New Democracy

“ On the other hand, the project of a transition to democracy, not a transition within a corrupt system which simulates change in order for everything to remain the same, but the transition to democracy as a reconstruction project for the nation; the defense of national sovereignty; justice and hope as aspirations; truth and government through obedience as a guide for leadership; the stability and security given by democracy and liberty; dialogue, tolerance and inclusion as a new way of making politics. ”

“ Democracy, once modelled into suffrages, furnished with ballot-boxes and such like, will itself accomplish the salutary universal change from Delusive to Real, and make a new blessed world of us by and by?—To the great mass of men, I am aware, the matter presents itself quite on this hopeful side. ”

“ Democracy, the new force of our times, must in its turn be dominated by leaders. Raised to independence over the arbitrary will of a multitude, these are to be trusted and followed, if need be, to death. ”

“ The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy. ”

“ The principle of democracy may be the underlying unity of men, the method of democracy must be that which allows the quickest response of our daily life to the common faith of men.
Are we capable of a new method? Can the inventive faculty of the American people be extended from mechanical things to political organization? There is no use denying that we are at a crisis in our history. ”

“ This endows the workingman with a new power and a great power; a power that will bring him farther on his way toward the goal he seeks than any other he possesses. Because the modern state is democratic, and the democratic state bends in the direction of the mass. ”

“ They tell us that this platform was made to catch votes. We reply to them that changing conditions make new issues; that the principles upon which Democracy rests are as everlasting as the hills, but that they must be applied to new conditions as they arise. ”

“ In the new political society they realized that complete democracy which already existed in every essential principle, but which required a change in the plan of government to give it a more ample field and a fuller expression. ”

“ The new political system should provide the opportunities for people with varying outlooks and favored measures to continue constructive work and policy development to deal with problems in the future. ”

“ The trend toward social democracy, with its accompanying eagerness to experiment with new devices for confiding to the people the power of initiating legislation and expelling unsatisfactory officials, paralleled by another tendency toward the short ballot and the concentration of power—these and kindred tendencies are viewed best in a non-partisan spirit in those free Western airs where the electorate is fickle, coy, and hard to please. ”

“ But the great social force which is destined to work out the vast transformation consists of the human beings most directly interested in the colossal struggle,—the modern democracy. This democracy is marked by a combination of characteristics which are new to history. ”

“ Now that more and more direct power is being given to the people it is especially necessary that we 228should not be led by machine bosses, but that we should evolve the kind of leadership which will serve a true democracy, which will be the expression of a true democracy, and will guide it to democratic ends by democratic methods. ”

“ Our country - this great Republic - means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him. ”

“ If we want good government, is it not time that we should take our share in the struggle to secure it?” And hence that fresh political activity, that freedom of criticism, that breaking of party lines, that movement of independence all over the field, which makes political ringmasters tremble and patriotic citizens rejoice in new hope. ”

“ for, amongst democratic nations, each new generation is a new people. ”

“ Finally, when the state becomes a democratic organisation and co-operates with the individual in all spheres of his activity, the movement for political democracy has ripened and has produced its natural social fruits. ”

“ The leaders among the people, as has been done so many times before in the history of the world, began again the making of new laws, for the establishment of an ideal government and the forming of a new constitution which was to insure perfect and complete happiness to the individual and the race. ”

“ You who desire progress and movement will find the real affairs of this great Artificial Empire, in its trade—commerce—colonies—internal legislation—standing still while the Whigs and the Tories pelt each other with the quibbles of faction. No I should vote against your Bill! I am not for popular governments, though I like free states. All the advantages of democracy seem to me more than counterbalanced by the sacrifice of the peace and tranquillity, the comfort and the grace, the dignity and the charities of life that democracies usually entail. ”

“ And so these Progressives, bent on trusting implicitly the intelligence, the unselfishness, and the honesty of the People, proposed three novel political instruments for obtaining the pure Democracy they dreamed of. ”

“ As long, then, as we can count on honesty, goodwill, and intelligence in our streets and market-places, as we can to-day, mankind does well to elect its representatives to council and Parliament and proclaim democracy—"Government of the people, by the people, for the people"—as the proper government for mankind. ”

“ The truth of the matter is that a new impulse was started; the national spirit began to move toward a more democratic goal; the rank and file began to look beyond the narrow hill and dale; women sought wider spheres; the poor demanded constitutional rights; energy began to stir from underneath. The word modern was in every one’s mind. ”

“ But every one will be politically active; and instead of the stronghold of politics in a desert of ignorance, there will be that interplay of political functions, distributed among the whole body of the people, which is the real meaning of democracy. ”

“ But let us not forget that the democratic way -- by enlarging the latitude for debate and dissension -- also demands harder work, greater cohesiveness -- and social responsibility -- from every one of us. If our democracy is to adapt to the dynamism -- of society, culture and politics -- which is the wave of the future, then it must become more pervasive, more participatory. ”

“ The Government of the right-hand party restrained political life and action within a narrow circle, and rendered them more difficult; the generation which was then beginning to stir in the world, sought, not entirely independent of, but side by side with politics, the employment of its strength and the gratification of its desires: literature, [309] philosophy, history, policy, and criticism assumed a new and powerful flight. ”

“ The State, government with its functions and powers, is now the subject of vital interest to every thinking man. Political developments in all civilized countries have brought the questions home. Shall we have a strong government? Are democracy and parliamentary government to be preferred, or is Fascism of one kind or another, dictatorship - monarchical, bourgeois or proletarian - the solution of the ills and difficulties that beset society today? ”

“ They have learned, that the only safe course is, for the people to depend upon themselves, to develop and establish a new social and industrial order, from which shall spring a class of incorruptible leaders and statesmen, whose pure, unselfish motives, dominant, evenly developed minds, and superior ability, shall mark them as fitting rulers for a more perfect Republic. Such a Republic as shall meet the demands of a twentieth century progress. ”

“ Throughout the world the New Republic will address itself to this problem, and when a working solution has been obtained, then the New Republican on press and platform, the New Republican in pulpit and theatre, the New Republican upon electoral committee and in the ballot box, will press weightily to see that solution realised. ”

“ It constitutes, indeed, a source of political development which is of decisive importance for a satisfactory theory of political and social progress, because a people which becomes more of a nation has a tendency to become for that very reason more of a democracy. ”

“ I have rejoiced to observe, that many who have heretofore been men of party and of party government have resolved to inaugurate the new system of government, not upon the acute angle of party, but, upon the broad base of equal and impartial justice to all parties, the only moral and patriotic principle of government, according to my convictions, and the only principle of government to make good and great men, and make a progressive and happy country.... ”

“ A policy, intelligently informed by the desire to maintain a joint process of individual and social amelioration, should be able to keep a democracy sound and whole both in sentiment and in idea. Such a democracy would not be dedicated either to liberty or to equality in their abstract expressions, but to liberty and equality, in so far as they made for human brotherhood. ”

“ The people will, if the Democratic leaders do not, appreciate the greatness and beneficence of the idea upon which the new order of things, the settlement we propose, rests—true and general self-government exercised in and through the States ”

“ And every new idea of political reform and social progress that by dint of hard work among the intellectual and moral élite has gained a substantial following in public opinion of even a relatively small minority, has, in justice, and in demand for constant advance in human affairs, a right to a place in the high debate of political leadership. ”

“ From the analysis of the group must come an understanding of collective thought and collective feeling, of the common will and concerted activity, of the true nature of freedom, 22the illusion of self-and-others, the essential unity of men, the real meaning of patriotism, and the whole secret of progress and of life as a genuine interpenetration which produces true community.
All thinking men are demanding a new state. ”

“ The “politicians” of vigor and imagination cherish a practical hope of organizing the idealism of men, restoring human belief and values to party organization. In the peculiar opportunity now presented to the country to take stock of its citizenship, to reënforce its unity, to justify itself as a democracy, to make the most of its powers, to use the intelligence and the ardor of its citizens of many races, and to bring the newest of these into accord with its ideals and its practices, lies a great opportunity for the political parties of this country. ”

“ They have declared that "old things shall be done away, and all things shall become new;" that the government shall be taken out of the old political grooves in which it has been running; that it shall assume new life, with the rights of the people fully recognized. ”

“ In our own country we have given, in theory, the most unreserved expression to the principle of political democracy; the principle is yet but imperfectly worked out here, as everywhere, and we have much exacting business upon our hands in completing and developing our democratic institutions—work that will call for a great deal of patience and toil and self-denial; but we believe, most of us, in the principle; we have committed ourselves to it, and we expect, by means of it, to unify the diverse races now thronging upon this continent and to make of them a strong, free, self-governing people. ”

“ As this conviction penetrates the mass of the people, they are converted to the new political faith, and so the Republic begins to settle itself on sure foundations. It is all the more likely to be permanent, because it was not adopted in a burst of popular enthusiasm, but very slowly, and from necessity. ”

“ Facts and reasonable expectations combine clearly to indicate that the democracy, on which the social evolution of the future depends, is marked by a growing intellectual, moral, and political capacity, and by an increasing freedom and prosperity; and all these things make it only more ardent and capable for further progress and for the great tasks that lie before it. ”

“ Thus we shall deserve and possess the increased confidence of mankind, and enhance the credit of republican government by showing how an intelligent democracy can, unseduced by vulgar ambition, remain true to itself. ”

“ He went on to “greet with joy a new world which is forming and which brings equality and fraternity. A new era is coming which regards the democratic republic as the highest and worthiest form of human government. ”

“ Within this new political relationship, each of the different groups with proposals for differing systems or directions (socialism, capitalism social-democratic, liberalism, Christian-Democratic, etc.) will have to convince the majority of the Nation that its proposal is the best for the country. ”

“ Its failure no doubt confirmed the leaders of the working men in their view that the regeneration of society could not be accomplished without the aid of political power, and that democracy was the necessary preliminary to social justice. ”

“ The political meaning of the new social organization, its very basis, its token, and the guarantee for its continuance, are in a certain sharing of the governing power with the middle classes, classes who are the true strength of modern societies, the centre of morality, of all good sentiments and intelligent work. But we cannot conceal from ourselves that the principle of election, extended now to almost every function, has brought the interests of ambition, and the passion for being something, excuse the word, into social depths where they ought never to have penetrated. ”