or decide for their own good, adopted the principle of Dictatorship of the Proletariat, which put the power into the hands of a relatively small group of men; and dictatorship over man's economic life has widened into despotism over all aspects of his life. Seeking for greater material well-being, the Russian people lost their chance for liberty and have lacked bread more than they did before.

Other economic panaceas have been advanced which seem to present dangers of despotism. Social reformers, studying the conditions of the people at the depth of a depression, grasped the bright idea that the economic wheels have slowed down because of the lack of purchasing power in the people. The remedy, then, is to prime the pump. If the people can have money to spend, then they will buy; if they buy, stores can purchase; if stores purchase, then factories can open; if factories can open, their workers will be paid; if workers are paid, they can buy, and so on ad infinitum.

Here we have part of the program of social credit, where they proposed to pay $25 a month; Ham-andEggs which was to pay $30 every Thursday; the Townsend Plan to pay $200 a month to all old people; and most programs of special public works. Carry any of these to their logical conclusions, and you have the people dividing up the public funds. Enforce any of these plans upon everyone, and you have the government in business.

The sensible way to look at this problem of control

by the government versus completely private enterprise is to realize that at either extreme there lies despotism; and no American who knows the ideals of his country and whence they came can ever want that. Hence he is not going to follow any course and push it so far that he drops his liberties in the water for the bone of economic betterment that he sees there. But he also knows that it is just as dangerous to follow the advice of the complacent man who says that nothing should be done.

In an era when the course has not been charted and the experience of the past is not a sure guide, the wise attitude is one of caution, deliberation, and willingness to experiment. New suggestions should be tried out. Where there is success, there should be farther advance; where there is failure, immediate retreat. No great harm can come to the country provided there is, as Montesquieu put it, “Love of country and the resolve to put public interest above private."

Democracy's Enemy No. 6a. The man who would plan all economic life and organize it from the Panama Canal to the Arctic Circle, fitting production to consumption and administering it by trained engineers in Washington; in short, the Technocrat.

Democracy's Enemy No. 6b. The man who says that there is a fundamental battle between capital and labor, that everything must be owned and operated

in common, that the power must be seized, and for a time the people be ordered; in short, the Communist.

Democracy's Enemy No. 6c. Any candidate for office who promises you a share of the public funds without asking proportionate service in return.

Duty to Democracy No. 6. Beware of the economistwho-is-in-a-hurry; the starry-eyed Utopist; and the politician who offers you money, just as you distrust the complacent upholder of the past; and remember that since you must experiment, turn over every economic suggestion and look at what is on the back.

XXII

WANT AND OPULENCE

"Everyone should have something and none too much."

-JEAN JACQUES Rousseau

In seeking for symptoms of disease in a democracy, we cannot pass over the question of excessive wealth. Over and over again the ancient writers on political science stress the need for frugality, if a democracy is to endure. The general idea is to agree with Oliver Goldsmith,

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

As they looked back on Athens and Syracuse and Florence during the Renaissance, they saw that with the vast accumulation of wealth came a softening of the fibre, and an inability or unwillingness to make the personal sacrifices necessary to the defense of their country in time of need.

Athens thought more of her theatre than of national defense. Florence had a sort of army of mercenaries who were hired to fight for the rich Florentines; and this was successful for a time, but they were of no avail against the strong, sturdy, but poor conquerors from

beyond the Alps. It is perhaps not without significance that Finland and Greece are two of the poorest countries in Europe.

The significance of the question of poverty or opulence so far as the strength of democracy is concerned is merely this: one of the hopes in setting up democracy was to overcome the problem of want, and to arrange a society and government which would provide the minimum material needs of man. To accomplish this all sorts of efforts were made to stimulate invention, apply science, carry on experiments, and introduce new processes. The effort was to combat poverty.

But in the effort to overcome need, the advance has been so startling that from want many democratic countries have gone so far as to acquire general opulence. This has certainly been true of the United States. No matter what the pessimists may say about the bad conditions in our country, about the huge fortunes, about the concentration of wealth, in no country in the world has the general standard of living been so high. In the United States, one hour of labor will earn more wheat or shoes or housing or gasoline than anywhere else in the world; and the ownership per capita of automobiles, radio sets, bathtubs, electric washers, and other conveniences is far beyond that found elsewhere.

Under our government the people have profited from the efforts of the able, the efficient, and the industrious in developing the mines and oil wells, the inven