Civic organization

“ We will increase publicity of and education in the law, intensify education about citizenship, and promote the values of socialist democracy, the rule of law, freedom, equality, equity and justice. We will coordinate development of urban and rural communities and promote the healthy growth of civic organizations. ”

“ I conceive the possibility of each group developing into a trust, capable of acting in the interests of the city in years to come, exercising a mighty influence, being relied upon for guidance, and administering great funds for the common good. If we could get in each of our populous centres a dozen thoroughly intelligent broad-minded men, capable of watching all the streams of tendency—all the developments of civic life, bringing their judgment to bear on its progress, and urging the public to move in the right direction, a great service might be rendered. ”

“ In order to protect the welfare of each political unit, these principles must form the basis of all scientific politics. In the social units evolved by co-operative life, these conditions are embodied and expressed. In them, we shall find the basis upon which to build a grand, social, industrial and political organization. An organization, which shall truly represent Liberty and Justice ”

“ Perhaps it is because the kind of democracy we have known -- for the better part of this century -- has emphasized the individual over the community, private gain over the public good, and civic rights over civic duties. But, in truth, the concept of civic duty is the core of the historic tradition of democracy everywhere. ”

“ III. RESTORING COMMUNITY The success of democracy in America depends substantially on the strength of our community institutions: families and neighborhoods, public schools, religious institutions, charitable organizations, civic groups and other voluntary organizations. In these social networks, the values and character of our citizens are formed, as we learn the habits and skills of self-government, and acquire an understanding of our common rights and responsibilities as citizens. ”

“ The social organization system and legal regime, ranging from ancestral family and community principles and ethical and moral standards, passing through production and trade relations, solidarity and social responsibility, forms of community and state administration; up to a very complex system of laws, rules, uses and customs that embodied free work by the community, the stewardships and charges system, which allowed the orderly and balanced community life as well as relationships and exchanges with other communities or states. ”

“ But, above all, their social organization is firmer and more efficient, because their respect for and obedience to their chiefs, and their loyalty to their community, are much greater; each man identifies himself with the whole community and accepts and loyally performs the social duties laid upon him. ”

“ How shall we more fully correlate our theoretic civics, i.e., our observations of cities interpreted as above, with our moral ideas and our practical policy—i.e., our Applied Civics. Our ideals have to be selected, our ideas defined, our plans matured; and the whole of these applied; that is realised, in polity, in culture, and in art. But if this be indeed the due correlation of civic survey and civic service, how may we now best promote the diffusion and the advancement of both? ”

“ And it is this instinctive sense of obligation that is the chief foundation of society. Its reality takes objective shape and displays itself in family life and in our other civic and social institutions. It is not limited to any one form, and it is capable of manifesting itself in new forms and of developing and changing old forms. Indeed, the civic community is more than a political fabric. It includes all the social institutions in and by which the individual life is influenced—such as are the family, the school, the church, the legislature, and the executive. ”

“ The organisation of industrial groups or of representative institutions found conducive to the well-being and progress of these prime civic units, the families, may now be traced into its highest outcome in city government. ”

“ The establishment of an economical, simple, and efficient government, the maintenance of an independent civil service; the implantation of an adequate system of public instruction to develop moral character, personal discipline, civic conscience, and vocational efficiency; the safeguarding of the health and vigor of the race ”

“ It has done this by the simple method of organizing them into a self-governing community,—a republic in which they are citizens, invested with all the responsibilities, duties, and cares that go with republican citizenship in its larger spheres. They make and administer its laws, conduct its public business and its politics, manage its institutions, generate and have experience of its public opinion. The moral and social influence of this training has now been proved by more than a decade of success. This remarkable organization was not framed up by its architect, Mr. ”

“ Nor am I thinking of any new plan or any novel kind of institution or any new agency; rather shall we do better to escape some of the excessive institutionalism and organization. We are so accustomed to think in terms of organized politics and education and religion and philanthropies that when we detach ourselves we are said to lack definiteness. It is the personal satisfaction in the earth to which we are born, and the quickened responsibility, the whole relation, broadly developed, of the man and of all men,—it is this attitude that we are to discuss. ”

“ But the evolution was not confined to political institutions alone. Social and economic groups and institutions developed also. A variety of needs called forth one institution after another, the church, the school, the club, the industrial organization. Each has its own function in organized society.
Government is the guiding hand. The Rôle of Government.—The dominating factor in the social and economic life of today, however, is the political community (nation, state, and municipality) , acting through the agency which we call government. Government is the great co-ordinating factor. ”

“ From the earliest times of which history furnishes authentic record, and in all countries inhabited by man, people have found it necessary to bind themselves together by civic regulations so that certain things may be done by all in common—in short, to establish some form of government. ”

“ To define the really democratic organization as one which makes expressly and intentionally for individual distinction and social improvement is nothing more than a translation of the statement that such an organization should make expressly and intentionally for the welfare of the whole people. The whole people will always consist of individuals, constituting small classes, who demand special opportunities, and the mass of the population who demand for their improvement more generalized opportunities. ”

“ I inquired.
“The organization is the Congress Party,” he answered. “But if it fails me, I have my own organization, myself. I am a man possessed by an idea. If such a man cannot get an organization, he becomes an organization.”
“Have you sufficient confidence in the present mood of the country? Will it follow you? This civil disobedience movement may involve heavy sacrifices for the people. ”

“ In regard to cultural associations we may note the privately endowed universities and state universities, privately organized churches and state churches, private charities and public charities. This dualism in social structure is supported by Professor Giddings on the grounds that private associations are needed for purposes of initiation, experimentation, and stimulation; and the public associations serve the useful purposes of regulation and maintenance of balance among various contending386 factors.
The highest test of social organization is the development of social personality. ”

“ The organization of a society, whose institution shall serve as a bond to its members, for the purposes of virtue, happiness, liberty, and wisdom, by the means of intellectual opposition to grievances, would probably be useful. ”

“ With us the first object of the state, as an organization, is to care for the individual citizen, be he man, woman, or child. We consider the state to be made for the better and higher training of men, much as your divines say that the Church is. ”

“ The more you spread government as an organization of the people themselves, the more humane, upon that working basis, are likely to be its operations—on one condition: that such organisation of the people, whatever its numbers, submits to the operation of its own laws and shares equally in the conditions which it imposes—that, if it provides a qualification for citizenship, it provides also the means for all to qualify. ”

“ By proper organization, by exciting public interest and enlisting the sympathy and active support of the humane element, which is to be found in every community you will be able to bring about better conditions. ”

“ The subordination of the machinery of democracy to its purpose and the comprehension within that purpose of the higher interests both of the individual and society, is not only exclusive of many partial and erroneous ideas, but demands both a reconstructive programme and an efficient organization. ”

“ Only those are called to leadership in political life who have recognized the community-bound law of all human life in purest clarity and in the all-embracing extent of its validity and who will place all the powers of their personal lives with the help of a politically moral character in the service of the formation of community life ... ”

“ Horsfall, and so many other eminent civic workers among us; with our committee and its most organising of secretaries, might not a real impulse be given in this way by this Society towards civic education and action? ”

“ They were all based on the law that a sound and successful community, whether that community be a village, town or nation, rests in the final analysis on personal, individual responsibility which in the group makes a responsible government, that personal responsibility comes only from preparation, from execution as a result of preparation and from efficiency which is its synonym. ”

“ We have now, therefore, obtained a foundation for a twofold division of the merit which any set of political institutions can possess. It consists partly of the degree in which they promote the general mental advancement of the community, including under that phrase advancement in intellect, in virtue, and in practical activity and efficiency, and partly of the degree of perfection with which they organize the moral, intellectual, and active worth already existing, so as to operate with the greatest effect on public affairs. ”

“ They established a community and a government solidly founded on love of freedom and belief in progress, on civil liberty and religious toleration, on industrial cooperation and individual honesty and industry, on even-handed justice and a real equality before the laws, on peace and goodwill supported by protective force. ”

“ No doubt, however, our growing system of voluntary institutions—churches, philanthropic societies, fraternal orders, labor unions and the like—are training us in the habit of expressing ourselves through the check-book and other indirect agents. ”

“ But, it will be said, we are here again falling back on our unproved assumption that the state is an institution for the promotion of a common good. This granted, it is not difficult to make out that in most men at any rate there is a sufficient interest in some form of social well-being, sufficient understanding of the community between their own well-being and that of their neighbours, to make them loyal to such an institution. But the question is, whether the promotion of a common good, at any rate in any sense appreciable by the multitude, is any necessary characteristic of a state. ”

“ They have been enumerated as a democratic spirit and organization, a wide interest in community affairs, and a perennial care for the well-being of all the people. Public spirit is the reason for its existence, and the same public spirit is the only force that can keep the organization alive. Every community in this democratic country has its fortunes in its own hands. If it is so permeated with individualism or inertia that it cannot awake to its duties and its privileges, it will perish in accordance with the law of the survival of the fittest ”

“ Besides, the community has come clearly to feel within itself, and has clearly and forcibly expressed the same in word and deed, that it is the duty of the State so to provide for every individual member that he may become a perfected human being. ”

“ For we can say that the task of the political organization is to maintain the conditions of the good life, leaving the work of developing the meaning of the good life, the fostering and inculcation of ideals, to voluntary associations. The state will then maintain a certain minimum of moral behaviour, while the more delicate and freer work of inspiration is left to individuals and voluntary associations. ”

“ Though actively engaged with serious problems of State government, of city administration and of home economics, the association has never overlooked the fact that social activities are essential to good government and right living and has made its social affairs a noteworthy feature during the past years. ”

“ Ask we too the ages what they have done to develope the true theory of political organisation, to improve the mechanism of the social system, to impart practical wisdom to its ministrations, in order that the State may discharge its high duty to the citizen, for whose sake it exists, and whose allegiance it claims. ”