of Athens of which Senator Borah speaks admiringly, did not spring as a consequence out of its democracy; rather the high peak of democracy which it attained was the result of its highly civilized status. Where so great a number of its citizens had attained to an intellectual standard, society became an association of equals. A democratic form of government was quite the natural thing it is difficult to see how any other form of government could have prevailed.

If Senator Borah could only see that where democracy has failed, such failure is due to economic inequality he could smash back at Wells' very superficial indictment a reply that would be conclusive. The nearest he comes to it, however, in this article in the Sunday Times of May IS, is where he says: " The real test of any government whether it ought to be permitted to live, is this: What does it do for the average man? What about the common people? What of their comforts, what of their opportunities?"

We might reply that all it can do for the average man is to leave him alone, and mind its own business. But this might seem flippant, and perhaps would not touch what our Senator has in mind. Government can at least secure equality of natural opportunity, though it can do nothing else. Is this what Senator Borah is thinking of ? Evidently not, for further along he says: " In the midst of the gathering of wealth and the hoarding of great fortunes the pathway from poverty to power has been kept open and is still well trodden." No thanks to government, we would say, and such reply to Wells and other critics of democracy is just no reply at all. Nor is it sufficient to say, as Senator Borah says, that Calvin Coolidge started as a workman and is now president of the United States, and that David Willard started as a brakeman and is now president of a great railroad system. For these are not the average men of whom Mr. Borah is speaking, and the statement may only prove that certain exceptional individuals have been able to overcome the economic handicaps. But what has this to do with the form of government known as democracy which is now in question by Wells and others.

The weakness of Borah's defence is that he ignores the fact that the doors of opportunity are slammed tight against men politically free, who are thus made economically slaves, with the portentous disaster involved for our whole civilization. Henry George's clear and unanswerable warning could have no more appropriate moment for restatement.

In Social Problems (Doubleday, Page edition, page 16) Henry George says:

"It behoves us to look the facts in the face. The experiment of popular government in the United States is clearly a failure. Not that it is a failure everywhere and in everything. An experiment of this kind does not have to be fully worked out to be proved a failure. But speaking generally of the whole country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the lakes to the Gulf, our government by the people has to a large degree become, is in larger degree becoming, government by the strong and unscrupulous."

Elsewhere in the same work (Doubleday, Page edition, page 14) Mr. George says:

"The rise in the United States of monstrous fortunes, the aggregation of enormous wealth in the hands of corporations, necessarily implies the loss by the people of governmental control. Democratic forms may be maintained, but there can be as much tyranny and misgovernment under democratic forms as any other in fact they lend themselves more readily to tyranny and misgovernment."

In Progress and Poverty (Doubleday, Page, edition, page 528) Mr. George says again:

"Where there is anything like an equal distribution of wealth that is to say, where there is general patriotism, virtue and intelligence the more democratic the government the better it will be; but where there is gross inequality in the distribution of wealth, the more democratic the government the worse it will be; for, while rotten democracy may not in itself be worse than rotten autocracy, its effect upon national character will be worse."

There is much more that Henry George has written in this connection. It is a sufficient answer to what is troubling Mr. Wells; it will also furnish the Idaho Senator something that will clarify his own conclusions.