THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics. Vou. LXXXVIL— MARCH, 1901.— No. DXXI. — DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY. Tr is no longer possible to mistake the reaction against democracy. ‘The nine- teenth century was above all others a century of democracy; and yet the world is no more convinced of the bene- fits of democracy as a form of govern- ment at its end than it was at its begin- ning. The history of closeted Switzer- land has not been accepted as proving the stability of democratic institutions; the history of the United States has not been accepted as establishing their ten- dency to make governments just and liberal and pure. Their eccentric in- fluence in France, their disastrous and revolutionary operation in South Ameri- ca, their power to intoxicate and their powerlessness to reform, — except where the states which use them have had in their training and environment what Switzerland or the colonies and conimon- wealths sprung from England have had, to strengthen and steady them, — have generally been deemed to offset every tri- umph or success they can boast. When we praise democracy, we are still put to our proofs; when we excuse its errors, we are understood to have admitted its failure. There need be in this, however, no serious discouragement for us, whose democratic institutions have in all large things succeeded. It means nothing more than that the world is at last ready to accept the moral long ago drawn for it by de Tocqueville. He predicted the stability of the government of the United States, not because of its intrinsic ex- cellence, but because of its suitability to the particular social, economic, and po- litieal conditions of the people and the country for whose use and administra tion it had been framed ; because of the deliberation and sober sagacity with which it had been devised and set up; because it could reckon upon a sufficient “variety of information and excellence of discretion” on the part of the people who were to live under it to insure its in- telligent operation; because he observed a certain uniformity of civilization to obtain throughout the country, and saw its affairs steadied by their fortunate separation from European politics ; be- cause he found a sober, religious habit of thought among our people, and a clear sense of right. Democracy was with us, he perceived, already a thing of principle and custom and nature, and our instita- tions admirably expressed our training and experience. No other people could expect to succeed by the same means, unless those means equally suited their character and stage of development. De- mocracy, like every other form of gov- ernment, depended for its success upon qualities and conditions which it did not itself create, but only obeyed. Many excellent suggestions, valid and applicable everywhere, we have given the world, with regard to the spirit in which government should be conduct- ed. No doubt class privilege has been forever discredited because of our ex- ample. We have taught the world the Principle of the general welfare as the _290 object and end of government, rather than the prosperity of any class or sec- tion of the nation, or the preferment of any private or petty interest. We have made the law appear to all men an in- strument wherewith to secure equality of rights and a protection which shall be without respect of persons. There can be no misgivings about the curreney or the permanency of the principles of right which we have exalted. But we have not equally commended the forms Democracy and Efficiency. of happiness or of enlightened social or- der. As we grow older, we grow also perplexed and awkward in the doing of justice and in the perfecting and safe- guarding of liberty. It is character and good principle, after all, which are to save us, if we are to escape disaster. That moral is the justification of what we have attempted. It is for this'that we love democracy: for the emphasis it puts on character ; for its tendency to , exalt the purposes of the average man or the organization of the government } to some high level of endeavor ; for its under which we live. A federal union of diverse common- wealths we have indeed made to seem both practicable and efficient as a means of organizing government on a great seale, while preserving at the same time the utmost possible latitude and inde- pendence in local self-government. Ger- many, Canada, Australia, Switzerland herself, have built and strengthened their constitutions in large part upon our modél. It would be hard to exag- gerate the shock which has been given to old theories, or the impetus which has been given to hopeful experiment, in the field of political action, by our conspicu- ous successes as constitution-makers and reformers. But those successes have not been unlimited. We have not escaped the laws of error that government is heir to. It is said that riots and disor- ders are more frequent amongst us than in any other country of the same degree of civilization; justice is not always done in our courts; our institutions do not prevent, they do not seem even to moderate, contests between capital and labor; our laws of property are no more equitable, our laws of marriage no more moralizing, than those of undemocratic nations, our contemporaries; our cities are perhaps worse governed than any in Enrope outside the Turkish Empire and Spain; crime defies or evades the law amongst us as amongst other peoples, less favored in matters of freedom and privilege; we have no monopoly either just principle of common assent in mat- ters in which all are concerned ; for its ideals of duty and its sense of brother- hood. Its forms and institutions are meant to be subservient to these things. Democracy is merely the most radical form of “constitutional ” government. A “constitutional” government is one in which there is a definite understanding as to the sphere and powers of govern- ment; one in which individual liberty is defined and guaranteed by specific safeguards, in which the authority and the functions of those who rule are lim- ited and determined by unmistakable custom or explicit fundamental law. It is a government in which these under- standings are kept up, alike in the mak- ing and in the execution of laws, by fre- quent conferences between those who govern and those who are governed. ‘This is the purpose of representation : stated conference and a cordial agree- ment between those who govern and those who are governed. ‘The process of the understanding is discussion, — public and continuous, and conducted by those who stand in the midst of affairs, at the official centre and seat of management, where affairs can be looked into and dis- posed with full knowledge and authority 5 those intrusted with government being present in person, the people by deputy. Representative government has had its long life and excellent development, not in order that common opinion, the opinion of the street, might prevail, butDemocracy and Hffciency. in order that the best opinion, the opin- ion generated by the best possible meth- ods of general counsel, might rule in affairs; in order that some sober and best opinion might be created, by thought- ful and responsible discussion conducted by men intimately informed concerning the public weal, and officially commis- sioned to look to its safeguarding and advancement, — by discussion in parlia- ments, discussion face to face between authoritative critics and responsible min- isters of state. This is the central object to which we have devoted our acknowledged genius for practical polities. During the first half century of our national life we seemed to have succeeded in an extraor- dinary degree in approaching our ideal, in organizing a nation for counsel and codperation, and in moving forward with cordial unison and with confident and buoyant step toward the accomplishment of tasks and duties upon which all were agreed. Our later life has disclosed se- rious flaws, has even seemed ominous of pitiful failure, in some of the things we most prided ourselves upon having man- aged well: notably, in pure and efficient local government, in the successful or- ganization of great cities, and in well- considered schemes of administration. The boss—a man elected by no votes, preferred by no open process of choice, occupying no office of responsibility — makes himself a veritable tyrant amongst us, and seems to cheat us of self-gov- ernment ; parties appear to hamper the movements of opinion rather than to give them form and means of expres- sion ; multitadinous voices of agitation, an infinite play of forces at eross-pur- Pose, confuse us; and there seems to be no common counsel or definite union for action, after all. ‘We keep heart the while because still sure of our principles and of our ideal: the common weal, a common and cordial understanding in matters of government, secure private rights and yet concerted 291 public action, a strong government and yet liberty also. We know what we have to do; what we have missed and mean to find; what we have lost and mean to recover; what we still strive after und mean to achieve, Democracy is a principle with us, not a mere form4 of government. What we have blan- dered at is its new applications and de- tails, its successful combination with efficiency and purity in governmental action. We tell ourselves that our par- tial failure in these things has been due to our absorption in the tasks of mate- rial growth; that our practical genius has spent itself upon wealth and the or- ganization of industry. But it is to be suspected that there are other elements in the singular fact. We have supposed that there could be one way of efficiency for democratic governments, and another for monarchical. We have declined to provide ourselves with a professional civil service, because we deemed it un- demoeratic; we have made shift to do without a trained diplomatic and consu- lar service, because we thought the train- ing given by other governments to their foreign agents unnecessary in the case of affairs so simple and unsophisticated as the foreign relations of a democracy in polities and trade, — transactions so frank, so open, so straightforward, in- terests so free from all touch of chicane or indirection; we have hesitated to put our presidents or governors or mayors into direct and responsible relations of leadership with our legislatures and councils in the making of laws and or- dinances, because such a connection be- tween lawmakers and executive officers seemed inconsistent with the theory of checks and balances whose realization in practice we understood Montesquien to have proved ‘essential to the mainte- nance of a free government. Our the- ory, in short, has paid as little heed to efficiency as our practice. It has been a theory of non-professionalism in public affairs; and in many great matters of