Take Back Your Government!

CHAPTER XI Footnotes on Democracy

Political Expenses: Volunteer work can be effective without costing you anything, but about $2.00 a week, on average, will make your work easier and pleasanter. This is usually offset by the money you don't spend for recreation as a consequence.

Coping with Communists: Communists pop up anywhere and make trouble-their objectives rarely if ever coincide widi yours. You can spot them by their catch words and by occasionally checking to see what the current "party line" is. They will try to dominate your meetings under the pretense of "free speech." This is a false plea; free speech is not a license to interrupt others in their affairs; the group who pays the hall rent are entitled to set the agenda. Suppress them by parliamentary maneuver-usually by insisting on theorder oftheday.

Communists are nuisances rather than dangers, but they have one prime usefulness: Any real local success on their part is a sure sign that some group of Americans are in such dire straits as to need emergency help - not punitive action!

Lawyers in Politics: To a major extent lawyers control our economic and political life, partly through special advantages enjoyed by the legal profession but primarily by default of the laymen. Unfortunately they are not well fitted by training for such responsibilities; their training is too narrow and too impractical. They are especially ill fitted to make laws, because they speak a foreign language and look to the past rather dian the future.

A Third Party? This is a practical matter. Granted that there are glaring strange-bedfellow conditions in our present party alignments there is still no point in starting up a new party just strong enough to lose. However, third parties have won more than once in the past; the enterprise is always speculative but it is not impossible.

The time to join a third party is before the primary; if you take part in the primary of a party you are honor-bound to stick with it through November.

Democracies are Efficient: As we demonstrated against the Axis dictatorships. Perhaps the controlling reason lies in the fact that the free speech of democracies results in criticism and correction, whereas in police states a mistake goes on indefinitely.

Can the Ordinary Political Volunteer Be Effective? Yes.

(a) Volunteers are trusted,

(b) Volunteers are promoted rapidly,

(c) Most important, all our political action and all elections, including presidential elections, are based on small, local organizations and on die followings of minor candidates, i.e., the natural field of die part-time volunteer. In a republic the local leader is die indispensable man, on whom the national political figures are utterly dependent.

(d) Who Guards the Guardians? Every corrupt machine reflects a body of citizens indifferent to, or even secredy proud of, their public scandals. The citizens are never helpless; the evils arise from inexcusable ignorance, smugness, laziness, and lack of personal feeling of public responsibility.

Personal Danger in Politics: Occasionally a volunteer suffers bodily harm because of his activity. The danger can be minimized through using your head but cannot be disregarded. The question is this: How does the danger compare with the dangers experienced by men in combat, fighting for the same ends? Or, which is better, to be slugged at the polls, fighting for your rights, or to be liquidated by a firing squad because you failed to protea your freedoms?

Political Scientists: This country needs many more men, in government and in teaching, trained in governmental matters by the scientific method. Regrettably, many "political scientists" are neither political nor scientific, having neither experience in politics nor training in the scientific method.

On Keeping Informed: The techniques expounded herein can make you an effective vote-getter; to be statesmanlike as well, you need broad information in social and economic matters. In addition to books about such matters, the following might be a minimum for current happenings - your own favorite daily paper plus its political opposite, the tabloid political papers of both parties, a national news weekly, and one of the publications which list key votes in Congress - and its local counterpart for your state legislature. It's a chore-but without such background you are merely a skilled ward heeler.

Keep Your Roots Down! Even though you rise to national party chairmanship, remain a doorbell-pushing precinct worker in some precinct somewhere.