Political influence

“ Our government differs from the governments of Europe both in principle and form, but the governmental influence is only one of many influences which unite to mould social habits. The democratic principle, adopted as the foundation of our political institutions, has not served to counteract the tendency to the formation of social class distinctions. ”

“ But the distinction is nevertheless real, because this is only one of the means by which political institutions improve or deteriorate the human mind, and the causes and modes of that beneficial or injurious influence remain a distinct and much wider subject of study. ”

“ A VERY small number of books on political and social subjects have exerted a profound and continuous influence both upon the development of thought and upon the determination of the policies adopted regarding public questions. ”

“ I think it can be said without exaggeration that there has never been in the history of this Republic a political movement in which the purely moral motive was so strong—indeed, so dominant and decisive. ”

“ If, in connection with these solid foundations for a natural religion, we add the important fact, that this is a republic, in which the wish of the majority, should become the law of the mass; we shall discover that politics become the natural channel, through which the wishes of the majority are expressed; that corrupt politics, result in bad government; that pure politics, insure good government; that a wise, just government, is the greatest political benefit which can be conferred on the people governed. ”

“ New and Old Conceptions of Government.—To draw such a distinction between Government and people as if two separate spheres of power, a stronger and higher, and a weaker and lower, negotiated and came to terms with each other, is a remnant of transmitted political sentiment, which still accurately represents the historic establishment of the conditions of power in most States. ”

“ 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? ”

“ A popular government of this extent, it was evident, could be framed only by carrying into full effect the principle of representation or of delegated power; and the world was to see whether society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain its own peace and good government, carry forward its own great interests, and conduct itself to political renown and glory. ”

“ There are economic and sociological causes for our political vitality and vigor, for the ease and elasticity of our social relations, and for our industrial power and success. Those causes have also produced democracy, given it success, and have made its faults and errors innocuous. ”

“ Since a nation derives its ideas and instincts of [Pg 244] government, as much as its temperament and its language, from God, acting through the influences of nature and of history, these ideas and instincts are originally and essentially peculiar to it, and not separable from it; they have no practical value in themselves when divided from the capacity which corresponds to them. National qualities are the incarnations of political ideas. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He concluded by saying, “I am convinced that, if this country be governed by enlarged and liberal counsels, its power and might will spread and increase, and its influence become greater and greater; liberal principles will prevail, civilisation will be spread to all parts of the globe, and you will bless millions by your acts and mankind by your union.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now you have shown to me the means by which you deem it possible that government might become no longer odious to the subject; you have shown how man may be induced to obey. But there are duties and interests for man beyond political obedience, and social comfort, and national greatness, higher interests and greater duties. ”

“ The objects to which our faculties are applied have a necessary influence over our minds. How diminutive, nay, pitiful, those appear which now engross public attention and for which parties contend, when compared with those for which the founders of the republic staked their fortunes and their lives!—the creation of a great independent nation and the organization of a national yet restricted government. ”

“ Just how great must be the advance of society and just what must be the character of the advance, preliminary to its advantageously assuming the autonomous—republican—form of political organisation, must be admitted to be an open question. ”

“ Thus the furious interest, which the good American took in getting himself and his associates elected, could be justified by reasons founded on the essential nature of the traditional political system. ”

“ Add to these obstacles the fierce partisan feeling engendered by the circumstances of the time and country—fears of aristocratic influences on the one hand, and sectional intrigues on the other, and we can easily perceive that the first duty of the enlightened and patriotic was to clear away prejudices, explain principles, advocate cardinal political truths, and lift the whole subject out of the dense region of faction and into the calm and clear sphere of reason and truth. ”

“ Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government, causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused, and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aims at becoming the government. ”

“ Such a task, sometimes small in its details, but difficult and grand in its comprehensiveness, required that creative, organizing, building kind of statesmanship, which to large and enlightened views of the aims and ends of political organization and of the wants of society must add a practical knowledge of details, a skilful handling of existing material, a just understanding of causes and effects, the ability to compose distracting conflicts and to bring the social forces into fruitful coöperation. ”

“ They could not conceal that these are owing, not merely to physical and local, but also to moral causes--to the political liberty, the general diffusion of knowledge, the prevalence of sound, moral, and religious principles, which give force and sustained energy to the character of a people, and which in fact, have been the acknowledged and wonderful supporters of their own national power and glory. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We should, therefore, recognise what is here suggested, and should counter-balance an undue regard for political movements and political power by the remembrance that the hardest tasks of all are accomplished by quite another power, and by a power which the politician often overlooks. ”

“ And, seeing this, we shall infer that the emotion excited in men by embodied political power must now, and for a long-time to come, be a great obstacle to the formation of rational sociological conceptions—tending, as it must ever do, to exaggerate the importance of the political factor in comparison with other factors. ”

“ After twenty five years of political tempests, the moment has arrived when every thing wise and sublime that has been conceived respecting social institutions may be perfected in yours. Let reason and genius speak, and from whatever side their voices may proceed, they shall be heard. ”

“ Before, the patriot, unless sufficiently advanced in culture to feel the world his country, wished all countries weak, poor, and ill-governed, but his own: he now sees in their wealth and progress a direct source of wealth and progress to his own country. ”

“ But not until recently have we been able to see the full effects of thus sending men to legislate for us at capitals distant the breadth of a continent. It makes the leaders of our politics, many of them, mere names to our consciousness instead of real persons whom we have seen and heard, and whom we know. ”

“ The desirable democratic object, implied in the traditional democratic demand for equality, consists precisely in that of bestowing a share of the responsibility and the benefits, derived from political and economic association, upon the whole community. ”

“ The men of large influence, some contending for the just equality of the democratical, and others for the fair decorum of aristocratical government, by artful sounds, embarrassed those communities, for their own private lucre, by the keenest spirit, the most daring projects, and most dreadful machinations. ”

“ But moral, political, intellectual improvement are duties assigned by the Author of Our Existence to social no less than to individual man.
For the fulfillment of those duties governments are invested with power, and to the attainment of the end--the progressive improvement of the condition of the governed--the exercise of delegated powers is a duty as sacred and indispensable as the usurpation of powers not granted is criminal and odious. ”

“ Their work has a broad human interest which extends far beyond the borders of America, since they stand for two radically different conceptions of life, one aristocratic, the other democratic, which appear in every age and explain the political and social divisions among free peoples. ”

“ These are the vital forces that work beneath the surface and dominate the external form. It is to changes in the economic and social life of a people that we must look for the forces, that ultimately create and modify organs of political action. ”

“ No other method has yet been discovered by which effectively to express political opinion, to secure stability in governmental administration and policies, and to effectuate the real and permanent judgment of the people and promote their best interests. ”

“ The principles I am enquiring into, regard the cool administration of their government; it belongs to another branch of politics, to contrive bulwarks against their passions, vices and weaknesses, as men. ”

“ In this, the first decade of the twentieth century, we find new conditions confronting the people called by many in the political sense, “Progressive.” There are many conditions in both the commercial and political orders of the time which are deemed by the leaders to need a change. ”

“ Such samples of the character which political questions have hitherto borne in this country are sufficient to remind all readers of our history of what have been the chief features of our politics, and may serve, without further elaboration, to illustrate the point I wish to emphasize. It is manifest how such a course of politics would affect statesmanship and political leadership. ”

“ The Growth of Radicalism.—Two working principles have hitherto furnished the basis for political and economic organizations in such countries as the United States, Great Britain, and France. |Democracy and individualism.| Democracy, by which we mean the control of government by the whole people, acting chiefly through their representatives, has been the accepted basis of political institutions. ”

“ In the older countries of which I speak, political power and social recognition are supposed to emanate from some autocratic source, and the effort and ambition of all naturally look toward that source, and, knowing none other, feel a personal interest in maintaining its ascendency, the statu quo. In our own broad land, power and light have no such inevitable abiding-place, but may emanate from an endless variety of points and personalities. ”

“ Second, the immensity of our territory and the great diversity of interests and issues in the forefront of public attention in one section and another. Seldom, if ever, have the conditions which might have solidified any class been sufficiently widespread or synchronous to serve the purpose of united political sentiment or action. ”

“ The views of those who looked mainly to the highest development of political life in a single small society, have to be modified if the object sought for is the extension of political life to the largest number of people. ”

“ The gradual transfer of political power from groups and limited classes to the community, and the constant seething of the public mind, in fermentation upon a vast mass of moral and social, as well as merely political, interests, offer conditions of action, in which it is evident that the statesman, in order to preserve the same amount of consistency as his antecessors in other times, must be gifted with a far larger range of foresight. ”

“ NATIONALITY AND HUMANITY
I have discussed, in the three preceding chapters, the probable effect of certain existing intellectual tendencies on our ideals of political conduct, our systems of representation, and the methods which we adopt for securing intellectual initiative and efficiency among our professional officials—that is to say, on the internal organisation of the State. ”

“ The moral view of politics teaches us to hold the idea of country superior to the utilities of party, to exact worthiness of public servants, and to place the common good above the interests of particular classes. ”