The Library of Conservative Thought Russell Kirk, Series Editor

Burke Street, by George Scott-Moncrieff. THE PHANTOM PUBLIC The Gase for Conservatism, by Francis Graham Wilson. Collected Letters ofJohn Randolph to John Brockenbrough, 1812-1833, edited by Kenneth Shorey. A Critical Examination of Socialism, by William Hurrell Mallock. EdmundBurke: Appraisals andApplications, WALTER LIPPMANN edited by Daniel E. Ritchie. Edmund Burke: The Enlightenment and Revolution, by Peter J. Stanlis. The Essential Calhoun, by John C. Calhoun, edited by Clyde N. Wilson. The God of the Machine, by Isabel Paterson. With a New Introduction A Historian and His World, A Life of Christopher Dawson 1889-1970, by Wilfred M. McClay by Christina Scott. I Chose Freedom, by Victor A. Kravchenko. I Chose Justice, by Victor A. Kravchenko. On Divorc-e, by Louis de Bonald. Orestes Brownson: Selected Political Essays, edited by Russell Kirk. The Phantom Public, by Walter Lippmann. GI l,e Politics of the Center, Juste Milieu in Theory and Practice, France and Transaction Publishers England, 1815-1848, by Vincent E. Starzinger. New Brunswick (U.S.A.) and London (U.K.) Regionalism and Nationalism in the United States, by Donald Davidson. The Social Crisis of Our Time, by Wilhelm Roepke. Copyright © 1993 by Transaetion Publishers, New Bruns­ wiek, New Jersey 08903. Originally published in 1927 by The Maemillan Company. All rights reserved under International and Pan-Ameriean Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be repro­ dueed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronie or mechanieal, including photocopy, reeording, or any infor­ TO mation storage and retrleval system, without prior permission LEARNED HAND in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be ad­ dressed to Transaetion Publishers, Rutgers-The State Uni­ versity, New Btunswiek, New Jersey 08903. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 92-41593 ISBN: 1-56000-677-3 Printed in the United States of Ameriea '- .. '" Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publieation Data Lippmann, Walter, 1889-1974 The phantom public I Walter Lippman ; with a new intro­ duction by Wilfred M. McClay p. cm. - (Library of conservative thought) Originally published: New York: Macmillan Co., 1927 Includes bibliographical referenees and index. ISBN 1-56000-677-3 1. Public opinion. 2. Political seienee. I. Title. 11. Series. HM261.L74 1993 303.3 '8-dc20 92-41593 CIP "The roiee of the People has been said to be the rJoiee of God: and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in faet."-Alexander Hamilton, June 18, 1787, at the Federal Con­ vention (Yates's notes, cited Sourees and Doeuments Illu,strating the Ameriean Revolution, edited by S. G. Morison).

". • • eonsider 'Government by Public Opinion' as a formula. It is an admirable formula: but it presupposes, not only that publie opinion exists, but that on any partieular question there is a publie opinion ready to deeide the issue. 1ndeed, it presupposes that the su­ preme stati!sman in demoeratic government is public opinion. Many of the shorteomings of demoeratie government are due to the fact that public opinion is not necessarily a great statesman at all."-From "Some Thoughts on Public Life," a lecture by Viscount Grey of Fallodon, February 3, 1923. . CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION ...... XI

PART I CHAPTER PAGE I. THE DISENCHANTED MAN ...... 3 II. THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL ...... 12 III. AGENTS AND BYSTANDERS ...... 30 IV. WHAT THE PUBLIC DOES ...... 44 V. THE NEUTRALIZATION OF ARBITRARY FORCE ...... 53

PART II VI. THE QUESTION AruSTOTLE ASKED ...... 67 VII. THE NATURE OF A PROBLEM ...... 71 VIII. SOCIAL CONTRACTS ...... 85 ' ,.'" IX. THE Two QUESTIONS BEFORE THE PUBLIC ...... 97 X. THE MAIN V ALUE OF PUBLIC DEBATE ...... 100 XI. THE DEFECTIVE RULE ...... 105 XII. THE CRITERIA OF REFORM ...... 115 XIII. THE PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC OPINION ...... 133

PARTIlI XIV. SOCIETY IN ITS PLACE ...... 145 XV. ABSENTEE RULERS ...... 163 XVI. THE REALMS OF DISORDER ...... 177 INDEX ...... 191 INTRODUCTIONTO THE TRANSACTION EDITION

IN THE nearly two decades since his death in 1974, Walter Lippmann and his works can hardly be said to have suffered an eclipse or a fall into obscurity. On the contrary; a fairly wide selection of that master journalist's book-Iength studies have continued in print, ranging from his early Progressive mani­ festo, Drift and Mastery (1914) and his crit­ ical understanding of the dilemmas of information dissemination in a modern de­ mocracy, Public Opinion (1922), to his later attempt to articulate and counteract the maladies of democracyin The Public Philos­ ophy (1955), aH readily available in inexpen­ sive editions, still widely read and respected in a variety of fields. In addition, the publi­ cation of Ronald Steel's well-received 1980 biography of Lippmann and John Morton Blum's selection of Lippmann's correspon­ dence have further stimulated and sus- xi xii THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xiii tained interest in Lippmann and his oeuvre, conversation-stopper. Even if Francis as have the important and thoughtful recent Fukuyama is right in asserting that all the intellectual biographies of his contemporar­ ideological alternatives to liberal democracy ies Reinhold Niebuhr and John Dewey, with in our time have been exhausted-and that whose careers Lippmann's intersected im­ is surely a temporary state of affairs, at portantly.l most-an awareness of the pathologies of Given such interest, Transaction's wel­ democracy suggests a continuing need for come decision to bring back into print many frequent and sustained democratic self-crit­ of Lippmann's distinguished works reflects icism.2 Although the gloomy and demythol­ a more general intellectual engagement ogized view of democracy found in The Phan­ with his work that is not likely to slacken tom Public is hardly likely to convert anytime soon. Indeed, there is good reason mainstream public opinion-such a develop­ to think that Lippmann's work may come to ment being unlikely virtually by defini­ be seen as more, rather than less, important tion-it preserves a serious and distinctive and influential in the years to come. As intellectual option, one that is not without Americans continue to struggle with the considerable sympathetic resonances and prospects and problems of their experiment precursors in the American past. As the his­ in mass democracy, Lippmann's fearless torian Daniel Walker Howe has pointed out, criticism of modern American democracy Lippmann may be seen in many respects as may serve as an increasingly valuable intel­ standing squarely in the intellectual tradi­ lectual touchstone in contemporary debate, tion of the American Whigs.3 And the first where the disparaging term "elitist" has too epigraph of The Phantom Public, which rid­ often served as the ultimate trump card and icules the adage \UX populi, vox dei, suggests xiv THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xv an even more influential intellectual pro­ cal acuity and complete eschewal of moral venance: the antidemocratic skepticism of posturing should forestall any dismissive Alexander Hamilton, and the antidemotic charge against him of self-interested elit­ fears of so many of the continental-minded ism, moss-backed crankishness, or crypto­ men who drafted and campaigned for the legitimism. As those who have read Public D.S. Constitution.4 Opinion can attest, Lippmann's discussion Such historical continuity is not in itself a of stereotypes and propaganda in the mod­ sufficient argument for Lippmann's import­ ern mass-communications media, written at ance. But the astonishing contemporary rel­ a time when radio was in its infancy and evance of much of his work iso Sentences and television little more than a pipedream, has paragraphs out of The Phantom Public could hardly been improved upon by seven be lifted, unchanged, out oftheircontext and decades' worth of subsequent writers, a ver­ be republished on the editorial pages of one itable army of scribblers which had the ad­ of today's great American newspapers, vantage of observing those media in fuH where they might weIl win a Pulitzer for the operation. plagiarist intrepid enough to appropriate The Phantom Public is arguably an even them. (For instance, the book's first nine more valuable text, precisely because it was pages, which comprise a chapter entitled perhaps the clearest, pithiest, and most fuU­ "The Disenchanted Man," can easily be throated expression of Lippmann's crystal­ mined for observations that seem to speak lizing skepticism. Perhaps it was for that directly to the discontent, and non-voting very reason that The Phantom Public disap­ behavior, of the American electorate circa peared from print so rapidly, and has re­ 1992.) Moreover, Lippmann's cool, analyti- mained so until now. Though it was accept- xvi THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xvii able, and even amusing, for a semicomic had caused him to"overstate his case"; and literary virtuoso like H.L. Mencken to the New Statesman casually dismissed the mouth disdain for democracy and public book as "disappointing."6 But such reviews opinion, such opinions were quite another were hardly the norm, and it is therefore matter coming from a man of Lippmann's hard to credit Ronald Steel's characteriza­ reputed probity and wide influence. Lipp­ tion of The Phantom Public's reception as mann himself came to suspect, before publi­ overwhelmingly negative (though his as­ cation, that an untoward fate might lie in sessment of the book's virtues seems more store for the book. Although he had written on target): it as a shorter and more popularly aimed sequel to Public Opinion, which had enjoyed The [book's] argument, for all its bleak­ considerable intellectual and popular suc­ ness, deserved a better hearing than it got. cess, Lippmann worried that the more ... [M]ost reviewers were disheartenedby its seeming pessimism. The Phantom pointed and damning argument of The Public soon went out of print, and in the Phantom Public would get him in trouble, years since has been virtually forgotten. and even see him "put on trial for heresy by This neglect is unfortunate, for it is one of my old friends on The New Republic."6 Lippmann's most powerfully argued and Few of these immediate apprehensions revealing books. In it he came fully to were realized. True, a handful of the book's terms with the inadequacy of traditional reviewers suggested that Lippmann had in­ democratic theory.7 deed transgressed the limits of acceptable sentiment. The New York Times's reviewer Indeed, no better testimony to the power and claimed Lippmann's "sweeping indictment" importance of The Phantom Public can be found than the seriousness and admiration xviii THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xix with which it was read (and reviewed in the The influential Senator William E. Borah, pages of the New Republic) by John Dewey, writing in the New York World, went so far who was so stimulated by it that he went on as to call it "one of those rare books which to write one of his most ringing and durable startles one into a realization ofhow stupen­ defenses of democracy, The Public and Its dous is the task before us as a people if we Problems (1927), as an attempt at rebutta1.8 are to carry to a successful conclusion the As it turns out, many of the contemporary work initiated in 1789."9 Given this degree reviews of The Phantom Public were un­ of favorable reception, the mystery of The qualified raves, quite as favorable as Steel's Phantom Public's phantom-like disappear­ retrospective one. Harold Lasswell en­ ance from public sight seems even harder to thused overits "cogent and spirited quali­ fathom. Perhaps the only plausible answer ties." Another review er called it "a is the most obvious one: that the challenges champiori's performance" by a "dynamiter of it poses, and the implications of those fallacious doctrines of government and ex­ challenges for the conduct of practical poli­ ploder of specious political arguments." Yet tics, have proved too unpleasant or difficult another proclaimed that for even its most ardent admirers-or at any rate those less well-equipped than John The Phantom Public, like Public Opinion, Dewey-to face in a sustained manner. will become one of the modern classics of It is not coincidental, then, that the debate American political thought. And it is a with Dewey provides us a useful point of book that will be read and reread for pure delight in its rare literary quality. departure in exploring Lippmann's aims in writing The Phantom Public. No concept, after all, had been more central to the Pro- xx THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xxi gressive vision of social reform than that of ened to corrupt the great American experi­ "the public"; the efforts to tame special inter­ ment in political democracy.l0 ests which so often animated Progressive "Disinterestedness" stood for a contrast­ reform were always undertaken in the name ing vision of hope, of common subjection to of "the public interest," and it was generally the rule of the common good: an unsullied assumed that such a thing as the "public" ideal of theoretical and practical expertise, existed, and that its "interest" could be as­ to be administered conscientiously, imparti­ certained. Indeed, the term "disinterested," ally, and selflessly by an enlightened "new which is, significantly, so frequently misun­ middle class" trained in the burgeoning new derstood and misused in our own time, car­ research universities. In such places, this ried a powerfully ethical, indeed almost re­ new knowledge class would be versed in the ligious, weight in Progressive social scientific and action-oriented knowledge thought-for no word was freighted with needed to produce a just and rationally or­ greater negative import in the vocabulary of dered public realm. Such a new middle class Progressivism than the noun "Interests." A would not be imprisoned by the short­ favorite term of abuse for muckraking jour­ sighted pursuit of self-interest, or the false nalists, "the Interests" not only stood for the individualism of classical-liberal economics; specific venality of Standard on and the it would instead be bound by the self-regu­ other "trusts," or for other self-interested lating and rational autonomy of professional groups. In a deeper sense it came to stand organizations, and the uncorrupted social for the pernicious values of individualism, altruism ofthose trained to identify the pub­ particularism, self-seeking, and growing so­ lic interest and pursue the common weal. cial inequality: for everything that threat- xxii THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xxiii The ideal of seience was no less crueial to ity to reveal that interest, but the authority Lippmann than to Dewey. But Dewey to show the eitizen how the public interest trusted that the inherent democracy of sei­ was also his own. ence-since seience was by its very nature Lippmann had held to such views when a no respecter of persons or of untestable younger man. No one had written a more sources of authority-would make it emi­ eloquent brief for the seientific ideal as a nently compatible with democracy; indeed, basis for cultural authority in a post-reli­ the only form of authority ultimately so com­ gious democratic era than Lippmann's Drift patible.ll The key link between science and and Mastery (1914), a book whose title democracy in the Deweyan scheme was the nouns became transformed into bywords for concept of the "public" as an ideal point of the stark dilemmas faeing the era.12 But convergence and interaction. Without the Lippmann's restless intelligence, always distinctive assumption of a "public interest," alert to the flow of events, had quickly which could be articulated through institu­ moved beyond the confines of its youthful tions of political democracy and clarified productions. And in the wake of the First through the disinterested resources of seien­ World War's many disappointments for Pro­ tific intelligence, the essential moral core of gressives, particularly the Wilson Admin­ the Progressive strain of political and soeial istration's heavyhanded use of domestic pro­ thought would collapse. There had to be paganda and curtailment of civilliberties to something called apublic, and it had to have impose univocal public support for the war an identifiable interest, distinguishable effort, his view of democratic governance from that of any of its constituent elements. and its connection with the ethos of seience Social seience not only possessed the capac- changed dramatically. In Public Opinion he xxiv THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xxv argued that, because citizens in a modern likely that he was in part describing himself, mass democracy made decisions strictly on and declaring his own somewhat jaundiced the basis of media-generated stereotypes, "farewell to reform": experts would have to be brought into the process, to control and adjust the flow of For when the private man has lived information to the public in order to keep the through the romantic age in politics and "pictures in their heads" in line with reali­ is no longer moved by the stale echoes of its hot cries, when he is sober and unim­ ties that only an expert few could properly pressed, his own part in public affairs 13 understand. The domestic wartime propa­ appears to him a pretentious thing, a sec­ ganda emanating from the Creel Committee ond rate, an inconsequential. You cannot had taught Lippmann how frighteningly move him then with a good straight talk plastic and manipulable public opinion was. about service and civic duty, nor by wav­ The only sensible solution to the problem ing a flag in his face, nor by sending a boy was to attempt to assert rational mastery scout after him to make him vote. He is a man back home from a crusade to make over it. the world something or other it did not But by 1925 Lippmann's doubts had deep­ become; he has been tantalized too often ened considerably. The opening pages of The by the foam of events, has seen the gas go Phantom Public even echo some ofthe quint­ out ofit.14 essential gestures ofTwenties postwar intel­ lectual disillusionment, a la Hemingway But more than his mood had changed in and Fitzgerald. He depicted the un­ The Phantom Public; so too had his substan­ illusioned reconsiderations of the "disen­ tive concerns about the limitations of democ­ chanted man" in terms so vivid that it seems racy. Not only was it inconceivable to him xxvi THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xxvii that the average voter was capable of gover­ ism. It was addressed to the very core of nance-such being the untenable demo­ Progressive politics, and by extension to any cratic myth of what Lippmann called "the conception of politics that was holistic and sovereign and omnicompetent citizen"-but systemic, that spoke in the false terminology it now seemed to him that there was really of a "body politic," and sought to coordinate no such thing as the public.15 What was political decision-making according to a called the public was merely a "phantom"; to model of an operating whole. In this new the extent that there was a genuine and post-Progressive realist and pluralist dis­ effective public, it was to be defined ad hoe, pensation, men were situationally and operationally, simply as "those persons who are interested in an af­ denied the fraudulent support of the fic­ fair." As for the grand claims of expertise, on tion that they are agents of a common whose behalf Lippmann had formerly spo­ purpose. They are regarded as agents of ken with such conviction, these too began to special purposes, without pretense and without embarrassment. They must live be' severely circumscribed; the important in a world with men who have other spe­ distinction was not that between experts cial purposes. The adjustments which and amateurs, but that between "insiders" must be made are society.... When men and "outsiders," those with firsthand knowl­ take a position in respect to the purposes edge in a partieular affair or circumstance, of others they are acting as a public.16 and those without such knowledge. Lippmann's assault was directed, both Generally, the central problem for deci­ here and in Publie Opinion, towards more sion-making in a democratic society had than mere naive democratic sentimental- been understood as that of finding a way to keep the citizenry informed, so that they xxviii THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xxix could correctly assess and address the issues cal faHacy of democracy," and a false, perni­ facing a complex and interconnected modern cious, and disenchanting one at that.19 society. But Lippmann held out little hope Had he taken a position no further than forthis standard bromide of civics textbooks; this, Lippmann might weH have earned dis­ any such "appeal to education as the remedy missal as an elitist. But he had a good deal for the incompetence of democracy," he as­ more to say. If the common man was not, serted, is "barren."17 The Poloniuses who contra the American democratic tradition authored such tomes seemed unaware that from Jefferson to Bryan, a font of untutored even under the best of conditions, "the citi­ wisdom competent to decide an things, or at zen gives but a little of his time to public least educable to that station, then neither, affairs, has but a casual interest in facts and Lippmann asserted, was the expert. The but a poor appetite for theory." And the modern interconnected world, the Great So­ eager-beaver citizen who attempts earnestly ciety, was far too complex to be compre­ to look to aH his prescribed duties, from the hended by anyone, even by experts.20 For upkeep of a subway in Brooklyn to the rights expertise was only authoritative in relation of Britain in the Sudan, wiH end up "as to some particular subject or task-and no bewildered as a puppy trying to liek three more. Efforts at a comprehensive under­ bones at once," for he "cannot know aH about standing of, and coordination of, polity and everything aH the time, and while he is economy could never move much beyond the watching one thing a thousand others un­ condition of the proverbial blind men exam­ dergo great changes. "18 Such omnicompe­ ining the elephant; their local and special tence was an unattainable ideal, the "mysti- knowledge could not be reliably extrapo­ lated or transferred to a comprehensive xxx THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xxxi map, a structural whole. "The work of the ment" was distinct from "the will of the world is can-ied on," he explained, people." The latter is itself merely a reifica­ tion ofthe particular decisions that, for pru­ by men in their executive capacity, by an dential reasons of orderly governance, infinite number of concrete acts, plowing needed to be put to the people collectively for and planting and reaping, building and adjudication. The public does not, properly destroying, fitting this to that, going /rom here to there, transforming A into Band speaking, express its opinion; it merely moving B from X to Y. aligns itself for or against a person or prop­ osition. The people do not govern; they Such work is regulated by"a most intricate merely "support or oppose the individuals mechanismof exchange, of contract, of cus­ who actually govern." The "popular will" tom and of implied promises," all of them only intervenes occasionally, to counteract highly particular in nature. To allow any willful and arbitrary force through its align­ single authority to attempt the governance ment choices. of all these matters was extremely ill-ad­ The principal positive use of public opin­ vised. ion then, he believed, was in times of crisis­ But to turn such authority over to public a reflection which suggests how fundamen - opinion was an even worse mistake, ensur­ tally conservative were his expectations for ing either abject failure or complete tyr­ public opinion's radically stripped-down anny.21 There was a simple reason for this: role. Public opinion would "align men during the sovereignty of the people was a pure the crisis of a problem in such a way as to fiction. Standard democratic theory refused favor the action of those individuals who to recognize that "the functioning of govern- may be able to compose the crisis."22 Clearly, xxxii THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xxxiii abstract questions of justice, legitimacy, ul­ pluralism" as the inescapable condition timate values, and so on, did not figure into placed upon all future modern political and this formula in the slightest; it was an equi­ economic speculation.24 The political librist vision of a polity composed of count­ thinker, he declared, should "no longer ex­ less competing pieces, and the purpose of pect to find a unity which absorbs diversity," governance was to sustain the highest pos­ but instead, rather than "looking for identity sible level of order and peace. Order and of purposes" should settle for "an accommo­ legitimacy were virtually exchangable dation of purposes."26 terms. Public opinion was useful merely as Such contentions show how fully Lipp­ a final court of appeal, useful at those times mann participated in the demystifying anti­ when government exhausted its ability to formalism of the generation of Charles resolve a conflict and avert ongoing social or Beard, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thorstein political discord. (Even an election, Lipp­ Veblen, and John Dewey.26 His notions of mann asserted, was nothing more than a rights and duties, for example, were sublimated form of civil war, its Holmesian and "realistic": a right was "a majoritarianism a close cousin to the use of promise that a certain kind of behavior will brute force.) The telos of modern politics is be backed by the organized force of the the achievement of a workable modus vi­ state"; a duty was "a promise that failure to vendi among competitive interests, since respect the rights of others in a certain way premodern (and Progressive) notions of a will be punished." Persistent beliefs that bridge between man's environment and his these things needed grounding in nature or (limited) political capacity no longer seem divine fiat were little more than "tiresome tenable.23 Lippmann instead posited a "deep illusions."27 But Lippmann pressed his anti- xxxiv THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xxxv formalist convictions into new telTitory, pry­ cratic promise that was at the heart of Amer­ ing the individual away from his social ma­ ican civil religion.29 It valiantly held to the trix. By mercilessly smashing the unitary belief that the public was no phantom, but Progressive notion of "the public" into its something quite real, though cUlTently "in multivalent constituent elements, Lipp­ eclipse." The chief problems of "the public" mann opened the way to a post-Progressive revolved around the CUlTent lack of shared conception of politics as a "realistic" process symbols ("intellectual instrumentalities for ofbrokering an openly interest-based plura­ the formation of an organized public," in lism, a politics with no higher conception of Deweyese) and inadequate communication the public interest than, as in the subtitle of of the "numerous, tough and subtle" bonds Harold Lasswell's 1936 book Politics, "who "which hold men together in action," gets what, when, and how"-or E.E. whether or not they are fully conscious of it. Schattschneider's dry observation that pub­ Without them, he conceded, "the public will lic policy was merely "the result of 'effective remain shadowy and formless, seeking spas­ demands' upon the government," or Thur­ modically for itself, but seizing and holding man Arnold's jaded conclusion that public its shadow rather than its substance." Until debate over matters of political principle or "the Great Society is converted into a Great value was little more than the play of useful Community," wrote Dewey, "the Public will mythologies and "magic words."28 remain in eclipse."30 Such a response to Dewey meant The Public andIts Problems Lippmann's skepticism, however, was far as a direct and respectful attempt to answer too abstract, even oddly idealistic in diction, Lippmann's mounting pessimism (and to dispose of the problem. In the same year, growing influence), and defend the demo- Lippmann would write that "the more or less xxxvi THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xxxvii unconscious and unplanned activities of partly by the relativism ofEinsteinian phys­ businessmen are for once more novel, more ics (Darwinism, which had been the source daring and in a sense more revolutionary, of Dewey's fundamental philosophical than the theories of the progressives. "31 Few method, was now, Lippmann asserted, "out­ more deliberately insulting rebukes to moded"), which presented man with a bewil­ Deweyan intelligence, or more defiant apos­ dering physical universe wholly incommen­ tasies from the faith of Herbert Croly and surable with his inner life; and partly The New Republic, could be imagined. through a growing awareness of science's The process begun in The Phantom Public inherent limitations.32 continued to unfold for the remainder of the On the latter point, Lippmann began with decade. By 1929, Lippmann's post-Progres­ Charles Peirce's work on the social construc­ sive reaction had deepened even further, tion of scientific truth, and then went on to and borne fruit in his Preface to Morals draw the devastating conclusion, training (1929), which became a best~seller and the antiformalist armory on science itself: Book-of-the-Month Club selection. That "When we say that something has been magisterial work echoed and restated the 'explained' by science, we really mean only great theme Lippmann had been building that our own curiosity is satisfied." As it upon for a decade and a half: the erosion of advances, we see that scientific explanation traditional forms of authority by the "acids "does not yield a certain picture of anything of modernity," and the difficulty of finding which can be taken naively as a representa­ substitutes for them. Even the cultural au­ tion ofreality," but only "provisional drama­ thority of science, so central to Dewey, had tizations which are soon dissolved by the been called into question for Lippmann: progress of science itself." Science was little r xxxviii THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xxxix more than a bag of elaborated and disci­ ness in fact was the still-living "core of high plined metaphors, applied variously to an religion," the "central insight ofthe teachers ungraspable reality. Therefore, he con­ ofwisdom" such as Jesus, Buddha, and Con­ cluded, a religionof "seientific materialism fueius. has nothing in it, except the pretensionthat Such disinterestedness was still present it is a true account of the world"; seientific in science; indeed, "pure seience is high reli­ explanations "cannot give men such a clue gion incarnate," and one of the greatest ser­ to the plan of existence as they find in pop­ vices of seience was its value as a school of ular religion."33 A prolegomenon to morals disinterestedness, which "matures the could begin by ruling out any scientific dis­ human character" and teaches us not to covery and testing of moral prineiples. Sei­ regard "our desires, tastes, and interests as ence, in a word, could not teIl us how to live. affording a key to the understanding of the All that was left, believed Lippmann, with world."35 The modern world had seemed to all other supports teetering, was a highly teach men that emaneipation from the old ascetic understanding of the prineiple of authorities meant they could at last pursue "disinterestedness" itself, attached to a doc­ their passions without restraint, and trine of "humanism" arising out of the phe­ thereby achieve happiness. But the lesson nomenology of human life, and directed to­ Lippmann drew was very different: we wards the purification and diseipline of the needed to learn to detach ourselves, not only individual will.34 The "ideal of disinterested­ from the tyranny of "public opinion," but ness," he asserted, is "inevitable in the mod­ from the force of our own desires. ern world"; for only it can "untangle the Disinterestedness, detachment, asceti­ moral confusion of the age." Disinterested- eism, diseipline, and disillusion; such then r

xl THEPHANTOMPUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xli were the guiding spirits of the Preface. Lipp­ Such heroic accents contrasted strikingly mann had indeed come a long way, by the with the anti-individualist, self-sacrificial, end of the twenties, from his days as a corporative ethos that writers from Edward habitue ofMabel Dodge's Greenwich Village Bellamy to Richard Ely to John Dewey had salon, an editor of Herbert Croly's New Re­ hoped a standard of the "public interest" public, an apostle of progressive Mastery, might promote.38 Not that notions of the and a believer in the malleability of human public interest or of a consolidated and uni­ nature. Indeed, Lippmann's ascetic ideal fied national community suddenly expired. sounded more reminiscent of Nietzsche's They lived on and comprised one of the in­ Zarathustra than of Progressive reformers tellectual strains in the tangled history of like Croly, who had also placed great stress the New Deal, visible, for example, in the upon the value of disinterestedness.36 But efforts ofthe National Recovery Administra­ Lippmann's disinterestedness now sub­ tion, or in the Civilian Conservation Corps, served a severely individual (and frankly or in President Franklin Roosevelt's fre­ elitist) worldview; it was"a mountain track quent invocation of the analogue of war­ which the many are likely in the future as fare-the ultimate unifying, self-transcend­ in the past to find cold, bleak, and bare." The ing clarion call.39 Such thoughts have ideal man must "take the world as it comes, continued to appear regularly in the rhetoric and within himself remain quite unper­ of American politicians; one thinks, for ex­ turbed.... He would face pain with forti­ ample, of President Jimmy Carter's 1979 tude, for he would have put it away from the "crisis of confidence" speech, in which he inner chambers of his soul. Fear would not warned that the nation had embraced "a haunt him. "37 mistaken idea of freedom" and was heading r xlii THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xliii down the path of "fragmentation and self-in­ have extended it quite so far as we have. In terest." Carter urged that Americans in­ that connection, it is perhaps revealing to stead "rebuild the unity and confidence of note that Lippmann himself changed intel­ America," because only by following the lectual course dramatically with the ap­ "path of common purpose" could we come proach of the Second World War, breaking into an experience of "true freedom. "40 ranks with his erstwhile realist allies and Yet it is perhaps an unanticipated legacy embracing, in The Good Society (1937) and ofworks like The Phantom Public, and more later The Public Philosophy (1955), the no­ generally of the "realist" approach to politi­ tion of a "higher" natural law as a bulwark cal analysis it exemplified and pioneered, of public morality. Like his contemporary that such appeals tocommon purpose have Reinhold Niebuhr, Lippmann came to feel fallen increasingly upon deaf ears in this that belief in the purely social and instru­ century, as Carter's case so conspicuously mental sources of truth and justice provided demonstrated. In a society that has increas­ no protection against the evil tendencies of ingly come to embrace deep pluralism as human groups, and no firewall of defense normative, and instinctively suspects any against the rise of would-be Übermenschen appeal to founding principles, common cul­ like Hitler.41 ture, and common purpose as asnare set by . But whatever else may be said about this would-be hegemonists, Lippmann's tough­ shift, it did not represent much of a change minded and unsparing analysis ofthe vagar­ in Lippmann's view of democracy. One ofthe ies of the concept of the "public" seem all too principal uses of a higher law, in his view, familiar and comfortable, even if one sus­ was precisely as a brake against the rash pects that Lippmann would probably never actions of popular majorities, such as those r xliv THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xlv that allowed Ritler to come to power. Lipp­ Notes

mann was willing to adapt and even sacrifice lRonald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century many of his cherished beliefs in the course (Boston, 1980); John Morton Blum, ed. Public Phil08opher: Se­ lected Letters of Walter Lippmann (New York, 1985); Richard of his life. But his skeptical view of popular Wightman Fox, Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography (New York, 1985); Robert B. Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Ith­ democracy was not one of them. Such stub­ aca, 1991); and Steven C. RockefeIler, John Dewey: ReligioUB Faith born "elitism" may be precisely why we and Democratic Humanism (New York, 1991). 2Fukuyama's book The End ofHistory and the Last Man (New ought to continue to read him in the years to York, 1992) is itself an effort in precisely such democratic self-crit­ come. In an era pervasively disgusted with icism. 3Daniel Walker Howe, The Political Culture of the American politicians, and entranced by public-opinion Whl,s (Chicago, 1979), 304. polling, initiatives, referenda, and the inter­ For the debate animating the Constitutionalists, see Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 active gadgetry of "direct democracy," the (Chapei Hili, 1969), 46~15; on Hamilton see Forrest McDonald, Alexander Hamilton: A Biography (New York, 1979). fundamental contention at the core of The 6Steel, Walter Lippmann, 212. Phantom Public remains as stubbornly and 6See New York 'limes, October 25, 1925; New Statesman, November 14, 1925. painfully relevant as ever: that "public opin­ 7 Steel, Walter Lippmann, 214. ion" does not, and simply cannot, rule a 8Dewey directly acknowledges the influence of The Phantom Public in the text of The Public and Its Problems (New York, 1927), nation or propound its policy, but may 116-17. 9Lasswell's review was in the American Journal of Sociology merely choose between alternatives pro­ 31 (January 1926), 533; others appeared in Literary Review, Feb­ pounded and proposed by competing elites. ruary 27, 1926, 5; Springfield Republican, November 15, 1925, 7; and New York World, November 8, 1925, 6. Advocates of direct democracy, and the dis­ lOThe superb chapter entitled "Interests," in Daniel Rodgers, Contested Troths: Keyword8 in American Politics Since Indepen­ gruntled American electorate, would do weIl dence (New York, 1987), 176-211. to ponder that assertion, even if they dis­ 11 See James Kloppenberg, Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American Thought, 1870- agree with it in the end. 1920 (New York, 1986), offers an excellent discussion of these matters; see especially 384. Wilfred M. McClay r xlvi THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION xlvii 12 David Hollinger, "Science and Anarchy: Walter Lippmann's see Edward A. Purcell, Jr., The Crisis of Demooratic Theory: Drift and Mastery" in In the American Province: Studies in the Scientific Naturalism and the Problem of Value (Lexington, KY, History and Historiography of ldeas (Baltimore, 1989), 44-55. 1973), esp. 95-114. ~!Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York, 1922). 29 Robert N. Bellah, "Civii Religion in America," Daedalus 96 16 Walter Lippmann, The Phantom Public (New York, 1925), 15. (Winter 1967), 1-21, is the classic text on this subject, though one lbid.,21. should also consult his laterwork The Broken Covenant (New York, 16 Ibid., 198 (myemphasis). 1975), and the work of his student Robert Wuthnow, particularly 17 Ibid.,26. The Restructuring of American Religion: Sooiety and Faith Since 18Ibid., 24-25. World War 11 (Princeton, 1988),242-57,283-96. It is extremely 19 Ibid.,38-39. relevant to note that Bellah's most recent work, his collaborative 2OLippmann's (and Dewey's) use of the term "Great Society" study The Good Sooiety (New York, 1991), which is a sequel to the should not be confused with the term's subsequent use by American enormously successful collaborative book Habits of the Heart President lNndon B. Johnson. Lippmann derived the term from a (Berkeley, 1985), relies explicitly and extensively upon The Public book ofthe same name by his friend Graham Wallas, which argued and Its Problems in making a case for a revivified public realm for the inevitable interconnectedness of modern technological and (and transcendence of interest-group politics) in contemporary commercial society, and the ravaged impotence of earlier forms of American life. Gemeinschaften, small-scale, premodern forms of assooiation. AB 3ODewey, The Public and Its Problems, 142. such, the term here has none of the moral grandeur Johnson 31 Walter Lippmann, Men of Destiny (New York, 1927), 228. imf:uted to it. 32 On Darwinism, see Walter Lippmann to Newton D. Baker, 1 Lippmann, The Phantom Public, 70-71. May 15, 1929, in John Morton Blum, ed. Public Phil08opher: 22 lbid., 68. Selected Letters of Walter Lippmann (New York, 1985), 240-41. 23 Ibid.,78-79. 33 Walter Lippmann, APreface to Morals (New York, 1929), 24 lbid.,97. 130-31. 26 lbid.,98. 34 lbid., 193-95; see also Lippmann to Bakerin Blum, ed., Public 26The term initially comes from one of Dewey's partisans Philosopher, 240-41. Morton White, in his Sooial Thought in America: The. Revol; 36 Lippmann, Preface to Morals, 238-39, 311-13, 326-28. Against Formalism (Boston, 1949), but the term "antiformalist" 36Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life (New York, has recently come to be used both with greater precision and more 1090), esp. 409-12. powerful suggestiveness in a variety of works by the historian 37 Lippmann, Preface to Morals, 313, 329. Thomas Haskell. 38 For a discussion of this tendency see R. Jackson Wilson, In ~ Lippmann, The Phantom Public, 100-01. Quest of Community: Sooial Philosophy in the United States, Harold D. LassweIl, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How 1860-1920 (New York, 1968). (New York, 1936); E. E. Schattschneider, Politics, Pressures and 39 Ellis Hawley, The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly: A the Tarif!: A Study of Free Private Enterprise in Pressure Politics Study in Economic Ambivalence (Princeton, 1966); Eric Gorham, (New York, 1935); Thurman Amold, The Folklore of Capitalism "The Ambiguous Practices of the Civilian Conservation Corps," (New Haven, 1937); and The Symbols ofGovemment (New Haven Sooial History 17 (May 1992), 229-49 William Leuchtenburg, "The 1935); Charles Merriam, Political Power (New York, 1934). For ~ New Deal and the Analogue of War," in John Braeman, Robert helpful overview discussion ofthis development in political science, xlviii THE PHANTOM PUBLIC Bremner and Everett Walters, eds., Change and Continuity in 'lWentieth-Century America (Columbus, 1964), 81-143. 40 New York Tf.mes, July 16, 1979, AI0. 41 Reinhold Niebubr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York, 1932), was the classic expression of this concern from Niebubr's theological (or quasi-theological) perspective.

PART I CHAPTERI THE DISENCHANTED MAN

I THE private citizen today has come to feel rather like a deaf spectator in· the back row, who ought to keep his mind on the mys­ tery off there, but cannot quite manage to keep awake. He knows he is somehow affected by what is going on. Rules and regulations continually, taxes annually and wars occa­ sionally remind hirn that he is being swept along by great drifts of circumstance. Yet these public affairs are in no convincing way his affairs. They are for the most part invisible. They are managed, if they are managed at all, at distant centers, from be­ hind the scenes, by unnamed powers. As a private person he does not know for certain what is going on, or who is doing it, or where he is being carried. No newspaper reports his 3 r 4 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE DISENCHANTED MAN 5 environment so that he can grasp it; no school ultimate goal, the remnants of sanity in has taught him how to imagine it; his ideals, hirn protest. He cannot all the time play often, do not fit with it; listening to speeches, Chantieleer who was so dazzled and delighted uttering opinions and voting do not, he because he hirnself had caused the sun to finds, enable him to govern it. He lives in flse. a world which he cannot see, does not under­ For when the private man has lived through stand and is unable to direct. the romantic age in politics and is no longer In the cold light of experience he knows moved by the stale echoes of its hot cries, that his sovereignty is a fiction. He reigns when he is sober and unimpressed, his own in theory, but in fact he does not govern. part in public affairs appears to him a preten­ Contemplating himself and his actual accom­ tious thing, a second rate, an inconsequential. plishments in public affairs, contrasting the Y ou cannot move him then with a good influence he exerts with the influence he is straight talk about service and civic duty, supposed according to democratic theory to nor by waving a flag in his face, nor by sending exert, he must say of his sovereignty what a boy scout after hirn to make him vote. Bismarck said of Napoleon IH.: "At a dis­ He is a man back home from a crusade to tance it is something, but elose to it is noth­ make the world something or other it did not ing at all." 1 When, du ring an agitation of become; he has been tantalized too often by some sort, say a political campaign, he hears the foam of events, has seen the gas go out hirns elf and some thirty million others de­ of it, and, with sour derision for the stuff, he is scribed as the source of all wisdom and power saying with the author of Trivia: 2 and righteousness, the prime mover and the '" SeH-determination,' one of them insisted.

1 1 Cited Philip Guedalla, Tke Second Empire. 2 Logan Pearsall Smith, More Trivia, p. 4 • r 6 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE DISENCHANTED MAN 7 '" Arbitration,' cried another. was made to bring out more voters. They "'Coöperation,' suggested the mildest of did not comeout. The Constitution, the the party. nation, the party system, the presidential suc­ '" Confiscation,' answered an uncompro­ cession, private property, aIl were supposed mising female. to be in danger. One party prophesied red "I, too, became intoxicated with the sound ruin, another black corruption, a third tyranny of these vocables. And were they not the and imperialism if the voters did not go to eure for aIl our ills? the poIls in greater numbers. Half the citizen­ '" 1noculation!' I chimed in. 'Transub­ ship was unmoved. stantiation, alliteration, inundation, flagella­ The students used to write books about tion, and afforestation! '" voting. They are now beginning tO, write books about nonvoting. At the University z of Chicago Professor Merriam and Mr. GosneH It is weIl known that nothing like have made an elaborate inquiry 4 into the the whole people takes part in public reason why, at the typical Chicago mayoral 1923, 1,400,000 affairs. Of the eligible voters In the election of there were, out of United States less than half go to the eligible electors, only 900,000 who registered, poIls even in a presidential year.3 Dur­ and out of those who registered there were ing the campaign of 1924 a special effort only 723,000 who finaHy managed to vote. Thousands of persons were interviewed. 3 Gf. Simon Michelet, Stay-at-Home rote and Ahsentee roters pamphlet of the National Get Out the Vote Club; also A. M. SchIes~ About 30 per cent of the abstainers had, inger and E. M. Erickson, "The Vanishing Voter," New Republic, Oct. 15, 1924. The percentage of the popular to the eligible vote from «Charles Edward Merriam and Harvey Foote Gosnell. Non-rot. 86 1 5 to 1920 declined from 83.51 per cent to Si.36 per cent. ing: Gauses and Methods of GontroZ. ri 8 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE DISENCHANTED MAN 9 or at least claimed to have had, an insuperable expressed ... in the United States by difficulty about going to the polIs. They as large a proportion of the registered voters as were ill, they were absent from the city, they in any other country." 6 And certainly Mr. were women detained at home by a child or Lowell's tables on the use of the initiative an invalid, they had had insufficient legal and referendum in Switzerland in the main residence. The other 70 per cent, represent­ suppot:t the view that the indifterence of ing about half a million free and sovereign the American voter is not unique.6 In fact, citizens of this Republic, did not even pre­ realistic political thinkers in Europe long tend to have a reason for not voting, which, aga abandoned the notion that the collective in eftect, was not an admission tha t they mass of the people direct the course of public did not care about voting. They were needed aftairs. Robert Michels, himself a Socialist, at their work, the polIs were crowded, the says flatly that "the majority is permanently polIs were inconveniently located, they were incapable of self-government," 7 and quotes afraid to tell their age, they did not beIieve approvingly the remark of a Swedish Social­ in woman suftrage, the husband objected, ist Deputy, Gustaf F. Steften, that "even poIitics is rotten, elections are rotten, they after the victory there will always remain were afraid to vote, they did not know in . political life the leaders and the led." there was an election. About a quarter Michels, who is a political thinker of great of those who were interviewed had the penetration, unburdens himself finally on the honesty to say they were wholly uninter­ subject by printing aremark of Hertzen's ested. 6 James Bryce, Modern Democracies, Vol. II, p. 52. Yet Bryce is authority for the statement 6 A. Lawrence Lowell, Public Opinion and Popular Government. Cf. Appendices. that "the will of the sovereign people is 7 Robert Michels, Political Parties, p. 390. THE DISENCHANTED MAN 11 10 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC of the United States to a professor of political that the victory of an opposition party science, who came anywhere near to embody­ amounts to "passing from the sphere of ing the accepted ideal of the sovereign envy to the sphere of avarice." . and omnicompetent citizen. There is then nothing particularly new in the disenchantment which the private citizen . expresses by not voting at all, by voting only for the head of the ticket, by staying away from the primaries, by not reading speeches and documents, by the whole list of sins of omission for .which he is. denounced. I shall not denounce him further. My sym­ pathies are with him, for I believe that he has been saddled with an impossible task and that he is asked to practice an unattainable ideal. I find it so myself for, although public business is my main interestand I give most of my time to watehing it, I cannot' find time to do what is expected of me in the theory of democracy; that is, to know what is going on and to have an opinion worth express­ ing on every question wh ich confronts a self-governing community. And I have not happened to meet anybody, from a President THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL 13 and unbending antisentimentalist that he is, CHAPTER II says in his "final considerations" that "it is the great task of social education to raise THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL the intellectual level o~ the masses, so that I HAVE tried to imagine how the perfect they may be enabled, within the limits of what citizen could be produced. Some say he will is possible, to counteract the oligarchical have to be born of the conjunction of the tendencies" of all collective action. right germ plasms, and, in the pages of books So I have been reading some of the new written by Madison Grant, Lothrop Stod­ standard textbooks used to teachcitizenship dard and other revivalists, I have seen pre­ in schools and colleges. After reading them scriptions as to just who ought to marry whom I do not see how any one can escape the con­ to produce a great citizenry. Not being a clusion that man must have the appetite of bio10gist I keep an open but hopeful mind on an encyclopredist and infinite time ahead of this point, tempered, however, with the knowl­ him. To be sure he no longer is expected to edge that certainty about how to breed remember the exact salary of the county clerk ability in human beings is on the whole in and the length of the coroner' s term. In the inverse proportion to the writer's scientific reputation. new civics he studies the problems of govern­ ment, and not the structural detail. He is 1t is then to education that logically one told, in one textbook of five hundred concise, turns next, for education has furnished the contentious pages, which I have been reading, thesis of the last chapter of every optimistic about city problems, state problems, national book on democracy written for one hundred problems, international problems, trust prob­ and fifty years. Even Robert Michels stern lems, labor problems, transportation problems, 12 ' ·14 . THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL 15 banking problems, rural problems, agricul­ but a casual interest in facts and but a poor tural problems, and so on ad'z'njim'tum, In appetite for theory. . . t?e eleven pages devoted to problems of the I t never· occurs to this preceptor of CIVIC City there are described twelve sub-prob_ lems, duty to provide the student with a rule by which he. can know whether on Thursday But nowhere in this well-meant book is the it is his duty to consider subways in Brook­ sovereign citizen of the future given a hint lyn or the Manahurian Railway, nor ho~, as ,to how, while he is earning aliving, rearing if he determines on Thursday to express hIS c~I1dren and enjoying his life, he is to keep sovereign will on the subway question, he hlmself informed about the progress of th' '. U is to repair those gaps in his knowledge of swarmmg confusion of problems. He is that question which are due to his having exhorted· to conserve the natural resources of been preoccupied the day before in express­ t~e count~y because theyare limited in quan­ ing his sovereign will about rural credits in tlty, He IS advised to watch public expendi­ Montana and the rights of Britain in the ~ures because the taxpayers cannot pay out Sudan. Yet he cannot know all about every­ mdefinitely increasing amounts, But he, the thing all the time, and while he is watch­ voter, the citiz~n, the soyereign, is apparently ing one thing a thousand others undergo expected to YJeld an unlimited quantity of great changes, Unless he can discover some public spirit, interest, curiosity and effort, rational ground for fixing his attention where author of t,he textbook, touching on every­ T~e it will do the most good, and in a way that as .he thmks, from city sewers to Indian th~ng, suits his inherently amateurish equipment, OpIUm, ~msses a ~ecisive fact: the citizen gives he will be as bewildered as a pu ppy trying but a httle of hIS time to public affairs, has to lick three bones at once. 16 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL 17 I do not wish to say that it does the student taught. They say they should be taught no good to be taken on a sightseeing tour of whatever may be necessary to fit them to the problems of the world. 1t may teach hirn govern the modern world. . that the world is complicated,· even if he The usual appeal to education can brmg comes out of the adventure "laden with only disappointment. For the problems of germs, breathing creeds and convictions on themodern world appear and change faster you whenever he opens his mouth." 1 He than auy set of teachers can grasp them, may learn humility, but most certainly his much faster than they can convey their sub­ acquaintance with what a high-minded author stance to a population of children. If the t~ought were American problems in 19 5 2 schools a ttempt to teach children how to wIll not equip hirn to master American prob~ solve the problems of the day, they are bound lems ten years later. Unless out of the study always to be in arrears. The most they of transient issues he acquires an intellectual attitude no education has occurred. can conceivably attempt is the teaching of a pattern of thought and feeling which will e~­ That is why the usual appeal to education able the citizen to approach a new problem m as the remedy for the incompetence of democ­ some useful fashion. But that pattern cannot racy is so barren. 1t is, in effect, a proposal be invented by the pedagogue. I t is the that school teachers shall by some magic of political theorist's business to trace out that their Own fit men to govern after the makers pattern. In that task he must not assume of laws and the preachers of civic ideals have that the mass has political genius, but that had a free hand in writing the specifications. men even if they had genius, would give The reformers donot ask what men can be onl; a little time and attention to public 1 Logan PearsalJ Smith. affairs. 18 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE UNA'TTAINABLE IDEAL 19 The moralist, I am afraid, will agree all too chide him for his conduct? If he had encoun­ readily with the idea that social education tered a tree, can any one deny his right to must deal primarily not with the elements collide with it? If he had stumbled into a and solutions of particular phases of transient man, was his apology not sufficient? Here problems but with the principles that consti­ was a moral code in perfect working order, tute an attitude toward all problems. I and the only questionable aspect of his conduct warn him off. It will require more than a good turned not on the goodness of his heart or conscience to govern modern society, for the firmness of his principles but on a point conscience is no guide in situations where of fact. You may retort that he had a moral the essence of the difficulty is to find a guide obligation to know the difference between a for the conscience. man and a tree. Perhaps so. But suppose When I am tempted to think that men can that instead of walking in the woods he had be fitted out to deal with the modern world been casting aballot; suppose that instead simply by teaching morals, manners and of a tree he hadencountered the Fordney­ patriotism, I try to remember the fable of McCumber ta riff. How much more obligation the pensive professor walking in the woods to know the truth would you have imposed at twilight. He stumbled into a tree. This on him then? After all, this walker in the experience compelled him to act. Being a woods at twilight with his mi nd on other man of honor and breeding, he raised his things was facing, as all of us think we are, hat, bowed deeply to the tree, and exclaimed the facts he imagined were there, and was with sincere regret: "Excuse me, sir, I thought doing his duty as he had learned it. you were a tree." In some degree the whole· animate world Is it fair~ I ask, as a matter of morality, to seems to share the inexpertness of the thought- 20 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL 21 ful professor. Pawlow showed by his experi­ r who asks that a local standard be universally ments on dogs that an animal with a false applied is merely begging one of the questions stornach can experience all the pleasures of I he ought to be trying to solve. For, while eating, and the number of mice and monkeys possibly it may be an aim of political organiza­ known to have been deceived in laboratories is tion to arrive at a common standard of surpassed only by the hopeful citizens of a judgment, one of the conditions which engen­ democracy. Man's reflexes are, as the psy­ ders politics and makes political organization chologists say, conditioned. And, therefore, necessary is the conflict of standards. he res ponds quite readily to a gIass egg, a Darwin's story of the cats and clover 2 may decoy duck, a stuffed shirt or a political be recommended to any one who finds it platform. No moral code, as such, will enable difficult to free his mind of the assumption hirn to know whether he is exercising his moral that his notions of good and bad are universal. faculties on areal and an important event. The purpIe clover is cross-fertilized by the For effective virtue, as Socrates pointed out bumblebee, and, therefore, the more bumble­ long ago, is knowledge; and a code of the bees the better next year's crop of clover. But right and the wrong must wait upon a percep­ the nests of bumblebees are rifled by field tion of the true and the false. mice which are fond of the white grubs. But even the successful practice of a Therefore, the more field mice the fewer moral code would not emancipate democracy. bumblebees and the poorer the crop. But in There are too many moral codes. In our the neighborhood of villages the cats hunt immediate lives, within the boundaries of down the field mice. And so the more ca ts our own society, there may be commonly 2 As told by J. Arthur Thomson, The Outline of Science, Vol. III, accepted standards. But a political theorist p.646. 22 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL 23 the fewer mice, the more bumblebees the objectifies for the convenience of language, better the crop. And the more kindly old the disappointment of a mind that finds ladies there are in the village the more cats before it an order different from what it there will be. wants." 3 For the order which we recognize as If you happen not to be a Hindu or a vege­ good is an order suited to our needs and hopes tarian and are a beef-eating Occidental you and habits. will commend the old ladies who keep the cats There is nothing universal or eternal or who hunt the mice who destroy the bumblebees unchangeable about our expectations. For who make the pasture of clover for the ca ttle. rhetorical effect we often say there iso But If you are a cat you also will be in favor of in concrete cases it is not easy to explain the old ladies. But if you are a field mouse, why the thing we desire is so righteous. If how different the rights and wrongs of that the farmers are able to buy less than their section of the universe ! The old ladies who accustomed amount of manufactured foods keep cats will seem about as kindly as witches there is disorder and a problem. But what with pet tigers, and the Old Lady PeriI will absolute standard is there which determines be debated hysterically by the Field Mouse whether abushel of wheat in 1925 should, as Security League. For wh at could a patriotic compared with 1913, exchange for more, as mouse think of a world in which bumblebees many, or less manufactures? Can any one did not exist for the sole purpose of producing define a principle which shall say whether the white grubs for field mice? There would seem standard of living of the farmers or of any to be no law and order in such a world; and other dass should rise or fall, and how fast onlya highly philosophical mouse would admit and how much? There may be more jobs with Bergson that "the idea of disorder .3 Creatioe Evolution, eh. UI. MALASPINA UNIVERSITY-COLLEGE UBRARY 24 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC r THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL 25 than workingmen at the wage offered: the democratic citizen, omnicompetent and sover­ employers will complain and will call it a. eign, because biology knows neither how to· problem, but who knows any rule wh ich teIls breed political excellence nor what that excel­ how large a surplus of labor there ought to lence is; if education cannot equip the citizen, be and at what price? There may be more because the school teacher cannot anticipate workingmen than jobs of the kind and at the the issues of the future; if morality cannot places and for the wages they will or can take. direct him, first, because right or wrong in But, although the problem will be acute, specific cases depends upon the perception of there is no principle which determines how true or false, and, second, on the assumption many machinists, clerks, coal miners, bankers, that there is a universal moral code, which, or salesmen it is the duty of society to provide in fact, does not exist, where else shall we look work for. for the method of making the competent It requires intense partisanship and much citizen? Democratic theorists in the nine­ self-deception to argue that some sort of pecu­ teenth century had several other prescriptions liar righteousness adheres to the farmers' claims wh ich still infiuence the thinking of many as against the manufacturers', the employ­ hopeful persons. ers' against the wage-earners', the creditors' One school based their reforms on the apho­ against the debtors', or the other way around. rism tha t the cure for the evils of democracy These confiicts of interest are problems. is more democracy. It was assumed that They require solution. But there is no moral the popular will was wise and good if only pattern available from which the precise you could get at it. They proposed extensions nature of the solution can be deduced. of the suffrage, and as much voting as possible If then eugenics cannot produce the ideal by means of the initiative, referendum and 26 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL 27 recall, direct election of Sena tors, direct details of the problems of the day because he prima ries, an elected judiciary, and the like. has not the time, the interest or the knowl­ They begged the question, for it has never edge, he will not have a better public opinion been proved that thereexists the kind of because he is asked to express his opinion public opinion which they presupposed. Since more often. He will simply be more bewil­ the Bryim campaign of 1896 this school of dered, more bored and more ready to follow thought has made great conquests in most along... of the states, and has profoundly influenced Another school, calling themselves revolu­ the federal government. The eligible vote tionary, have ascribed the disenchantment of has trebled since 1896; the direct action of democracy to the capitalistic system. They the voter has. been enormously extended. Yet have argued that property is power,and that that sameperiod has seen a decline in the until there is as wide a distribution of economic percentage of the popular vote cast at presi­ power as there is of the right to vote the suf­ dential elections from 80.75 per cent in 1896 frage cannot be more effective. No serious to 52.36 per cent in 1920. Apparently there student, I think, would dispute that socialist is a fallacy in the first assumption of this premise which asserts that the weight of in­ school that "the whole people" desires to fluence on society exercised by an individual is participate actively in government. Nor is more nearly related to the character of his prop­ there any evidence to sho\Y that the persons erty than to his abstract legal citizenship. But who do participate are in any real sense direct­ the socialist conclusionthat economic power ing the course of affairs. The party machines can be distributed by concentrating the owner­ have survived every attack. And why should ship of great utilities in the state, the con­ they not? If the voter cannot grasp the clusion that the pervasion of industrial life rI 28 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL 29 by voting and referenda will yield competent ideal. I think it is a false ideal. I do not popular decisions, seems to me agai~ to beg mean an undesirable ideal. I mean an un­ the question. For what reason is there to attainable ideal, bad only in the sense that think that subjecting so many more affairs it is bad for a fat man to try to be a ballet to the method of the vote will reveal hitherto dancer. An ideal should express the true undiscovered wisdom and technical competence possibilities of its subject. When it does not and reservoirs of public interest in men? The it perverts the true possibilities. The ideal socialist scheme has at its root the mystical of the omnicompetent, sovereign citizen is, in fallacy of democracy, that the people, all of my opinion, such a false ideal. It is unattain­ them, are competent; at its top it suffers from able. The pursuit of it is misleading. The the homeopa thic fallacy tha t adding new tasks failure to achieve it has produced the current to a burden the people will not and cannot disenchan tment. carry now will make the burden of citizenship Thc individual man does not have opinions easily borne. The socialist theory presup­ on all public affairs. He does not know how poses an unceasing, untiring round of civic to direct public affairs. He does not know duties, an enormous complication of the po­ what is happening, why it is happening, what litical interests that are already much too ought to happen. I cannot imagine how he complicated. could know, and there is not the least reason These various remedies, eugenic, educa- for thinking, as mystical democrats have . tional, ethical, populist and socialist, all thought, that the compounding of individual assume that either the voters are inherently ignorances in masses of people can produce a competent to direct the course of affairs or continuous directing force in public affairs. that they are making progress toward such an r AGENTS AND BYSTANDERS 31 I for a party which promises something he can i understand. The actual governing is made up of a multi- CHAPTER III tude of arrangements on specific questions by particular individuals. These rarely be­ AGENTS AND BYSTANDERS come visible to the private citizen. Govern­ I ment, in the long intervals between elections,

WHEN a citizen has qualified as a voter he is carried on by politicians, officeholders and finds himself one of the theoretical rulers of a influential men who make settlements with grea t going concern. He has not made the other politicians, officeholders and influential complicated machine with its five hundred men. The mass of people see these settle­ thousand federal officers and its uncounted ments, judge them, and affect them only local offices. He has not seen much of it. now and then. They are altogether too He is bound by contracts, by debts, by numerous, to~ complicated, too obscure in treaties, by laws, made before he was aware their effects to become the subject of any of them. He does not from day to day decide continuing exercise of public opinion. who shall do what in the business of govern­ Nor in any exact and literal se,nse are those ment. Only some small fraction of it comes who conduct the daily business of government intermittently to his notice. And in those accountable after the fact to the great mass episodic . moments when he stands in the of the voters. They are accountable only, polling booth he is a highly intelligent and except in spectacular cases, to the other public-spirited voter indeed who can discover politicians, officeholders and influentialmen two real alternatives and enlist his influence directly interested in the particular act. 30 33 32 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC AGENTS AND BYSTANDERS Modern society is not visible to anybody, nor record their own acts, measure them, publish intelligible continuously and as a whole. One them and stand accountable for them. section is visible to another section, one The need in the Great Society not only for series of acts is intelligible to this group and publicity but for uninterrupted publicity is another to that. indisputable. But we shall misunderstand Even this degree of responsible understand­ the need seriously if we imagine that the ing is attainable only by the development of purpose of the publication can possibly be fact-finding agencies of great scope and com­ the informing of every voter. We live at plexity.l These agencies give only a remote the mere beginnings of public accounting. and incidental assistance to the general pubIic. Yet the facts f~ r exceed our curiosity. The Their findings are too intricate for the casual railroads, für example, make an accounting. reader. They are also almost always much Do we read the results? Hardly. A few too uninteresting. Indeed the popular bore­ executives here and there, some bankers, dom and contempt for the expert and for some regulating officials, some representatives statistical measurement are such that the of shippers and the like read them. The organization of intelligence to administer rest of us ignore them for the good and suffi­ modern affairs would probably be entirely cient reason that we have other things to do. neglected were it not that departments of For the man does not live who can read all government, corporations, trade unions and the reports that drift across his doorstep or trade associations are being compelled by their all the dispatches in his newspaper. And if own internaI necessities of administration, and by some development of the radio every man by compulsion of other corporate groups, to could see and hear all that was happening everywhere, if publicity, in other words, be- 1 Cf. my Public Opinion, Chapters XXV and XXVI. 34 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC AGENTS AND BYSTANDERS 35 came absolute, how much time could or would would obviously never be carried on. Men he spend watching the Sinking Fund Commis­ rI make no attempt to consider society as a I sion and the Geological Survey? He would I whole. The farmer decides whether to plant probably tune in on the Prince of Wales, or, wheat or corn, the mechanic whether to take in desperation, throw off the switch and seek the job offered at the Pennsylvania or the peace in ignorance. It is bad enough today­ Erie shops, whether to buy a Ford or a piano, with morning newspapers pubIished in the and, if a Ford, whether to buy it from the evening and evening newspapers in the garage on Elm Street or from the dealer who morning, with October magazines in Septem­ sent hirn a circular. These decisions are ber, with the movies and the radio--to be con­ among fairly narrow choices offered to hirn; demned to live under a barrage of eclectic he can no more choose among all the jobs in information, to have one's mind made the the world than he can consider marrying any receptacIe for a hullabaloo of speeches, argu­ woman in the world. These choices in detail ments and unrelated episodes. General in­ are in their cumulative mass the government formation for the informing of pubIic opinion is of society. They may'rest on ignorant or altogether too general for intellectual decency. enlightened opinions, but, whether he comes And life is too short for the pursuit of om­ to them by accident or scientific instruction, niscience by the counting in astate of nervous they are specific and particular among at best excitement of alI the leaves on all the trees. a few concrete alternatives and they lead to a

2 definite, visible result. Eut men are supposed alsoto hold public H alI men had to conceive the whole process opinions about the general conduct of society. of government aIl the time the world's work The mechanic is supposed not only to choose 36 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC AGENTS AND BYSTANDERS 37 between working for the Pennsylvania or the that is, within the limits set by law and Erie but to decide how in the interests of custom, his personal power and his personal the nation all the railroads of the country desire. But general opinions lead only to shall be regulated. The two kinds of opinion some sort of expression, such as voting, and merge insensibly one into the other; men have do not result in executive acts except in general notions which influence their individ. c05peration with the general opinions of large ual decisions and their direct experiences un· numbers of other persons. consciously govern their general notiorts. Yet Since the general opinions of large numbers it is useful to distinguish between the two of persons are almost certain to be a vague and kinds of opinion, the specific and direct, the confusing medley, action cannot be taken until general and the indirect. these opinions have been factored, down, Specific opinions give rise to immediate canalized, compressed and made uniform. executive acts; to take a job, to do a particular The rnaking of one general will out of a multi· piece of work, to hire or fire, to buy or seIl, to tude of general wishes is not an Hegelian stay here or go there, to accept or refuse, to mystery, as so many social philosophers have command or obey. General opinions give imagined, but an art weIl known to leaders, rise to delegated, indirect, symbolic, intangible politicians and steering committees.2 It con· results: to a vote, to aresolution, to ap· sists essentially in the use of symbols which plause, to criticism, to praise or dispraise, assemble emotions after they have been to audiences, circulations, followings, con· detached from their ideas. Because feelings tentment or discontent. The specific opinion are much less specific than ideas, and yet may lead to adecision to act within the more poignant, the leader is able ~o make a area where a man has personal jurisdiction; I Cf. my Public Opinion, Chapters XIII and XIV. 38 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC AGENTS AND BYSTANDERS 39 homogeneous will out of a heterogeneous one. The decision to make the mark may be mass of desires. The process, therefore, by for reasons a 1, a 2, a 3 ••• an: the result, which general opinions are brought to co­ whether an idiot or genius has voted, is A. operation consists of an intensification of For great masses of people, though each of feeling and adegradation of significance. them may have more or Iess distinct views, Before a mass of general opinions can even­ must when they act converge to an identical tuate in executive action, the choice is nar­ result. And the more complex the collection rowed down to a few alternatives. The vic­ of men the more ambiguous must be the unity torious alternative is executed not by the and the simpler the common ideas. mass but by individuals in control of its energy. 3 A private opinion may be quite compIi­ In English-speaking countries during the cated, and may issue in quite complicated last century the contrast between the ac­ actions, in a whole train of subsidiary opinions, tion of men individually and in the mass has as when a mari decides to build a house and been much emphasized, and yet greatly mis­ then makes a hundred judgments as to how understood. Macaulay, for example, speaking it shall be buiIt. But a pubIic opinion has no on the Reform Bill of 1832, drew the conven­ such immediate responsibility or continuous tional distinction between private enterprise result. I t leads in politics to the making of a and public action: penciI mark on a piece of paper, and then to a "In all those things which depend on the period of waiting and watching as to whether intelligence, the knowledge, the industry, the one or two years hence the mark shall be energy of individuals, this country stands made in the same column or in the adjoining preeminent among all countries of the world 40 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC AGENTS AND BYSTANDERS 41 ancient and modern. But in those things there is no such necessary contrast between which it belongs to the state to direct we have governmental and private action. There is no such claim to superiority . . . can there be a contrast between action by and through astronger contrast than that which exists great masses of people and action that moves between the beauty, the completeness, the without them. speed, the precision with which every process The fundamental contrast is not between is performed)n our factories, and the awkward­ public and private enterprises, between ness, the crudeness, the slowness, the uncer­ "crowd" psychology and individual, but tainty of the apparatus by which offenses between men doing specific things and men are punished and rights vindicated? .. attempting to command general results. The Surely we see the barbarism of the Thirteenth work of the world is carried on by men in their Century and the highest civilization of the executive capacity, by an infinite number of Nineteenth Century side by side, and we see concrete acts, plowing and planting and reap­ that the barbarism belongs to the government, ing, building and destroying, fitting this to and the civilization to the people."3 that, going from here to there, transforming Macaulay was, of course, thinking of the A into Band moving B from X to Y. The contrast between factory production and relationships between the individuals doing government as it existed in England under these specific things are balanced by a most Queen Victoria's uncles and the hard-drink­ intricate mechanism of exchange, of contract, ing, hard-riding squirearchy. But the Prus­ of custom and of implled promises. Where sian bureaucracy amply demonstrated that men are performing their work they must I Speech onthe Reform Bill of 1832, quoted in the Time! (London), learn to understand the process and the sub­ July 12, 1923. stance of these obligations if they are to do 11 AGENTS AND BYSTANDERS 43 42 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC racy, and we shall begin to see the outline of it at all. But in governing the ,work of other an ideal of public opinion which, unIike that men by votes or by the expression of opinion accepted in the dogma of democracy, may be they can only reward or punish a result, ac­ cept or reject alternatives presented to them. really attainable. They can say yes or no to something which hasbeen done, yes or no to aproposal, hut they cannot crea te, administer and actually . perform the act they ha ve in mind. Persons uttering pubIic opinions may now and then be able to define the acts of men, but their opinions do not execute these acts.

4 1'0 the realm of executive acts, each of us,

as a member of the publk1 remains always externaI. Our public opinions are always and forever, by their very nature, an attempt to control the actions of others from the outside. If we can grasp the fulI significance of that conclusion we shaIl, I think, have found a way of fixing the role of public opinion in its true perspective; we shall know how to account for the disenchantment of democ- WHAT THE PURLIC DOES 45 somehow seek to control the behavior of others, if not by positive law then at least by persua­ CHAPTER IV sion. When men are in that posture toward WHAT THE PUBLIC DOES events they are a public, as I am here defining the term; their opinions as to how others ought I to behave are public opinions. The more I DO not mean to say that there is no other c1early it is understood what the public can attainable ideal of public opinion but that do and what it cannot, the more effectively severely practical one which this essay is it will do what lies within its power to do well meant to disclose. One might aim to enrich and the less it will interfere with the liberties the minds of men with charming fantasies, of men. animate nature and society with spirits, set The role of public opinion is determined by up an Olympus in the skies and an Atlantis the fact that its relation to a problem is exter­ at the end of the world. And one might then nal. The opinion affects an opinion, but does assert that, so the quality of ideas be fine or not itself control the executive act. A public give peace, it does not matter how or whether opinion is expressed by a vote, a demonstra­ they eventuate in the government of affairs. tion of praise or blame, a following or a boy­ Utopia and Nirvana are by definition their cotting. But these manifestations are in own sufficient reason, and it may be that to themselves nothing. They count only if they contemplate them is well worth the abandon­ influence the course of affairs. They influence ment of feeble attempts to control the action it, however, only if they influence an actor of events. Renunciation, however, is a luxury in the affair. And it is, I believe, precisely in which all men cannot indulge. They will in this secondary, indirect relationship be- 44 46 THE PHANTOMPUBLIC WHAT THE PUBLIC DOES 47 tween public opinion and public affairs that we way of saying: I am lined up with these men, rI have the eIue to the limits and the possibili­ on this side. I enlist with them. I will fol­ ties of public opinion. lo\v. I will buy. I will boycott. I will strike. I applaud. I jeer. The force I can 2 exert is placed here, not there. It may be objected at on ce that an elec.. The public does not select the candidate, tion which turns one set of men out of office write the platform, outline the policy any and installs another is an expression of public more than it builds the automobile or ~cts opinion which is neither secondary nor in­ the play. It aligns itself for or agamst direct. But what in fact is an election? We somebody who has offered himself, has made call it an expression of the popular will. But a promise, has produceda play, is selling an is it? We go into a polling booth and mark a automobile. The action of a group as a cross on a piece of paper for one of two, or group is the mobilization of the force it perhaps three or four names. Have we ex­ possesses. pressed our thoughts on the public policy of The attempt has been made to ascribe so me the United States? Presumably we have a intrinsic moral and intellectual virtue to ma­ number of thoughts on this. and that with jority rule. It was said often in the n~neteen:h many buts and ifs and ors. Surely the cross century that there was a deep wlsdom m on a piece of paper does not express them. majorities which was the voice of God. ~o.me­ It would take us hours to express our thoughts, times this flattery was a sincere mystlcls.m, and calling a vote the expression of our mind sometimes it was the self-deception WhlCh is an empty fiction. always accompanies the idealization of power. A vote is a promise of support. It is a In substance it was nothing but a transfer to 49 48 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC WHAT THE PUBLIC DOES the new sovereign of the divine attributes of Constitutional democrats, in the intervals kings. Yet the inherent absurdity of making when they were not idealizing the majority, virtue and wisdom dependent on 5 I per cent have acknowledged that a ballot was a civi­ of any collection of men has always been lized substitute for a buHet. "The French apparent. The practicaI realization that the Revolution," says Bernard Shaw, "overthrew claim was absurd has resulted in a whole one set of rulers and substituted another with code of dviI rights to protect minorities and in different interests and different views. That all sorts of elaborate methods of subsidizing is what a general e1ection enables the people the arts and sciences and other human in­ to do in England every seven years if they terests so they might be independent of the choose. Revolution is therefore anational operationof majority rule. institution in England; and its advocacy by The justification of majority rule in poli­ an Englishman needs no apology." 1 It makes tics is not to be found in its ethicaI superior­ an enormous differ~nce, of course, whether ity. I t is to be found in the sheer necessity the people fight or vote, but we shaH under~ of finding a place in civilized society for the stand the nature of voting better if we rec­ force which resides in the weight of numbers. ognize it to be a substitute for fighting. I have called voting an act of enlistment, an "There grew up in the 17th and 18th Cen­ alignment for or against, a mobilization. turies in England/' says Dwight Morrow in These are military metaphors, and rightly so, his introduction to Professor Morse's book, I think, for an election based on the principle "and there has been carried from England to of majority rule is historically and practically almost every civilized government in the a sublimated and denatured civiI war, a paper world, a procedure through which party mobilization without physical violence. 1 Preface to The Revolutionist's Handbook, p. 179· 50 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC WHAT THE PUBLIC DOES 51 government becomes in large measure a sub­ ment of all kinds of force. I tremains an aIign­ stitute for revolution." 2 Hans Delbrück puts ment, though in advanced democracies it the matter simply when he says that the has lost most of its primitive association with principle of majority rule is "a purely prac­ military combat. It has not lost it in the tical principle. If one wants to avoid a civil South where the Negro population is dis­ war, one lets those rule who in any case would franchised by force, and not permitted to obtain the upper hand if there should be a make its weight felt in an election. I t has struggle; and they are the superi(~r numbers." 3 not lost it in the unstable Latin American But, while an election is in essence subli­ republics where every election is in some mated warfare, we must take care not to miss measure still an armed revolution. In fact, the importance of the sublimation. There the United States has officially recognized have been pedantic theorists who wished to this truth by proc1aiming that the substitu­ disqualify all who could not bear arms, and tion of election for revolution in Central woman suffrage has been deplored as a falsi­ America is the test of political progress. fication of the value of an election in uncover­ I do not wish to labor the argument any ing the alignment of martial force in the further than may be necessary to establish community. One can safely ignore such the theory that what the public does is not theorizing. For, while the institution of an to express its opinions but to align itself for election is in its historical origins an alignment or against a proposal. If that theory is ac­ of the physical force, it has come to be an align- cepted, we must abandon the notion that democratic government can be the direct 2 Parties and Party Leaders, p. xvi. expression of the will of the people. We must 8 H. Delbrück, Government and the Will 0/ the People, p. IS. Trans­ lated by Roy S. MacElwee. abandon the notion that the people govern. 52 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC Instead we must adopt the theory tha t, by their occasional mobilizations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who CHAPTER V actually govern. We must say that the pop­ THE NEUTRALIZATION OF ARBITRARY FORCE ular will does not direct continuously hut that it intervenes occasionally. I

lF THIS is the nature of public action, what ideal can be formula ted which shall conform to it? We are bound, I think, to express the ideal in its lowest terms, to state it not as an ideal which might conceivably be realized by excep­ tional groups now and then or in some distant future but as an ideal which normally might be taught and attained. In estimating the burden which a public can carry, asound political theory must insist upon the largest factor of safety. It must understate the possibilities of public action. The action of a public, we had concluded, is principally confined to an occasional inter;. vention in affairs by means of an alignment 53 54 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC NEUTRALIZATION OF FORCE 55 of the force which a dominant section of that or executive. We must assume that a public public can wield. We must assume, then, is inexpert in its curiosity, intermittent, that that the members of a public will not possess it discerns only gross distinctions, is slow to an insider's knowledge of events or share his be aroused and quickly diverted; that, since point of view. They cannot, therefore, con­ it acts by aligning itself, it personalizes what­ strue intent, or appraise the exact circum­ ever it considers, and is interested only when stances, enter intimately into the minds of the events have been melodramatized as a con­ actors or into the details of the argument. flict. They can watch only for coarse signs indi­ The publicwill arrive in the middle of the cating where their sympathies ought to turn. third act and willleave before the last curtain, We must assume tha t the members of a having stayed just long enough perhaps to public will not anticipate a problem much decide who is the hero and who the villain before its crisis has become obvious, nor stay öf the piece. Yet usually that judgment will with the problem long after its crisis is past. necessarily be made apart from the intrinsic They will not know the antecedent events, merits, on the basis of a sampie of behavior, will not have seen the issue as it developed, an aspect of a situation, by very rough exter­ will not have thought out or willed a program, nal evidence. and will not be able to predict the conse­ We cannot, then, think of public opinion quences of acting on that program. We must as a conserving or crea ting force directing assume as a theoretically fixed premise of society to c1early conceived ends, making popular government that normally men as deliberately toward socialism or away from members of a public will not be weH informed, it, toward nationalism, an empire, a league of continuously interested, nonpartisan, creative nations or any other doctrinal goal. For 56 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC NEUTRALIZATION OF FORCE 57 men do not agree as to their aims, and it is good, the belief will not maintain itself in the precisely the lack of agreement which creates face of plain experience. The public does not the problems that excite public attention. know in most crises what specifically is the lt is idle, then, to argue that though men evi­ truth or the justice of the case, and men are dently have conflicting purposes, mankind not agreed on what is beautiful and good. has some all-embracing purpose of which you Nor does the public rouse itself normally or I happen to be the authorized spokesman. at the existence of evil. It is aroused at We merely should have moved in a circle were evil made manifest by the interruption of a we to conclude that the public is in some deep habitual process of life. And finally, a problem way a messianic force. ceases to occupy attention not when justice, as we happen to define it, has been done but 2 when a workable adjustment that overcomes The work of the world goes on continually the crisis has been made. If all this were not without conscious direction from public opin­ the necessary manner of public opinion, if it ion. At certain junctures problems arise. had seriously to crusade for justice in every It is only with the crises of some of these issue it touches, the public would have to be problems that public opinion is concerned. dealing with all situations all the time. That And its object in dealing with a crisis is to is impossible. It is also undesirable. For help allay that crisis. did justice, truth, goodness and beauty de­ I think this conclusion is unescapable. For pend on the spasmodic and crude inter­ though we may prefer to believe that the ventions of public opinion there would be aim of popular action should be to do justice little hope for them in this world. or promote the true, the beautiful and the Thus we strip public opinion of any implied 58 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC NEUTRALIZATION OF FORCE 59 duty to deal with the substance of a problem, be standing for human adjustments according to make technical decisions, to attempt justice to a clear rule of behavior and against the or impose a moral precept. And instead we side which appears to stand for settlement in say that the ideal of public opinion is to align accordance with its own unaccountable will. men during the crisis of a problem in such a Public opinion, in this theory, is areserve way as to favor the action of those individuals of force brought into action during a crisis who may be able to compose the crisis. The in public affairs. Though it is itself an irra­ power to discern those individuals is the end tional force, under favorable institutions, of the effort to educate public opinion. The sound leadership and decent training the power aim of research designed to facilitate public of public opinion might be placed at the dis­ action is the discovery of clear signs by which posal of those who stood for workable law as these individuals may be discerned. against brute assertion. In this theory, public The signs are relevant when they reveal by opinion does not make the law. Eut by can­ coarse, simple and objective tests which side celing lawless power it may establish the in a controversy upholds a workable sodal condition under which law can be made. It rule, or which is attacking an unworkable does not reason, investigate, invent, persuade, rule, or which proposes a promising new rule. bargain or settle. But, by holding the aggres­ By following such signs the public might sive party in check, it may liberate intel­ know where to align itself. In such an align­ ligence. Public opinion in its highest ideal ment it does not, let us remember, pass will defend those who are prepared to act on judgment on the intrinsic merits. It merely their reason against the interrupting force of places its force at the dis pos al of the side those who merely assert their will. which, according to objective signs, seems to The action of public opinion at its best 60 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC NEUTRALIZATION ·OF FORCE 61 would not, let it be noted, be a continual directly it is either a failure or a tyranny. It crusade on behalf of reason. When power, is not able to master the problem intellec­ however absolute and unaccountable, reigns tually, nor to deal with it except by wholesale without provoking a cris13, public opinion impact. The theory of democracy has not does not challenge it. Somebody must chal­ recognized this truth because it has identified lenge arbitrary power first. The public the functioning of government with die will can only come to his assistance. of thepeople. This is a fiction. The intricate business of framing la ws and of administering 3 them through several hundred thousand public That, I think, is the utmost that public officials is in no sense the act of the voters opinion can effectively do. With the sub­ nor a translation of their will. stance of the problem it can do nothing But although the acts of government are usually but meddle ignorantly or tyrannically. not a translation of public opinion, the princi­ I t has no need to meddle with it. Men in pal function of government is to do specifi­ their active relation to affairs have to deal cally, in greater detail, and more continually with the substance, but in that indirect what public opinion does crudely, by whole­ relationship when they can act only through sale, and spasmodically. It enforces some of uttering praise or biarne, making black crosses the working rules of society. It interprets on white paper, they have done enough, they them. I t detects and punishes certain kinds have done all they can do if they help to of aggression. It presides over the framing of make it possible for the reason of other men new rules. I t has organized force which is to assert itself. used to counteract irregular force. For when public opinion attempts to govern It is also subject to the same corruption as 62 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC NEUTRALIZATION OF FORCE 63 public opmlOn. For when government at­ work out an adjustment, public officials tempts to impose the will of its officials, intervene. When the officials fail, public instead of intervening so as to steady ad­ opinion is brought to bear on the issue. justments by consent among the parties directly interested, it becomesheavy-handed, 4 stupid, imperious, even predatory. For the This, then, is the ideal of public action which public official, though he is better placed our inquiry suggests. Those who happen in to understand the problem than areader of any question to constitute the public should newspapers, and though he is much better attempt only to create an equilibrium in able to act, is still fundamentally external which settlements can be reached directly to the real problems in which he intervenes. and by consent. The burden of carrying on Being external, his point of view is indirect, the work of the world, of inventing, creating, and so his action is most appropriate when it executing, of attempting justice, formulating is confined to rendering indirect assistance to laws and moral codes, of dealing with the those who are directly responsible. ' technic and the substance, lies not upon public Therefore, instead of describing government opinion and not upon government but on those as an expression of the people's will, it would who are responsibly concerned as agents in seem better to say that government consists the affair. Where problems arise, the ideal of a body of officials, some elected, some is a settlement by the particular interests appointed, who handle professionally, and involved. Theyalone know what the trouble in the first instance, problems which come"to really iso No decision by public officials or public opinion spasmodically and on appeal. by commuters reading headlines in the train Where the parties directly responsible do not can usually and in the long run be so good as 64 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC settlement by consent among the parties at interest. No moral code, no political theory can usually and in the long run be imposed from the heights of public opinion, which will :fit a case so well as direct agreement reached where arbitrary power has been dis­ armed. It is the function of public opinion to check the use of force in a crisis, so that men, driven PART II to make terms, may live and let live. CHAPTER VI

THE QUESTION ARISTOTLE ASKED THESE eonclusions are sharply at variance with the aeeepted theory of popular govern­ ment. That theory rests upon the belief that there is a public which direets the course of events. I hold that this public is a mere phantom. It is an abstraction. The public in respeet to a railroad strike may be the farmers whom the railroad serves; the public in respect to an agrieultural tariff may include the very railroad men who were on strike. The public is not, as I see it, a fixed body of individuals. I t is merely those persons who are interested in an affair and can affect it only by supporting or opposing the actors. Since these random pub lies cannot be ex­ pected to deal with the merits of a contro­ versy, they can give their support with reason­ able assuranee that it will do good only if 67 68 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC rI QUESTION ARISTOTLE ASKED 69 l there are easily recognizable and yet perti­ We who live in the Great Society are unable ne nt signs which they can follow. Are there to follow his advice. The orthodox democrats such signs? Can they be discovered? Can answered Aristotle's question by assuming they be formulated so they might be learned that a limitless political capacity resides in and used? The chapters of this second part public opinion. A century of experience com­ are an attempt to answer these questions. pels us to deny this assumption. For us, The signs must be of such a character that then, the old question is unanswered; we can they can be recognized without any substantial neither reject the Great Society as Aristotle insight into the substance of a problem. Yet did, nor exaggerate the political capacity of they must be relevant to the solution of the the citizen as the democrats did. We are problem. They must be signs which will tell forced to ask whether it is possible for men the members of a public where they can be~t to find a way of acting eifectively upon highly align themselves so as to promote the solution. complex aifairs by very simple means. In short, they must be guides to reasonable I venture to think that this problem may action for the use of uninformed people. be soluble, that principles can be elucidated The environment is complex. Man's polit­ which might eifect a successful junction ical capacity is simple. Can a bridge be built between the intricacies of the environment between them? The question has haunted . and the simplicities of human faculty. It goes political science ever since Aristotle first without saying that what I shall present here formulated it in the great seventh book of his is no final statement of these principles. At Politics. He answered it by saying that the most and at best it may be a c1ue, with some community must be kept simple and small illustrations, that can be developed by re­ enough to suit the faculties of its citizens. search. Eut even that much assurance seems 70 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC to me rash in the light of the difficulties which the problem has always presented, and so, following Descartes, I add that "after all, it is possible I may be mistaken; and it is but a CHAPTER VII little copper and glass I take for gold and THE NATURE OFA PROBLEM diamonds." 1 I 1 Discourse on Metkod, Part I. SOMEWHAT in the spirit of Descartes, let us begin by supposing that your whole experi­ ence were confined to one glimpse of the world. There would be, I think, no better or worse in your sight, neither good men nor bad, patriots nor profiteers, conservatives nor radi­ cals. You would be a perfect neutral. From such an impression of things, it would never occur to you that the crest of a mountain endured longer than the crest of a wave, that people moved about and that trees did not, or that the roar of an orator would pass sooner than the roar of Niagara. Lengthen your experience, and you would begin to notice differences in· the constancy of things. You would know day and night, 71 72 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC NATURE OF A PROBLEM 73 perhaps, but not winter and summer, move­ to be changing a little more slowly than me nt in space, but little of age in time: And something else. if you then formulated your social philosophy, With sufficiently long experience you would would you not almost certainly conclude that indeed be bound to conclude that while the the things you saw people doing then it was diverse elements that bear upon the life of ordained they should do always, and that men, including the characters of men them­ their characters as you had seen them tha t selves, were changing, yet they were not day would be thus and so forever ? And changing at the same pace. Things multiply, would not the resulting treatise pass almost they grow, they learn, they age, they wear out unnoticed in any collection of contemporary and they die at different rates. An individual, disquisitions on the nations, the races, the his companions, his implements, his institu­ classes or the sexes? tions, his creeds, his needs, his means of satis­ But the more you lengthened the span of faction, evolve unevenly, and endure un­ your impression, the more variability you evenly. Events do not concur harmoniously would note, until at last you would say with in time. Some hurry, some straggle, some Heraclitus that all things flow. For when the push and some drag. The ranks havealways very stars and the rocks were seen to have a to be reformed. history, men and their institutions and cus­ Instead of that one grand system of evolu­ toms, habits and ideals, theories and policies tion and progress, which the nineteenth cen­ could seem only relatively permanent. And tury found so reassuring, there would appear you would have to conclude that what at to be innumerable systems of evolution, first glance you had called a constant turns variously affecting each other, some linked, out after you had watched it Ion ger merely some in collision, but each in some funda- 74 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC NATURE OF A PROB~EM 75 mental aspect moving at its own pace and on standards of living, their ambitions? Would its own terms. he not fairly infer that the political system The disharmonies of this uneven evolution which had existed in 1800 must have altered are the problems of mankind. vastly with these new relationships, that cus­ toms, manners and morals appropriate to the 2 settled, small and more or less· self-contained Suppose a man who knew nothing of the communities of 1800 had been subjectedto history of the nineteenth century were shown new strains and had probably been thoroughly the tables compiled in the Statistical Abstract revised? As he imagined the realities behind ofthe United States for the period from 1800 the tables, would he not infer that as men to 1918: He would note that the population lived through the changes which these cold of the world had multiplied two and a half figures summarize they had been in conflict times; its total commerce 42 times; its shipping with their old habits and ideals, that the tonnage more than 7 times; its railways 3664 process of making new habits and adjustments times; its telegraphs 317 times; its cotton must have gone on subject to trial and error production 17 times; its coal 113 times; its with hopefulness over material progress and pig iron 77 times. Could he doubt that in yet much disorder and confusion of soul? a century of such uneven changes men had faced revolutionary sodal problems? 3 Could he not infer from these figures alone For a more specific illustration of the nature that there had been great movements of popu­ of a problem we may examine the problem of lation, vast changes in men's occupation, in the population in its simplest form. When Mal­ character of their labor, their wants, their thus first stated it he assumed, for the pur- 76 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC NATURE OF A PROBLEM 77 poses of argument, two elements evolving at owing to the uneven rate of growth, there different rates. Population, he said, doubled would be only a three-quarter ration for each every twenty-five years; the produce of land person. And this altered relationship Mal­ could be increased in the same time by an thus rightly called a problem. amount "equal to what it at present pro­ Suppose, now, we complicate Malthus's duces." 1 He was writing about the year argument a bit by assuming that in 1850 1800. The population of England he esti­ people had learned to eat less and feIt more mated at seven millions, and the food supply fit on the three-quarter ration. There would as adequate to that number. There was then, then be no problem in 1850, for the adjust­ in 1800, no problem. By 1825 the population, ment of the two variables-food and people­ according to his estimate of its rate of in­ would be satisfactory. Or, on the contrary, crease, would have doubled, but the food suppose that soon after 1800 people had de­ supply would also have doubled. There manded a higher standard of Iiving and would be no problem of population. But by expected more food, though the necessary 1850 the population would stand at twenty­ additional food was not produced. These eight millions; the food supply wouldhave new demands would create a problem. Or increased only by an amount to. support an suppose, as was actually the case,2 the food additional seven millions. The problem of supply increased faster than Malthus had excess population, or, if you like, of food assumed it could, though population did not. , .', scarcity, would have appeared. For while The problem of population would not arise • in 1800 and in 1825 the food available for at the date he predicted. Or suppose the each person would be the same, in 1850 , increase of population was reduced by birth

1 T. R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle 0/ Population, Chapter H. 2 A. M. Carr-Saunders, The Population Problem, p. 28. 78 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC NATURE OF A PROBLEM 79 control. The problem, as Malthus first stated is an altered relationship between two depend­ it, would not arise. 3 Or suppose the food ent variables.4 Thus the automobile is a supply increased faster than the population problem in the city not because there are so could consume it. There would then be a many automobiles but because there are too problem not of population but of agricultural many for the width of the streets, too many surplus. for the number of competent drivers, because In an absolutely static society there would the too narrow streets are filled with too many be no problems. A problem is the result of cars driven too recklessly for the present change. But not of the change in any self­ ability of the police to control them. Because contained element. Change would be un­ the automobile is manufactured faster than noticeable unless we could measure it against old city streets can be widened, because some some other element which did not change at persons acquire cars faster than they acquire the same pace. If everything in the universe prudence and good manners, because auto­ expanded at a mile aminute, or shrank at the mobiles collect in eides faster than policemen same rate, we should never know it. For all can be recruited, trained or paid for by slow­ 1(" we can tell we may be the size of a mosquito yielding taxpayers, there is an automobile one moment in the sight of God, and of an problem made evident by crowding, obnox­ elephant the next; we cannot tell if mosquitoes ious fumes and collisions. and elephants and chairs and planets change But though these evils seem to arise from in proportion. Change is significant only in the automobile, the fault lies not in the auto­ relation to something else. mobile but in the relation between the auto- The change which constitutes a problem 4 Cf. in this connection W. F. Ogburn, Sodal Change, passim, but 3 Malthus himself recognized this in a later edition of his book. particularly Part IV, I, on "The Hypothesis of Cultural Lag." 80 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC NATURE OF A PROBLEM 81 mobile and the city. This may sound like nadian border presents no military problem, splitting hairs, but unless we ins ist upon it not because Canada's forces and our own are we never define a problem accurately nor lay equal but because, happily, we do not com­ it open successfully to solution. pare them. They are independent variables, The problem of national defense, for ex­ having no relation one with the other, and a ample, can never .be stated by a general staff change in the one does not affect the other. which draws upon its inner consciousness In capital ships we are confronted now with for an estimate of the necessary force. The no naval problem in the Atlantic or in the necessary force can be estimated only in rela­ Pacific, because with Britain and Japan, the tion to the probable enemy, and the military only two comparable powers, we are agreed problem whether of peace or of war lies always on a ratio by treaty.5 But for all types of in the ratio of forces. Military force is a ships not subject to the ratio there is a naval purely relative conception. The British Navy is helpless as a child against the unarmed problem in both oceans, and if the Washing­ mountaineers of Tibet. The French Army ton Treaty should lapse the problem which has no force as against fis hing smacks in the it settled would recur. It would recur because Pacific Ocean. Force has to be measured the synchronized progress of the three navies against its objective: the tiger and the shark would be replaced by a relatively uneven are incomparable one with the other. progress of each as compared with the Now a settled and accepted ratio of fOTces others. that might collide is astate of military peace. A competitive and, therefore, constantly un­ 5 However, the controversy over gun elevation demonstrates how difficult it is to maintain an equilibrium of force where so many factors balanced ratio is aprelude to war. The Ca- are variable. 82 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC NATURE OF A PROBLEM 83 trated, and the surplus air not required by 4- men in no way impinges upon their lives. Yet The field of economic activity is the source there may be a scarcity of air, as, for example, of many problems. For, as Cassel says,6 we in a congested tenement district. Then an include within the meaning of the word eco­ economic problem is engendered which has nomic those means of satisfying human wants to be met, let us say, by building laws requir­ which are "usually available only in a limited ing a certain number of cubic feet of air a quantity." Since "the wants of civiIized person. The economist, in other words, takes human beings as a whole are, " for all practical as his field of interest the maladjustment purposes, "unlimited," there is in all economic between human wants and those means of life the constant necessity of reaching "an satisfying them which are available, but only adjustment between the wants and the means in limited quantities. In a world where every of supplying the wants." This disharmony want was satisfied there would be no problems of supply and demand is the source of an for him; nor any in a world where men had unending series of problems. no wants; nor any in a world where the only We may note at once that the economist wants men had could be supplied by a change does not claim as his province the whole on their part of their own· states of conscious­ range of adjustments between human wants ness. To create a problem there must be at and the means of satisfying them. He usually least two dependent but separated variables: omits, for example, the human need to wants and the means of satisfaction; and these breathe air. For since the air is unlimited in two variables must have a disposition to alter quantity the human need of it is not frus- so that an antecedent equiIibrium is disturbed.

6 Gustav Cassel, A Theory 0/ Social Economy, Chapter I. In the measure, says Cassel, in which the 84 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC economic system succeeds in securing an adjustment between the wants .and the means of supplying the wants we speak of it as a CHAPTER VIII sound economy. "This task may be ac­ SOCIAL CONTRACTS complished in three different ways: first, by eliminating the less important wants and so I restricting the total wants; secondly, by IT I8 impossible to imagine in the universe making the best possible use of the means a harmony of all things, each with all the available for the purposes in question; and, others. The only harmonies we know or can thirdly, by increased personal exertions." 7 conceive, outside of what Mr. Santayana Since the problem arises out of the dis­ calls the realm of essences, are partial adjust­ harmony of supply and demand, its solution ments which sacrifice to some one end aIl is to be found by increasing the supply or purposes which conflict with it. That the restricting the demand. The choice of method tree may bear fruit for us, we readily kill the depends first of all on which it is possible in insects that eat the fruit. So the fruit will specific cases to follow, and, second, granting ripen for us, we take no account of the dis­ the possibility, on which is the easier or the harmony we create for innumerable flies. preferred. Either method will give what we In the light of eternity it may be wholly acknowledge as a solution. For when two unimportant whether the harmonies on this variables are in an adjustment which does not earth are suited to men or to insects. For in frustrate the expectations of either there is the light of eternity and from the point of no problem, and none will be feIt to exist. view of the universe as a whole nothing can 7 Ibid., p. 7. be what we call good or bad, better or worse. 85 84 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC economic system succeeds in securing an adjustment between the wants and the means of supplying the wants we speak of it as a CHAPTER VIII sound economy. "This task may be ac­ SOCIAL CONTRACTS ::~ ::1 complished in three different ways: first, by ::~ eliminating the less important wants and so I restricting the total wants; secondly, by IT 18 impossible to imagine in the universe J making the best possible use of the means a harmony of all things, each with all the .." ' i available for the purposes in question; and, others. The only harmonies we know or can thirdly, by increased personal exertions." 7 conceive, outside of what Mr. Santayana j" Since the problem arises out of the dis­ calls the realm of essences, are partial adjust­ harmony of supply and demand, its solution ments which sacrifice to some one end all is to be found by increasing the supply or purposes which conflict with it. That the restricting the demand. The choice of method tree may bear fruit for us, we readily kill the depends first of all , on which it is possible in insects that eat the fruit. So the fruit will specific cases to follow, and, second, granting ripen for us, we take no account of the dis­ the possibility, on which is the easier or the harmony we create for innumerable flies. preferred. Either method will give what we In the light of eternity it may be wholly acknowledge as a solution. For when two unimportant whether the harmonies on this variables are in an adjustment which does not earth are suited to men or to insects. For in frustrate the expectations of either there is the light of eternity and from the point of no problem, and none will be feIt to exist. view of the universe as a whole nothing can 7 lbid., p. 7. be what we call good or bad, better or worse. 85 86 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC SOCIAL CONTRACTS 87 All ideas of value are measurements of some colors, odors and sound of things are depend­ part of this universe with some other part, ent for their quality upon our sense organs. and it is no more possible to value the universe Their relations are seen and understood as a whole than it is to weigh it as a whole. against the background of our necessities. For all scales of value and of weight are con­ In the realm of man's interests and purposes tained within it. To judge the whole uni­ and desires, the perspectives are even nar­ verse you must, like a god, be outside of it, a rower. There is no human point of view here, point of view no mortal mind can adopt. but only the points of view of men. None is Unfortunately for the fly, therefore, we are valid for all human beings, none for all of bound to judge hirn by human values. In so human history, none for all corners of the far as we have power over hirn, he must submit globe.An opinion of the right and the wrong, to the harmonies we seek to establish.We the good and the bad, the pleasant and the mayas a sporting matter admit his theoret­ unpleasant, is dated, is localized, is relative. ical right to establish his own harmonies It applies only to some men at some time in against us if he can, and to call them better some place under some circumstances. if he likes, but for us that only is good which is 2 good for man. Our universe consists of all that it contains, not as such, not as the fly Against this deep pluralism thinkers have knows it, but in its relation to uso From any argued in vain. They have invented sodal other point of view but man's, his conception organisms and national souls, and oversouls, of the universe is askew. I t has an emphasis and collective souls; they have gone for hope­ and a perspective, it is shaped to a design ful analogies to the beehive and the anthill, which is altogether human. The very forms, to the solar system, to the human body; they 88 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC SOCIAL CONTRACTS 89 have gone to Hegel for high er unities and to as this; everything does not fit perfectly as Rousseau for a general will in an effort to in the solution of a puzzle. The conflicting find some basis of union. For though men interests merely find a way of giving a little do not think aIike, nor want the same things, and taking a little, and of existing together though their private interests are so distinct· without too much bad blood. that they do not merge easily in any common They still remain separate interests. The interest, yet men cannot live by themselves, men involved still think differently. They nor realize even their private purposes without have no union of mind or purpose. But they . ta king into account the behavior of other travel their own ways without collision, and people. We, however, no longer expect to find even with some reliance at times upon the a unity which absorbs diversity. For us the others' help. They know their rights and conflicts and differences are so real that we their duties, what to expect and what will be cannot deny them and instead of looking for expected. Their rights are usually less than identity of purpose we look simply for an they claim, and their duties heavier than they accommodation of purposes. like, yet, because they are in some degree en­ Whcn we speak, then, about the solution of forced, conduct is rendered intelligible and a problem in the Great Society, we may mean predictable, and coöperation exists in spite of little more than that two conflicting interests the conflicting interests of men. have found a modus vivendi. It may be, of The modus vivendi of any particular his­ course, that they have really removed all their torical period, the system of rights and duties, differences, that one interest has yielded to has generally acquired some high religious or the other, or both to a third. But the solu­ ideal sanction. The thinkers laureate 'of the tions of most sodal problems are not so neat age will generally manage to show that the 90 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC SOCIAL CONTRACTS 91 institutions, the laws, the morality and the or at least by the sentiment of the community; custom of that age are divinely inspired. a duty is a promise that failure to respeet the These are tiresome illusions which have rights of others in a eertain way will be pun­ been exploded a thousand times. The pre­ ished. The punishment may be death, im­ vailing system of rights and duties at any prisonment, 10ss of property, the nullifieation time is atbottom a slightly antiquated for­ of a right, the expression of disapproval. In mulation of the balance of power among the short, the system of rights and duties is the active interests in the community. There is whole system of promises which the courts always a certain lag, as Mr. Ogburn calls it, and publie sentiment will support. It is not so that the system of rights and duties men a fixed system. It varies from plaee to plaee, are taught is generally a little 1ess contem­ and from time to time, and with the eharaeter porary than the system they would find most of the tribunals and the eommunity. But convenient. But, whether the system is ob­ none the 1ess it makes the eonduet of men solete or not, in its naked origin, a right is somewhat rational, and establishes a kind a claim somebody was able to assert, and a of union in diversity by limiting and defining duty is an obligation somebody was able to the freedom with whieh conflicting purposes Impose. can be pursued. 3 Sometimes the promises are embodied in The prevailing system of rights and duties coercive 1aw: Thou shalt, on penalty of this, is designed to regulate the conflicting pur­ do that; thou shalt not do so and so. Some­ poses of men. An estab1ished right is a times the promise is based on a contraet promise that a certain kind of behavior will between two parties: there is no obligation to be backed by the organized force of the state make the contraet, but, onee made, it must be 92 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC SOCIAL CONTRACTS 93 executed or a certain penalty paid. Some­ The interests which find the rule good will times the promise is based on an ecclesiastical defend it; the interests which find it bad will code: it must be followed or the wages of sin attack it. Their arguments will be weapons will be visited either in fact or in anticipation of defense and offense; even the most objective upon the sinner. Sometimes the promise is appeal to reason will turn out to be an appeal based on custom: it must be respected or the to desert one cause and enlist in another. price of nonconformity, whatever it may happen to be, must be paid. Sometimes the promise is based on habit: it must be executed 4 or the disturbance faced which men feel when In the controversies between interests the they break with their habits. question will be raised as to the merits of a The question of whether any particular particular rule; the argument will turn on right or duty shall be enforced, the question whether the rule is good, on whether it should of how it shall be enforced, whether by the be enforced with this penalty or that. And police, by pnblic criticism or private con­ out of those arguments, by persuasion or science, will not be answered by reasoning coercion, the specific rules of society are made, apriori. It will be answered by the dominant enforced and revised. interests in society, each imposing to the I t is the thesis of this book that the members limit of its powers the system of rights and of the public, who are the spectators of action, duties which most nearly approximates the cannot successfully intervene in a controversy kind of social harmony it finds convenient on the merits of the case. They must judge and desirable. The system will be a reflection externalIy, and they can act onIy by support­ of the power that each interest is able to exert. ing one of the interests directly involved. I t 94 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC SOCIAL CONTRACTS 95 follows that the public interest in a contro­ settled rule, social organization is impossible. versy cannot turn upon the specific issue. On Their conflicting purposes will engender un­ what, then, does it turn? In what phase of ending problems unless they are regulated by the controversy can the public successfully some system of rights and duties. interest itself? The interest of the public is not in the rules Only when somebody objects does the and contracts and customs themselves but public know there is a problem; when nobody in the maintenance of a regime of rule, con­ any Ion ger objects there is a solution. For tract and custom. The public is interested the public, then, any rule is right which is in law, not in the laws; in the method of law, agreeable to all concerned. It follows that not in the substance; in the sanctity of con­ the public interest in a problem is limited to tract, not in a particular contract; in under­ this: tha t there shall be rules, which means standing based on custom, not in this custom that the rules which prevail shall be enforced, or that. It is concerned in these things to the and that the unenforceable rules shall be end that men in their active affairs shall find changed according to a settled rule. The a modus vivendi; its interest is in the workable public's opinion that lohn Smith should or rule which will define and predict the be­ should not do this or that is immaterial; the havior of men so that they can make their public does not know lohn Smith's motives adjustments. The pressure which the public and needs, and is not concerned with them. is able to apply through praise and blame, But that lohn Smith shall do what he has through votes, strikes, boycotts or support promised to do is a matter of public concern, can yield results only if it reinforces the men for unless the social contracts of men are who enforce an old rule or sponsor a new one made, enforced and revised according to a that is needed. 96 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC The public in this theory is not the dispenser of law or morals, but, at best, a reserve force that may be mobilized on behalf of the method CHAPTER IX and spirit of law and morals. In denying that THE TWO QUESTIONS BE FORE THE PUBLIC the public can lay down the rules I have not said that it should abandon any function THE multitude of untroubled rules that men which the public now exercises. I have merely live by are of no concern to the public. It said that it should abandon a pretense. has to deal only with the failures. Customs When the public attempts to deal with the that are accepted by all who are expected to substance it merely becomes the dupe or follow them, contracts that are carried out unconscious ally of a special interest. For peaceably, promises that are kept, expecta­ there is only one common interest: that all tions fulfilled, raise no issue. Even when there special interests shall act according to set­ has been a breach of the rule, there is no public tled rule. The moment you ask what rule question if the breach is clearly established, you invade the' realm of competing interests the aggression clearly identified, the penalty of special points of view, of personal, and determined and imposed. The aggressor dass, and sectional, and national bias. The may be identified because he pleads guilty. public should not ask what rule because it He may be identified by some due process cannot answer the question. I t will con­ though he denies his guilt. The rule, a term tribute its part to the solution of social prob­ under which I mean to inc1ude the method lems if it recognizes that some system of of detection, interpretation and enforcement, rights and duties is necessary,but that no as weIl as the precept, is in either ca se intact. particular system is peculiarly sacred. The force of the public can be aligned without 97 r I 98 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC TWO QUESTIONS 99 hesitation on behalf of the authorities who How then shall he know the rule is defec­ administer the rule. tive? How shall he recognize the reformer? There is no question for the public unless If he is to answer those questions at all, he there is doubt as to the validity of the rule,­ must be able to answer them quickly and doubt, that is to say, about its meaning, its without real understanding of the problem. soundness or the method of its application. Is it possible for hirn to do that? Can he act When there is doubt the public requires simple, intelligently but in ignorance? objective tests to help it decide where it will I think this apparently paradoxical thing enlist. These tests must, therefore, ans wer can be done in some such way as the next two questions : four chapters describe. First, Is the rule defective? Second, How shall the agency be recognized which is most likely to mend it? These are, I should maintain, the only two questions which the public needs to answer in order to exert the greatest influence it is capable of exerting toward the solution of public problems. They are not, please note, the only questions which anybody has to answer to solve a problem. They are the" only questions which a member of the public can usefully concern himself with if he wishes to avoid ignorant meddling. PUBLIC DEBATE 101 of the two types of behavior. And it is this mixture, as weIl as the lack of a clear line of distinction in all cases, which permits a very CHAPTER X large confusion in affairs between a pubIic THE MAIN VALUE OF PUBLIC DEBATE and a private attitude toward them. The THE individual whose action is governed public point of view on a question is muddied by a rule is interested in its substance. But by the presence in the public of spurious mem­ in those rules which do not control his own bers, persons who are really acting to bend the action his chief interest is that there should rule in their favor while pretending or imagin­ be workable rules. ing that they are moved only by the common It follows that the membership of the pub­ public need that there shall be an acceptable He is not fixed. It changes with the issue: rule. the actors in one affair are the spectators of At the outset it is important, therefore, to another, and men are continually passing detect and to discount the self-interested back and forth between the field where they group. In saying this I do not me an to cast are executives and the field where they are even the slightest reflection on a union of membersof a public. The distinction between men to promote their self-interest. It would the two is not, as I said in Chapter III, an be futile to do so, because we m\:ty take it absolute one: there is a twilight zone where as certain that men will act to benefit them­ it is hard to say whether a man is acting selves whenever they think they conveniently executively on his opinions or merely acting can. A political theory based on the ex­ to influence the opinion of some one else who pectation of self-denial and sacrifice by the is acting executively. There is often a mixture run of men in any community would not 100 r

102 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC PUBLIC DEBATE 103 be worth considering. Nor is it at all evi­ is false; it does not represent the real balance dent that the work of the world could be done of forces in the affair and the solution will unless men followed their private interest break down. It will break down because the and contributed to affairs that direct inner true public will not stay mobilized very long knowledge which they thus obtain. More­ for anything, and when it demobilizes the over, the adjustments are likely to be much private interest which was falsely exalted more real if they are made from tully con­ will find its privileges unmanageable. 1t will scious and thoroughly explored special points be like a man placed on J ack Dempsey's ch~st of view. by six policemen, and then left there after the Thus the genius of any illuminating public policemen have gone home to dinner. It discussion is not to obscure and censor private will be like France placed by the Allies upon interest but to help it to sai! and to make it a prostrate Germany and then left there sai! under its own colors. The true public, after the Allies have departed from Europe. in my definition of that term, has to purge The separation of the public from the self­ itself of the self-interested groups who become interested group will not be assisted by the confused with it. It must purge itself not self-interested group. We may be sure that because private interests are bad but because any body of farmers, business men, trade private interests cannot successfully be ad­ unionists will always call themselves the justed to each other if any one of them public if they can. How then is their self­ acquires a c0unterfeit strength. If the true interest to be detected? No ordinary by­ public, concerned only in the fact of adjust­ stander is equipped to analyze the propaganda ment, becomes mobilized behind a private by which a private interest seeks to associate interest seeking to prevail, the adjustment itself with the disinterested public. 1t is a 104 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC perplexing matter, perhaps the most per­ plexing in popular government, and the by­ stander's only recourse is to insist upon de­ CHAPTER XI hate. He will not be able, we may assurne, THE DEFECTIVE RULE to judge the merits of the arguments. But if he does ins ist upon fuH freedom of discussion, I the advocates are very likely to expose one A MAN violates a rule and then puhIidy jus­ another. Open debate may lead to no con­ tifies his action. Here in the simplest form clusion and throw no light wha tever on the is an attack upon the validity of the rule. It problem or its answer, but it will tend to is an appeal for a public judgment. betray the partisan and the advocate. And For he claims to have acted under a new if it has identified them for the true puhlic, rule which is better than the old one. How debate will have served its main purpose. shall the public decide as between the two? The individual not directly concerned It cannot, we are assuming, enter into the may still choose to join the self-interested intrinsic merits of the question. It follows group and support its cause. But at least that the pubIic must ask the aggressor why he will know that he has made hirnself a he did not first seek the assent of those con­ partisan, and thus perhaps he may be some­ cerned before he violated the rule. He may what less likely to mistake a party's purpose say that he did not have time, that he acted for the aim of mankind. in a ctisis. In that event, there is no serious questiOl! for the pubIic, and his associates will either thank hirn or caIl hirn a fooI. But since the citcumstances were admittedly excep- 105 THE DEFECTIVE RULE 107 106 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC tional they do not really establish a new rule, assent is necessary is imperfect, as are most and the public may be satisfied if the parties principies. But, nevertheless, it is a necessary at interest peaceably. make the best of the assumption in society. For if no new rule result. But suppose there was no emergency. required assent every one could make his own Suppose the innovator had time to seek assent, rule, and there would be no rules. The dogma but did not on the ground that he knew what therefore must be maintained, softened by was best. He may be fairly condemned; the the knowledge tha t exceptional times and objections of the other parties may be fairly exceptional men of their own force will make way with any dogma. Since the rules of sustained. For the right of innovation by fiat cannot society cannot be based on exceptions the be defended as a working principle; a new exceptions must justify themselves. rule, however excellent in intention, cannot The test, therefore, of whether a rule has be expected to work unless in some degree it been justifiabIy broken is the test of assent. has been first understood andapproved by The question, then, is how in appIying the all who must liveaccording to it. The in­ test of assent a member of the public is to novator may reply, of course, that he is being determine whether sufficient assent has been condemned by a dogma which is not wholly given. How is he to know whether the proved. That may be admitted. Against regime has been imposed by arbitrary force the principle that a new rule requires assent or in substance agreed to? historie experience can be cited. There have 2 been many instances where a regime has been imposed on an unwilling people and admired We wish to know if assent is Iacking. We later by them for its resuits. The dogma that know it is Iacking because there is open pro- r I THE DEFECTIVE RULE 109 108 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC In such disputes the public must trust the test. Or we know it because there is a wide­ agencies of adjustment acting as checks upon spread refusal to conform. A workable rule, each other. When we remember that the which has assent, will not evoke protest or public cORsists of busy men reading news­ much disobedience. How shall we, as mem­ papers for half an hour or so a day, it is not bers of the public, measure the significance of heartless but merely prudent to deny that the protest or the extent of the disobedience? it can do detailed justice. But where many persons are involved in the 3 controversy there is necessarily a public mat­ Where very few persons are directly in­ ter. For when many persons are embroiled volved in the controversy the public does the effects not only are likely to be wide but best not to intervene at all. One party may there may be need of all the force the public protest, but unless he protests against the can exert in order to compel a peaceable public tribunals set up to adjudicate such adjustment. disputes, his protest may be ignored. The The public must take account of a protest public cannot expect to take part in the voiced on behalf of a relatively large number minutire of human adjustments however of persons. But how shall the public know tragic or important they may be to the in­ that such a protest has been made? It must dividuals concerned. The protest of one look to see whether the spokesman is author­ individual against another cannot be treated ized. How shall it tell if he is authorized? as a public matter. Only if the public tri­ How can it tell, that is to say, whether the bunal is impugned does it become a public representative is able to give assent by com­ matter, and then only because the ca se may mitting his constituency to a course of action? require investigation by some other tribunal. THE DEFECTIVE RULE 111 110 THEPHANTOM PUBLIC Whether the apparent leader is the real leader The same theory holds, with modifications, is a question which the members of a public for large bodies of men within astate. If the cannot usually answer directly on the merits. officials of the miners' union, for instance, take Yet they must answer in some fashion and a position, it is perfectly idle for an employer with some assurance by some rule of thumb. to deny that they speak for the union miners. The rule of thumb is to throw the burden He should deny that they speak for the non­ of proof on those who deny that the apparent union miners, but if the question at issue re­ leader, vested with the external signs of office, quires the assent of the union, then, unless the is the real leader. As between one nation union itself impeaches the leaders, the publie and another, no matter how obnoxious the must accept them as authorized. other's government may be, if there is no But suppose the leaders are ehallenged open rebellion, public opinion cannot go within the union. How shall the importanee behind the returns. For, unless a people is to of the ehallenge be estimated by the public? engage in the hopeless task of playing politics Reeall that the objeet is to find out not inside another's frontiers, there is no course whether the objeetors are right but simply but to hold that a nation is committed by the whether the spokesmen can in fact commit officials it fails to dis charge. If there is open their eonstituents. In weighing the ehallenge rebellion, or that milder substitute, an im­ the public's concern is to. know how far the pending election, it may be wise to postpone opposition ean by virtue of its numbers, or long term settlements until a firm government of its strategie importance, or its determina­ has been seated. But settlements, if they tion, impair the value of an assent. But if we are made at all, must be made with the govern­ expected the public to make judgments of ment in office at the other nation's capital. this sort wc should be asking too much of it. THE DEFECTIVE RULE 113 112 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC The .importance of an opposition can be 4 weighed, if at all, only by rough, external criteria. With an opposition that does not The test of confol'mity is closely related to challenge the credentials of the spokesmen, the test of assent. For it can be assumed that which criticizes but is. not in rebellion, the open criticism of a rule, a custom, a law, an public has no concern. That is an internal institution, is already accompanied by or affair. It is only an opposition which threat­ will soon be followed by evasion of that rule. ens not to conform that has to be considered. It is a fairly safe hypothesis that the run of In such a case, if the spokesmen are elected, men wish to conform; that any body of men they can be held competent to give a reliable aroused to the point where they will pay the assent only until a new election has been price of open heresy probably has an arguable held. If the spokesmen are not elective, and case; more certainly that that body will a rebellious opposition is evident, their assent include a considerable number who have can only be taken as tentative. These criteria passed over the li~e of criticism into the do not, to be sure, weigh the importance of an practice of nonconformity. Their argument opposition, but, by limiting the kind of settle­ may be wrong, the remedy may be foolish, ment which can reasonably be made in face but the fact that they openly criticize at of an opposition, they allow for its effect. some personal risk is a sign that the rule is not They introduce the necessary modifica­ working weIl. Widespread criticism, there­ tion to make workable the general principle fore, has a significance beyond its intellectual that the test of assent by large bodies of value. It is almost always a symptom on men is simply that their spokesmen have the surface that the rule is unstable. When a rule is broken not occasionally agreed. 114 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC but very often the rule is defective. It simply does not define the conduct which normally may be expected of men who live under it. CHAPTER XII I t may sound noble. But it does not work. THE CRITERIA OF REFORM It does not adjust relations. It does not I actually organize society. In what way the rule is defective the public THE random collections of bystanders who cannot specifically determine. By the two constitute a public could not, even if they had tests I have suggested, of assent and of con­ a mind to, intervene in all the problems of formity, the public can determine the presence the day. They can and must play a part of a defect in the rule. But whether that occasionally, I believe, but they cannot take defect is due to a false measure of the chang­ an interest in, they cannot make even the ing balance of forces involved, or to neglect coarsest judgments ab out, and they will not act of an important interest or some relevant even in the most grossly partisan way on; all circumstance, or to a bad technic of adjust­ the questions arising daily in a complex and ment, or to contradictions in the rule, or to changing society. Normally they leave their obscurity, or to lack of machinery for its inter­ proxies to a kind of professional public con­ pretation or for the deduction of specific rules sisting of more or less eminent persons. Most from generaIones, the public cannot judge. issues are never carried beyond this ruling It will have gone, I believe, to the limits of group; the lay publics catch only echo es of its normal powers if it judges the rule to be the debate. defective, and turns then to identify the If, by the push and pull of interested parties agency most likely to remedy it. and public personages, settlements are made 115 116 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC CRITERIA OF REFORM 117 more or less continually the party in power Although it is the custom of partisans to has the confidence of the country. In effect, speak as if there were radical differences the outsiders are arrayed behind the dominant between the Ins and the Outs, it could be insiders. But if the interested parties cannot demonstrated, I be1ieve, that in stable and be made to agree, if, as a result, there is dis­ mature societies the differences are neces­ turbance and chronic crisis, then the opposi­ sarily not profound. If they were profound, tion among the insiders may come to be con­ the defeated minority would be constantly sidered the hope of the country, and be able on the verge of rebellion. An election would to entice the bystanders to its side. be catastrophic, whereas the assumption in To support the Ins when things are going every election is that the victors will do well; to support the Outs when they seem nothing to make life intolerable to the van­ to be going badly, this, in spite of all that has quished ,and that the vanquished will endure been said about tweedledum and tweedledee, with good humor policies which they do not is the essence of popular government. Even approve. the most intelligent large public of which we In the United States, Great Britain, Can­ have any experience must determine finally ada, Australia and in certain of the Conti­ who shall wie1d the organized power of the nental countries an election rarely means state, its army and its police, by a choice even a -fraction of what the campaigners between the Ins and Outs. A community said it would mean. It means some new faces where there is no choice does not have popular and perhaps a slightly different general ten­ government. It is subject to some form dency in the management of affairs. The of dictatorship or it is ruled by the intrigues Ins may have had a bias toward collectivism; of the politicians in the lobbies. the Outs will lean toward individualism. 118 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC CRITERIA OF REFORM 119 The Ins may have been suspicious and non­ more than this: the Ins, after a term of power, coöperative in foreign affairs; the Outs will become so committed to policies and so en­ perhaps be more trusting or entertain another tangled with particular interests that they set of suspicions. The Ins may have favored lose their neutral freedom of decision. They certain manufacturing interests; the Outs cannot then intervene to check the arbitrary may favor agricultural interests. But even movement of the interests with which they these differing tendencies are very small as have become aligned. Then it is time for compared with theimmense area of agree­ the Outs to take power and restore a balance. ment, established habit and unavoidable ne­ The virtue of the Outs in this trans action is cessity. In fact, one might say that a nation that they are not committed to those partic­ is politically stable when nothing of radical ular policies and those particular interests consequence is determined by its e1ections. which have become overweighted. There is, therefore, a certain mock serious­ The test of whether the Ins are handling ness about the campaigning for votes in well­ affairs effectively is the presence or absence established communities. Much of the excite­ of disturbing problems. The need of reform ment is not about the fate of the nation but is recognizable, as I pointed out in the chapter simply about the outcome of the game. before this one, by the test of assent and the Some of the excitement is sincere, like any test of conformity. But it is my opinion that fervor of intoxication. And much of it is for the most part the general public cannot deliberately stoked up by the expenditure of back each reformer on each issue. I t must money to overcome the inertia of the mass of choose between the Ins and Outs on the basis the voters. For the most part the real dif­ of a cumulative judgment as to whether prob­ ference between the Ins and the Outs is no lems are being solved or aggravated. The r 120 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC CRITERIA OF REFORM 121 .particular reformers must look for their sup­ law, though when the law is working weIl the port normally to the ruling insiders. support ot the public is like the gold reserve If, however, there is to be any refinement of a good bank: it is known to be there and of pubiic opinion it must come from the need not be drawn upon. But in many fields breaking up of these wholesale judgments of controversy the rule is not plain, or its into somewhat more retail judgments on the validity is challenged; each party calls the major spectacular issues of the day. Not aII other aggressor, each claims to be acting for of the issues which interest the public are the highest ideals of mankind. In disputes within the scope of poIitics and reachable between nations, between sectional interests, through the party system. I t seems worth between classes, between town and country, while, therefore, to see whether any canons between churches, the rules of adjustment of judgment can be formulated which could are lacking and the argument about them is guide the bystanders in particular contro­ lost in a fog of propaganda. versies. Yet it is controversies of this kind, the The problem is to locate by cIear and coarse hardest controversies to disentangle, that objective tests the actor in a controversy the public is called in to judge. Where the who is most worthy of pubIic support. facts are most obscure, where precedents are lacking, where novelty and confusion pervade 2 everything, the public in all its unfitness is When the rule is plain, its validity un­ compeIIed to make its most important deci­ challenged, the breach clear and the aggres­ sions. The hardest problems are those which sor plainly located, the question does not institutions cannot handle. They are the arise. The public supports the agents of the public's problems. 122 THE PHANTOM, PUBLIC CRITERIA OF REFORM 123 The one test which the members of a ally useful. If the parties are willing to ac­ public can apply in these circumstances is cept it, there is at once an atmosphere of to note which party to the dispute is least reason. There is prospect of a settlement. willing to submit its whole claim to inquiry Failing that there is at least a delay of and to abide by the result. This does not summary action and an opportunity for the mean that experts are always expert or im­ clarification of issues. And failing that there partial tribunals really impartial. I t means is a high probability that the most arbitrary simply that where the public is forced to of the disputants will be isolated and clearly intervene in astrange and complex affair, identified. I t is no wonder that this is the the test of public inquiry is the surest clue principle invoked for the so-called nonjus­ to the sincerity of the claimant, to his con­ ticiable questions in all the recent experiments fidence in his ability to stand the ordeal of under the covenant of the League of N a­ examination, to his willingness to accept tions 1 and the Protocol for the Pacific Settle­ risks for the sake of his faith in the possi­ ment of International Disputes.2 For in bility of rational human adjustments. He applying this test of inquiry, what we affirm may impugn a particular tribunal. Eut he is this: That there is a dispute. That the must at least propose another. The test merits are not clear. That the policy which is whether, in the absence of an established ought to be applied is not established. That, rule, he is willing to act according to the forms nevertheless, we of the public outside say of law and by a process through which law that those who are quarreling must act as may be made. if there were law to cover the case. That, Of all the tests which public opinion can 1 Articles XIII, XV. employ, the test of inquiry is the most gener- I Articles 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10. 124 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC CRITERIA OF REFORM 125 even if the material for a reasoned conc1usion The test of inquiry is the master test by is lacking, we demand the method and spirit which the public can use its force to extend of reason. That we demand any sacri:fi.ce the frontiers of reason. that may be necessary, th~ postponment of satisfaction of their just needs, the risk that 3 one of them will be defeated and that an in­ Eut while the test of inquiry may dis­ justice will be done. These things we affirm tinguish the party which is entitled to initial because we are maintaining a society ba$ed" support, it is of value only where one party on the principle that all controversies are refuses inquiry. If all sub mit to inquiry, it soluble by peaceable agreement. reveaIs nothing. And in any event it reveals They may not be. But on that dogma nothing about the prospects of the solution our society is founded. And that dogma proposed. The party seeking publicity may we are compelled to defend. We can de­ have less to conceal, and may mean weIl, but fend it, too, with a good enough conscience, sincerity unfortunately is no i"ndex of intel­ however disconcerting some of its immediate ligence. By what criteria are the public then consequences may be. For, by insisting in to judge the new rule which is proposed as a all disputes upon the spirit of reason, we shall solution? tend in the long run to con:fi.rm the habit of The public cannot tell whether the new rule reason. And where that habit prevails no will, in fact, work. It may assurne, however, point of view can seem absolute to hirn who that in achanging world no rule will always holds it, and no problem between men so work. A rule, therefore, should be organized difficult that there is not at least a modus so that experience will clearly reveal its de­ vivendi. fects. The rule should be so c1ear that a 126 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC CRITERIA OF REFORM 127 violation is apparent. But since no generality should provide that subject to a certain can cover all cases, this means simply that formal procedure the controversy over re­ the rule must contain a settled procedure vision shall be public. This will often break by which it can be interpreted. Thus a up the obstruction. Where it does not, the treaty which says that a certain territory community is pretty certain to become en­ shall be evacuated when certain conditions gaged on behalf of one of the partisans. This are fulfilled is quite defective, and should be is likely to be inconvenient to all concerned, condemned, if it does not provide a way of and the inconvenience due to meddling in defining exact1y what those conditions are the substance of a controversy by a crude, and when they have been fulfilled. A rule, violent and badly aimed public opinion at in other words, must include the means of least may teach those direct1y concerned not its own clarification, so that a breach shall be to invoke interference the next time. undeniably overt. Then only doesit take But although amendment should be pos­ account of experience which no human intel­ sible, it should not be continual or unfore­ ligence can foresee. .seen. There should be time for habit and It follows from this that a rule must be custom to form. The pot should not be made organized so that it can be amended without to boi! all the time, or be stirred up for some revolution. Revision must be possible by comparatively insignificant reason, whenever consent. But assent is not always given, an orator sees a chance to make hirns elf even when the arguments in favor of a change important. Since the habits and expecta­ are overwhelming. Men will stand on what tions of many different persons are involved they call their rights. Therefore, in order in an institution, some way must be found of that deadlock should be dissoluble, a rule giving it stability without freezing it in r 128 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC CRITERIA OF REFORM 129 statu quo. This can be done by requmng that amendment shall be in order only after 4 due notice. This is as far as I know how at present to What due notice may be in each particular work out an answer to the question which we case, the public cannot say. Only the parties inherit from Aristotle: can simple criteria at interest are likely to know where the be formulated which will show the by­ rhythm of their affairs can be interrupted stander where to align himself in complex most conveniently. Due notice will be one affairs? period of time for men operating on long com~ I have suggested that the main value of mitments and another for men operating on debate is not th'lt it reveals the truth about short ones. But the public can watch to see the controversy to the audience but that it whether the principle of due notice is embodied may identify the partisans. I have suggested in the proposed settlement. further that a problem exists where a rule To judge a new rule, then, the tests pro­ of action is defective, and that its defective­ posed here are three: Does it provide for its ness can best be judged by the public through own c1arification? for its own amendment the test of assent and the test of conformity. by consent? for due notice that amend­ For remedies I have assumed that normally ment will be proposed? The tests are de­ the public must turn to the Outs as against signed for use in judging the prospects of the Ins, although these wholesale judgments a settlement not by its substance but by may be refined by more analytical tests for its procedure. Areform which satisfies specific issues. As sampies of these more these tests is normally entitled to public analytical tests I have suggested the test of support. inquiry for confused controversies, and for r 130 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC CRITERIA OF REFORM 131 reforms the test of interpretation, of amend­ than blindly partisan. For where events ment and of due notice. are so confused or so subtly balanced or so These criteria are neither exhaustive nor hard to understand that they do not yield to definitive. Yet, however much tests of this judgments of the kind I have been outlining character are improved by practice and re­ here, the probabilities are very great that the fleetion, it seems to me there always must public can produce only muddle if it meddles. remain many public affairs to which they For not aII problems are soluble in the present cannot be applied. I do not believe that the state of human knowledge. Many which public can intervene successfully in all public may be soluble are not soluble with any force questions. Many problems cannot be ad­ the public can exert. Some time alone will vanced by that obtuse partisanship which eure, and some are the fate of man. It is not is fundamentally all that the public can essential, therefore, always to do something. bring to bear upon them. There is no reason It follows that the proper limits of inter­ to be surprised, therefore, if the tests I have vention by the public in affairs are deter­ outlined, or any others that are a vast im­ mined by its capacity to make judgments. provement upon them, are not readily appli­ These limits may be extended as new and cable to all questions that are raised in the better criteria are formulated, ör as men discussions of the day. become more expert through practice. Eut I should simply maintain that where the where there are no tests, where such tests as members of a public cannot use tests of this these cannot be used, where, in other words,. sort as a guide to action, the wisest course for only an opinion on the actual merits of the them is not to act at all. They had better dispute itself would be of any use, any be neutral, if they can restrain themselves, positive action the bystanders are likely to r i 132 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC take is almost certain to be more of a nuisance than a benefit. Their duty is to keep an open CHAPTER XIII mind and wait to see. The existence of a usable test is itself the test of whether the THE PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC OPINION public ought to intervene. I

THE tests outlined in the preceding chapters have certain common characteristics. They all select a few sampIes of behavior or a few aspects of a proposal. They measure these sampIes by rough but objective, by highly generalized but definite standards. And they yield a judgment which is to justify the public in aligning itself for or against certain actors in the matter at issue. I do not, of course, set great store upon my formulation of these tests. That is wholly tentative, being put out merely as a basis of discussion and to demonstrate that the for­ mulation of tests suited to the nature of public opinion is not impracticable. But I do at­ tach great importance to the character of these tests. 133 134 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC OPINION 135 The principles underlying them are these: must be made by sampling an extern al aspect I. Executive action is not for the public. of the behavior of the insiders. The public acts only by aligning itself as the 6. In order that this sampling shall be partisan of some one in a position to act pertinent, it is necessary to discover cri­ executively. teria, suitable to the nature of public 2. The intrinsic merits of a question are opinion, which can be relied upon to dis­ not for the public. The public intervenes tinguish between reasonable and arbitrary from the outside upon the work of the in­ behavior. siders. 7. For the purposes of social action, reason­ 3. The anticipation, the analysis and the able behavior is conduct which follows a solution of a question are not for the public. settled course whether in making a rule, in The public's judgment rests on a small sampIe enforcing it or in amending it. of the facts at issue. 4. The specific, technical, intimate criteria I t is the task oi the political scientist to required in the handling of a question are devise the methods of sampling and to define not for the public. The public's criteria are the criteria of judgment. I t is the task of generalized for many problems; they turn civic education in a democracy to train the essentially on procedure and the overt, ex­ public in the use of these methods. It is ternal forms of behavior. the task of those who build institutions to 5. What is left for the public is a judgment take them into account. as to whether the actors in the controversy are following a settled rule of behavior or their own arbitrary desires. This judgment 136 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC OPINION 137 This democratic conception is false because 2 r it fails to note the radical difference between These principles differ radically from those the experience of the insider and the outsider; on which democratic reformers have pro­ it is fundamentally askew because it asks the ceeded. At the root of the effort to educate outsider to deal as successfully with the sub­ a people for self-government there has, 1 be­ stance of a question as the insider. He cannot lieve, always been the assumption that the do it. No scheme of education can equip him voter should aim to approximate as nearly in advance for all the problems of mankind ; as he can the knowledge and the point of view no device of publicity, no machinery of en­ of the responsible man. He did not, of course, lightenment, can endow him during a crisis in the mass, ever approximate it very nearly. with the antecedent detailed and technical But he was supposed to. It was believed that knowledge which is required for executive if only he could be taught more facts, if only action. he would take more interest, if only he would The democratic ideal has never defined the read more and better newspapers, if only he function of the public. It has treated the would listen to more lectures and read more public as an immature, shadowy executive of reports, he would gradually be trained to all things. The confusion is deep-seated in a direct public affairs. The whole assumption mystical notion of society. "The people" is false. It rests upon a false conception of were regarded as a person; their wills as a public opinion and a false conception of the will; their ideas as a mind; their mass as an way the public acts. No sound scheme cf organism with an organic unity of which the civic education can come of it. No progress individual was a cell. Thus the voter identi­ can be made toward this unattainable ideal. fied himself with the officials. He tried to 138 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC r PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC OPINION 139 think that their thoughts were his thoughts, thing. The result is a bewildered public and I that their deeds were his deeds, and even a mass of insufficiently trained officials. The that in some mysterious way they werea responsible men have obtained their training part of hirn. All this confusion of identities not from the courses in." civics" but in the led naturally to the theory that everybody law schools and law offices and in business. was doing everything. I t prevented democ­ The public at large, which includes everybody racy'from arriving at a clear idea of its own outside the field of his.own responsible knowl­ limits and attainable ends. 1t obscured for edge, has had no coherent political training the purposes of government and social educa­ of any kind. Our civic education does not tion the separation of function and the even begin to tell the voter how he can reduce specialization in training which have grad­ the maze of public affairs to some intelligible ually been established in most human activ­ form. ities. Critics have not been lacking, of course, Democracy, therefore, has never developed who pointed out what a hash democracy was an education for the public. It has merely making of its pretensions togovernment. given it a smattering of the kind of knowledge These critics have seen that the important which the responsible man requires. 1t has, decisions were taken by individuals, and in fact, aimed not at making good citizens that public opinion was uninformed, irrelevant but at making a mass of amateur executives. and meddlesome. They have usually con­ It has not taught the child how to act as a cluded that there was a congenital difference member of the public. 1t has merely given between the masterful few and the ignorant hirn a hasty, incomplete taste of what he many. They are the victims of a superfi­ might have to know if he meddled in every- cial analysis of the evils they see so clearly. 140 THE PHANTOM PUBUC PRINCIPLES OF PUBUC OPINION 141 The fundamental difference which matters Education for citizenship, for membership is that between insiders and outsiders. Their in the public, ought, therefore, to be distinct relations to a problem are radically different. from education for public office. Citizenship Only the insider can make decisions, not be­ involves a radically different relation to cause he is inherently a better man but because affairs, requires different intellectual habits he is so placed that he can understand and and different methods of action. The force can act. The outsider is necessarily ignorant, of public opinion is partisan, spasmodic, usually irrelevant and often meddlesome, be­ simple-minded and external. It needs for cause he is trying to navigate the ship from its direction, as I have tried to show in these dry land. That is why excellent automobile chapters, a new intellectual method which manufacturers, literary critics and scientists shall provide it with its own usable canons often talk such nonsense about politics. Their of judgment. congenital excellence, if it exists, reveals itself only in their own activity. The aris­ tocratic theorists work from the fallacy of supposing that a sufficiently excellent square peg will also fit a round hole. In short, like the democratic theorists, they miss the es­ sence of the matter, which is, that competence exists only in relation to function; that men are not good, but good for something; that men cannot be educated, but only educated for something. r

PAR T III r

CHAPTER XIV

SOCIETY IN ITS PLACE

I

A FALSE ideal of democracy can lead only to disillusionment and to meddlesome tyranny. If democracy cannot direct affairs, then a philosophy which expects it to direct them will encourage the people to attempt the im­ possible; they will fail, but that will inter­ fere outrageously with the productive lib­ erties of the individual. 'rhe public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.

2 The source of that bewilderment lies, I think, in the attempt to ascribe organic 145 r ! 146 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC SOCIETY IN ITS PLACE 147 unity and purpose to society. We have been was entitled to support. What the national­ taught to think of society as a body, with a ist rulers thought and did was the nation's mind, a soul and a purpose, not as a collection purpose, and the touchstone for all patriots; of men, women and children whose minds, what the reformers proposed was the benev­ souls and purposes are variously related. In­ olent consciousness of the human race moving stead of being allowed to think realistically mysteriously but progressively toward per­ of a complex of social relations, we have had fection. foisted upon us by various great propagative The deception was so generally practised movements the notion of a mythical entity, that it was often practised sincerely. But to called Society, the Nation, the Community. maintain the fiction that their purposes were In the course of the nineteenth century the spirit of mankind, public men had to society was personified under the influence accustom themselves to telling the public largely of the nationalist and the socialist only apart of what they told themselves. movements. Each of these doctrinal influ­ And, incidentally, they confessed to them­ ences in its own way insisted upon treating selves only apart of the truth on which they the public as the agent of an overmastering were acting. Candor in public life became social purpose. In point of fact, the real a question of policy and not a rule of life. agents were the nationalist leaders and their "He may judge rightly," Mr. Keynes lieutenants, the social reformers and their once said of Mr. Lloyd George, l "that this lieutenants. But they moved behind a veil is the best of which a democracy is capable,­ of imagery. And the public was habituated to be jockeyed, humbugged, cajoled along to think that any one conforming to the the right road. A prejudice for truth or for sterotype of nationalism or of social welfare 1 John Maynard Keynes, ARevision 0/ ehe Treaty, p. 4. r

148 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC SOCIETY IN ITS PLACE 149 sincerity as a method may be a prejudice the goodness of his aims. Eut where there based on some c:esthetic or personal standard is a purpose in public affairs there are also ap­ inconsistent, in politics, with practical good. parent necessities which weigh in the balance We cannot yet tell." against the indiscreet expression of belief. The We do know, as a matter of experience, that public man does not and cannot act on the all the cards are not laid face up upon the fiction that his mind is also the public mind. table. For however deep the personal preju­ Y ou cannot account for this, as angry dice of the statesman in favor of truth as democrats have done by dismissing all pubIic a method, he is almost certainly forced to men as dishonest. I t is not a question of treat truth as an element of policy. The personal morals. The business man, the evidence on this point is overwhelming. No trade-union leader, the college president, the statesman risks the safety of an army out minister of religion, the editor, the critic and of sheer devotion to truth. He does not the prophet, all feel as J efferson did when he endanger a diplomatie negotiation in order wrote that "although we often wished to go to enlighten everybody. He does not usually faster we slackened our pace that our less forfeit his advantages in an election in order ardent colleagues might keep pace with us to speak plainly. He does not admit his own ... [and] by this harmony of the bold with mistakes because confession is so good for the cautious, we advanced with our con­

the soul. In so far as he has power to control stituents in undivided mass." 2 the publication of truth, he manipulates it The necessity for an' "undivided mass" to what he considers the necessities of action, makes men put truth in the second place. of bargaining, morale and prestige.' He may 2 In a letter to William Wirt, cited by John Sharp Williams, Thoma$ misjudge the necessities. He may exaggerate JeiJerson, p. 7. r SOCIETY IN ITS PLACE 151 150 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC I do not wish to argue that the necessity is there is room in the world for different and not often areal one. When astatesman teIls more or less separate purposes. The monistic me that it is not safe for him to disclose all theory has an air of great stability ab out the facts, I am content to trust him in this it; we are afraid if we do not hang together if I trust him at all. There is nothing mis­ we shall all hang separately. The pluralistic leading in a frank refusal to tell. The mis­ theory, as its leading advocate, J\tü. Laski, chief comes in the pretense that all is being has pointed out, seems to carry with it "a told, that the public is entirely in the confi­ hint of anarchy." 3 Yet the suggestion is dence of the public man. And that mischief grossly exaggerated. There is least anarchy has its source in the sophistry that the public precisely in those areas of society where and all the individuals composing it are one separate functions are most clearly defined mind, one soul, one purpose. I t is seen to be and brought into orderly adjustment; there an absurd sophistry, once we look it straight is most anarchy in those twilight zones be­ in the face. It is an unnecessary sophistry. tween nations, between employers and em~ For we do weIl enough with doctors, though ployees, between sections and classes and we are ignorant of medicine, and with engine races, where nothing is clearly defined, where drivers, though we cannot drive a locomotive; separateness of purpose is covered up and why not, then, with a Senator, though we confused, where false unities are worshiped, cannot pass an examination on the merits and each special interest is foreverpro­ of an agricultural bill? claiming itself the voice of the people and Yet we are so deeply indoctrinated with attempting to impose its purpose upon every­ the notion of union based upon identity, body as the purpose of all mankind. that we are most reluctant to admit that I Harold ]. Laski, Studies in the Problem 0/ Sovereignty, p. 24. r 152 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC SOCIETY IN ITS PLACE 153 spaee and time and can see not the whole 3 world but onIy the world as seen from that To this confusion liberalism has with the point. So men learned that they saw a kindest intentions contributed greatly. Its littIe through their own eyes, and much more main insight was into the prejudices of the through reports of what other men thought individual; the liberal discovered a method they had seen. They were made to under­ of proving that men are finite, that they stand that aIl human eyes have habits of cannot escape from the flesh. 'From the so­ vision, which are often stereotyped, which called age of enlightenment down to our always throw facts into a perspective; and day the heavy guns of criticism have been that the whole of experience is more sophisti­ used to make men realize that they sub mit, cated than the naive mind suspects. For its as Bacon said, the shadows of things to the pictures of the world are drawn from things desires of the mind. Onee the resistanee was half heard and of things half seen; they deal broken by proof that man belonged to the with the shadows of things unsteadiIy, and natural world, his pretensions to· absolute submit unconsciously to the desires of the certainty were attaeked from every quarter. mind. He was shown the his tory of his ideas and I t was an amazing and unsettling revela­ of his customs, and he was driven to ac­ tion, and liberalism never quite knew what knowledge that they were bounded by time to do with it. In a theater in Moscow a and space and circumstance. He was shown certain M. Yevreynoff carried the revelation that there is a bias in all opinion, even in to one of its logical conclusions. He produced opinion purged of desire, for the man who the monodrama.4 This is a pIay in which holds the opinion must stand at some point in 4 Kenneth Macgowan, The Theatre 0/ Tomorrow, pp. 249':'50. r ! 154 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC SOCIETY IN ITSPLACE 155 the action, the setting and all the characters audience; the universe had not after all gone are seen by the audience through the eyes up in the smoke of one fantasy; the drunken of one character only, as the hero sees them, hero had his point of view, but, after all, there and they take on the quality wh ich his mind were others, just as authentie, with which in imagines they possess. Thus in the old the course of his career he might collide. theater, if the hero drank too much, he There might be a policeman, for example, reeled in the midst of a sober environment. with fantasies to be sure, but his own, who But in M. Yevreynoff's supremely liberal would break in upon the monodrama and theater, if I understand Mr. Macgowan's remind the hero, and us, that when we sub mit account of it correct1y, the drunkard will the shadows of things to the desires of the not reel about the lamppost; two lampposts mind we do not submit the things them­ will reel about him, and he will be dressed, selves. because that is the way he feels, like Napoleon But while all this does vindicate the sanity Bonaparte. of the liberal criticism, it does not answerthe M. Yevreynoff has troubled me a good deal, question : since every action has to be taken for he seemed to have finished off the liberal by somebody, since everybody is in some with a fool's cap, and left him sitting in a degree a drunken hero with two lampposts worId that does notexist, except as so many teetering about hirn, how can any common crazy mirrors reflecting his own follies one good be furthered by this creature who is upon the other. But then I recalled that M. dominated by his special purposes ? The Yevreynoff's logic was defective and make­ answer was thatit could be furthered by believe. He had all the time stood soberIy taming his purposes, enlightening them and outside his own drunken hero, and so had his fitting them into each other as the violin .and r 156 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC SOCIETY IN ITS PLACE 157 the drum are fitted together into the orches­ was so utterly disconcerted by his own dis­ tra. The answer was not acceptable in the covery of a necessary but perfectly obvious nineteenth century, when men, in spite of truth, that he took Hight into generalities. all their iconoeIasm, were still haunted by The appeal to everybody's conscience gave the phantom of identity. So liberals refused nobody a eIue how to act; the voter, the to write harmonious but separate parts for politician, the laborer, the capitalist had to the violinist and the drummer. They made, construct their own codes ad hoc, accompanied instead, a noble appeal to their highest in­ perhaps by an expansive liberal sentiment, stincts. They spoke over the heads of men but without intellectual guidance from liberal to man. thought. In time, when liberalism had lost These general appeals were as vague as its accidental association with free trade and they were broad. They gave particular men laissez faire, through their abandonment in no eIue as to how to behave sincerely, but practice, it sadly justified itself as a necessary they furnished them with an excellent mas­ and useful spirit, as a kind of genial spook querade when they behaved arbitrarily. Thus worth having around the place. For when the trappings of liberalism came into the individual men, guided by no philosophy but service of commercial exploiters, of profi teers their own temporary rationalizations, got and prohibitionists and jingoes, of charlatans themselves embroiled, the spook would appear and the makers of buncombe. and in a peroration straighten out the more For liberalism had burned down the barn arbitrary biases they displayed. to roast the pig. The discovery of preju­ Yet even in this disembodied state liberal­ dice in all particular men gave the liberal a ism is important. I t tends to awaken a milder shock from which he never recovered. He spirit; it softens the hardness of action. But r 158 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC I SOCIETY IN ITS PLACE 159 it does not dominate action, because it has I disinterested intuition in everybody was eliminated the actor from its scheme of i equivalentto an appeal to nobody. things. It cannot say: You do this and you do No such fallacy is to be found in the politi­ that, as an ruling philosophies must. I t can cal philosophies which active men have lived only say: That is n't fair, that's selfish, that's by. They have all assumed, as a matter tyrannical. Liberalism has been, therefore, of course, that in the struggle against evil adefender of the under dog, and his liberator, it was necessary to call upon some specific but not his guide, when he is free. Top dog agent to da the work. Even when the thinker himself, he easily leaves his liberalism aside, was out of temper with the human race, and to liberals the sour reflection that they he had always hitherto made somebody the have forged a weapon of release but not a hero of his campaign. It was the peculiarity way of life. of liberalism among theories which have The liberals have misunderstood the nature played a great part in the world that it at­ of the public to which they appealed. The tempted to eliminate the hero entirely. public in any situation is, in fact, merely Plato would certainly have thought this those persons, indirectly concerned, who might strange: his Republt'c is a tract on the proper align themselves in support of one of the education of a ruling dass. Dante, in the actors. Butthe liberal took no such unin­ turmoil of thirteenth century Florence, seek­ flated view of the public. He assumed ing order and stability, addressed himself that an mankind was within hearing, that not to the conscience of Christendom but to an mankind when it heard wouldrespond the Imperial Party. The great state builders homogeneously because it had a single soul. of modern times, Hamilton, Cavaur, Bis­ His appeal to this cosmopolitan, universal, marck, Lenin, each had in mind somebody, 160 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC r SOCIETY IN ITS PLACE 161 some group of real people, who were to realize the human problem, but it is at the same time his program. The agents in the theory have a demonstration of how we wish to see that va ried, of course; he re they are the landlords, problem solved. We seek an adjustment, as then the peasants, or the unions, or the mili­ perfeet as possible, as untroubled as it was tary dass, or the manufacturers; there are before we were born. Even if man were a theories addressed to a chureh, to the ruling fighting animal, as some say he is, he would dasses in partieular nations, to some nation wish for a world in wh ich he eould fight per­ or race. The theories are always, exeept feet1y, with eneinies fleet enough to extend in the liberal philosophy, addressed to some­ hirn and not too fleet to elude hirn. All men body. desire their own perfeet adjustment, but they By comparison the liberal philosophy has desire it, being finite men, on their own tenns. an air of vague unworldiness. Yet the re­ Beeause liberalism eould not aeeommodate gard of men for it has been persistent; some­ the universal need of adjustment to the per­ how or other with all the lapses in its logie manenee and the reality of individual pur­ and with all its practieal weaknesses it touehes pose, it remained an ineomplete, a disem­ a human need. These appeals from men bodied philosophy. It was frustrated over to man: are they not a way of saying that the aneient problem of the One and the Many. men desire peaee, that there is a harmony Yet the problem is not so insoluble onee we attainable in whieh all men can live and let cease to personify soeiety. It is only when we live? I t seems so to me. The attempt to are eompelled to personify soeiety that we are eseape from partieular purposes into some puzzled as to how many separate organie universal purpose, from personality into some­ individuals can be united in one homogeneous thing impersonal, is, to be sure, a flight from organic individual. This logical underbrush r I 162 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC is cleared away. if we think of society not as I the name of a thing but as the name of all CHAPTERXV the adjustments between individuals and ABSENTEE RULERS theirthings. Then, we can say without theoretical qualms what common sense plainly I teIls us is so: it is the individuals who act, not THE practical effect of the monistic theories society; it is the individuals who think, not of society has been to rationalize that vast the collective mind; it is the painters who concentrating of political and economic power paint, not the artistic spirit of the age; it is in .the midst of which we live. Since society the soldiers who fight and are killed, not the was supposed to have organic purposes of its nation; it is the merchant who exports, not own, it came to seem quite reasonable that the country. It is their relations with each these purposes should be made manifest to other that constitute a society. And it is a people by laws and decisions from a central about the ordering of those relations that the point. Somebody had to have a purpose re­ individuals not executively concerned in a vealed to him wh ich couldbe treated as the specific disorder may have public opinions common purpose; if it was to beaccepted it and may intervene as a public. had to .be enforced by command; if it was really to look like the national purpose, it had to be handed down as a rule binding upon all. Thus men colild say with Goethe: " And then a mighty work completed stands, One mind suffices for a thousand hands." 1

1 Faust, Part II, Act v, scene 3. 163 r

164 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC ABSENTEE RULERS 165 In this fashion the eulogies of the Great increase of the incalculable forces that bear Society have been made. Two thousand years upori his fate. My neighbor in the country aga it was possible for whole civilizations who borrowed money to raise potatoes which as mature as the Chinese and the Greco­ he cannot sell for cash looks at the bills from Roman to coexist in total indifference to one the village store asking for immediate cash another. Today the food supplies, the raw payments, and does not share the philosophie materials, the manufactures, the communica­ hopeful view of the interdependence of the tions and the peace of the world constitute world. When unseen commission merchants one great system which cannot be thrown in New York City refuse his potatoes, the severely out of balance in any part without calamity is as dumfounding as a drought or a disturbing the whole. plague of locusts. Looked at from the top, the system in its The harvest in September of the planting far-flung and intricate adjustments has a in May is now determined not only by wind certain grandeur. 1t might, a~ some hopeful and weather, which his religion has from persons think, even ultimately mean the broth­ time immemorial justified, but by a tangle erhood of man since all men living in advanced of distant human arrangements of which only communities are now in quite obvious fashion loose threads are in his hands. He may live dependent upon one another. But the individ­ more richly than his ancestors; he may be ual man cannot look at the system steadily wealthier and healthier and, for all he knows, from the top or see it in its ultimate specula­ even happier. But he gambles with the tive possibilities. For hirn it means in prac­ behavior of unseen men in a bewildering way. tice, along with the· rise in certain of his His relations with invisibly managed markets material standards of life, a nerve-wracking are decisively important for hirn; his own 166 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC ABSENTEE RULERS 167 foresight is not dependable. He is a link in a Under these conditions neither the discipline chain that stretches beyond ,his horizon. of the craftsman who controls his process from The role that salesmanship and speculation beginning to end nor the virtues of thrift, play is a measure of the spread between the economy and work are a complete guide to a work men do and the results. To market the successful career. Defoe in his Complete output of Lancashire, says Dibblee,2 "the English Tradesman 5 could say that "trade is merchants and warehousemen of Manchester not a ball where people appear in masque and and Liverpool, not to mention the marketing act apart to make sport . . . but is a plain, organizations in other Lancashire towns, have visible scene of honest life . . . supported by a greater capital employed than that required prudence and frugality" ... and so "pru­ in aIl the manufacturing industries of the dent management and frugality will increase cotton trade." And, according to Anderson's any fortune to any degree." Benjamin Frank­ calculations,3 the grain received at Chicago ,Hn might opine that "he that gets aIl he can in 1915 was sold sixty-two times in futures, honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary ex­ as weIl as an unknown number of times in penses excepted) will certainly become rich, spot transactions. Where men produce for if that Being who governs the world, to whom invisible and uncertain markets "the initial all should look for a blessing on their honest plans of enterprisers" 4 cannot be adequate. endeavors, doth not in His wise providence, The adjustments, often very crude and costly, otherwise determine." Young men were until are effected by salesmanship and speculation. quite recently exhorted in the very words of

2 Dibblee, The Laws of Supply and Demand, cited by B. M. Ander­ Defoe and Franklin, though Franklin's rather son, Jr., The Value of Money, p. 259· 3 B. M. Anderson, Jr., The Valueof Money, p. 251. 5 Cf. Werner Lombart, The Quintessence of Capitalism, Chapter , Ibid. VII. r ABSENTEE RULERS 169 168 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC canny allowance for the whims of the Al­ everywhere. Nebraska cannot live by itself mighty was not always included. But of alone, being too weak to control an inter­ late the gospel of success contains less about national trafIic. We have had the socialist frugality and more about visions and the who was convinced that socialism can main­ message of business. This new gospel, be­ tain itself only on a socialist planet.We have neath all its highfalutin cant, points dimly had Secretary Hughes who was convinced though excitedly to the truth that for business that capitalism could exist onlyon a capitalist success a man must project his mind over an planet. We have had all the imperialists who invisible environment. could not live unless they advanced the back­ This need has bred an imperious tendency ward races. And we have had the Ku Klux to organization on a large scale. To defend Klansmen who were persuaded that if you or­ themse1ves against the economic powers of ganized and sold hate on a country-wide scale darkness, against great monopolies or a dev­ there would be lots more hate than there was astating competition, the farmers set up before. We have had theGermans before 1914 great centralized selling agencies. Business who were told they had to choose between men form great trade associations. Every­ "world power or downfall, " and the French for body organizes, until the number of commit­ some years after 1919 who could not be tees and their paid secretaries cannot be com­ " secure ".m E urope un Iess every one else was puted. The tendency is pervasive. We have insecure. Wehave had all conceivable mani­ had, if I remember correct1y, National Smile festations of the impulse to seek stability in an Week. At any rate we have had Nebraska incalculable environment by standardizing for which discovered that if you wish to prohibit one's own apparent convenience all those who liquor in Nebraska you must prohibit it form the context of one's activity. r

170 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC ABSENTEE RULERS 171 It has entailed perpetual effort to bring varieties of particular interests; their vices more and more men under the same law­ are abstraction and generalization which and custom, and then, of course, to assume appear in politics as legalism and bureau­ control of the lawmaking and law-enforcing cracy. The governed, on the contrary, see machinery in this larger area. The effect has vivid aspects of a whole whieh they been to concentrate decision in central govern­ can rarely imagine, and their prevailing vice ments, in distant executive offices, in caucuses is to mistake a local prejudiee for a universal and in steering committees. Whether this truth. concentration of power is good or bad, per­ The widening distance between the centers manent or passing, this at least is certain. where decisions are taken and the places where The men who make the -decisions at these the main work of the world is done has under­ ceritral points are remote from the men they mined the discipline of public opinion upon govern and the facts with which they deal. which all the earlier theorists relied.6 A Even - if they conscientiously regard them­ century aga the model of popular government selves as agents or trustees, it is a pure fiction was the self-sufficing township in which the to say that they are carrying out the will of voters' opinions were formed and corrected the people. They may govern the people by talk with their neighbors. They might wisely. They are not governing with the entertain queer opinions about witches and active consultation of the people. They can spirits and foreign peoples and other worlds. at best lay down poliey wholesale in response But about the village itself the facts were not to electorates which judge and act upon only radically in dispute, and nothing was likely a detail of the result. For the governors see to happen that the elders could not with a a kind of whole whieh obscures the infinite 6 Cf. my Public Opinion, Chapters XVI and XVII. r

ABSENTEE RULERS 173 172 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC Httle ingenuity bring under a well-known his feelings. That he does not in consequence deeply affect the course of affairs is not sur.; precedent of their common law. prising. But under absentee government these checks upon opinion are lacking. The con­ 2 sequences are often so remote and long de­ The centralizing tendencies of the Great layed that error is not promptly disclosed. Society have not been accepted without The conditioning factors are distant; they do protest, and the case against them has been not count vividly in our judgments. The stated again and again.7 Without local reality is inaccessible; the bounds of sub­ institutions, said de Tocqueville, a nation jective opinion are wide. In the interdepend­ may give itself a free government, but it does ent world, desire, rather than custom or ob­ not possess the spirit of liberty. To concen­ jective law, tends to become the criterion of trate power at one point is to facilitate the men's conduct. They formulate their de­ seizure of power. "What are you going to mands at large for "security" at the expense do?" Arthur Y oung asked some provincials of every one else's safety, for "morality" at at the time of the French Revolution. "We the expense of other men's tastes and comfort, do not know," they replied; "we must see for the fulfillment of anational destiny that what Paris is going to do." Local interests consists in taking what you want when you handled from a distant central point are want it. The lengthening of the interval roughly handled by busy and inattentive between conduct and experience, between men. And in the meantime the local training cause and effect, has nurtured a cult of self­ 7 In a convenient form by]. Charles Brun, Le Regionalisme, pp. expression in which each thinker thinks about I3 et seq. Cf. also Walter Thompson, Federal Centralization, Chapter XIX. his own thoughts and has subtle feelings about 174 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC ABSENTEE RULERS 175 and the local winnowing of political talent are men, and more extern al to their minds, they neglected. The overburdened central author­ rest on force rather than on custom and on ity expands into a vast hierarchy of bureau­ reason. crats and clerks manipulating immense stacks A centralized society dominated by the of paper, always dealing with symbols on fiction that the governors are the spokesmen paper, rare1y with things or with people. The of a common will tends not only to degrade genius of centralization reached its c1imax initiative in the individual but to reduce to in the famous boast of a French minister of insignificance the play of public opinion. education, who said: It is three o'clock; all For when the action of a whole people is con­ the pupils in the third grade throughout centrated, the public is so vast that even the France arenow composing a Latin verse. crude objective judgments it might make on There is no need to labor the point. The specific issues cease to be practicable. The more centralization the less can the people tests indicated in preceding chapters by concerned be consulted and give conscious which a public might judge the workability assent. The more extensive the rule laid of a rule or the soundness of a new proposal down the less account it can take of fact and have little value when the public runs into special circumstance. The more it conflicts millions and the issues are hope1essly entangled with local experience, the more distant its with each other. It is idle under such circum­ source and wholesale its character, the less stances to talk about democracy, or about the easily enforceable it iso General rules will refinement of public opinion. With such tend to violate particular needs. Distantly monstrous complications the public can do imposed rules usually lack the sanction of little more than at intervals to align itself consent. Being less suited to the needs of heavily for or against the regime in power, 176 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC and for the rest to bear with its works, obeying meekly or eva ding, as seems most convenient. For, in practice, the organic theory of society CHAPTER XVI means a concentration of power; that is, the THE REALMS OF DISORDER way the notion of one purpose is actually I embodied in affairs. And this in turn means that men must either accept frustration of YET the practice of centralization and the their own purposes or contrive somehow to philosophy which personifies society have frustrate that declared purpose of that central acquired a great hold upon men. The dan­ power which pretends it is the purpose of all. gers are weIl known. If, nevertheless, the practice and the theory persist, it cannot be merely because men have been led astray by false doctrine. If you examine the difficulties enumerated by the sponsors of great centralizing meas­ ures, such as national prohibition, the na­ tional child labor amendment, federal con­ trol of education or the nationalization of railroads, they are reducible, I think, to one dominating idea: that it is necessary to ex­ tend the area of control over all the factors in a problem or the problem will be insoluble anywhere. 177 178 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE REALMS OF DISORDER 179 It was to this idea that Mr. Lloyd George when you get into the realm of foreign affairs appealed when he faced his critics at the end there are things I will not say you cannot of his administration. While his words are visualize, because you do, but there are factors the words of a skilful debater, the idea behind you cannot influence." 1 them might almost be called the supreme Mr. Lloyd George might have said the same motive of all the imperial and centralizing of domestic affairs. There, too, factors abound tendencies of the Great Society: which you cannot influence. And as empires "Lord Grey sought to make peace in the expand to protect their frontiers, and then Balkans. He made peace. That peace did expand further to protect the protections to not stand the jolting of the train that carried their frontiers, so central governments have it from London to the Balkans. It fell to been led step by step to take one interest after pieces before it ever reached Sofia. That another under their control. was not his fault. The plan was good. The intentions were excellent. But there were 2 factors there which he could not control. He For the democracies are haunted by this tried to prevent the Turks from ente ring dilemma: they are frustrated uhless in the the war against us, a most important matter. laying down of rules there is a large measure German diplomacy was too strong for him. of assent; yet they seem unable to find solu­ He tried to prevent Bulgaria from entering tions of their greatest problems except through the war against uso There again German centralized governing by means of extensive diplomacy defeated uso WeIl, now I have rules which necessarilyignore the principle never taunted Lord Grey with that. I do of assent. The problems that vex democracy not taUnt him now, but what I say is that 1 Speech at Manchester, October 14., 1922. 180 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE REALMS OF DISORDER 181 seem to be unmanageable by democratic able answer to say that in the presence of methods. certain issues, even in time of peace, the In supreme crises the dilemma is presented dangers have seemed sufficiently menacing absolutely. Possibly a war can be fought to cause people to seek remedies, regardless for democracy; it cannot be fought democrati­ of method, by the shortest and easiest way at cally. Possibly a sudden revolution may be hand? made to advance democracy; but the revolu­ It could be demonstrated, I think, that tion itself will be conducted by a dictatorship. the issues which have seemed so overwhelm­ Democracy may be defended against its ing were of two kinds: those which turned on enemies but it will be defended by a com­ the national defense or the public safety and mittee of safety. The history of the wars those which turned on the power of modern and revolutions since 1914- is ample evidence capitalism. Where the relations of a people on this point. In the presence of danger, to armed enemies are in question or where where swift and concerted action is required, the relations of employee, customer or farmer the methods of democracy cannot be em­ to large industry are in question the need ployed. for solutions has outweighed all interest That is understandable enough. But how in the democratic method. is it that the democratic method should be In the issues engeridered by the rise of the abandoned so commonly in more leisurely national state and the development of large and less catastrophic times? Why in time of scale industries are to be found the essentially peace should people provoke that centraliza­ new problems of the modern wo~ld. For tion of power which deprives them of control the solution of these problems there are few over the use of that power? Is it not a prob- precedents. There is no established body of 182 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE REALMS OF DISORDER 183 custom and law. The field of international power. From 1870 to 1914 the world was affairs and the field of industrial relations held in equilibrium. It was upset, and the are the two great centers of anarchy in society. world has not yet found a new order. The I t is a pervasive anarchy. Out of the national balances of power within the nations are no state with its terrifying military force, and less unsteady. For neither in industry out of great industry with all its elaborate nor in international affairs has it yet been economic compulsion, the threa t against possible to hold any balance long enough personal security always rises. To offset to fix it by rule and give it an institutional it somehow, to check it and thwart it, seemed form. Power has been checked by power more important than any finical regard for he re and there and now and then bu t the principle of assent. power has not been adjusted to power and And so to meet the menace of the national the terms of the adjustment settled and state, its neighbors sought to form themselves accepted. into more powerful national states; to tame The attempt to bring power under control the power of capitalism they supported the by offsetting it with power was sound enough growth of vast bureaucracies. Against powers in intention. The conflicting purposes of that were dangerous and uncontrolled they men cannot be held under pacific control set up powers, nominally their own, which unless the tendency of all power to become were just as vast and just as uncontrolled. arbitrary is checked by other force. All the machinery of conference, of peaceful negotia­ 3 tion, of law and the rule of reason is workable But only for precarious intervals has secur­ in large affairs only where the power of the ity been attained by these vast balances of negotiators is neutralized one against the 184 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE REALMS OF DISORDER 185 other. It may be neutralized because the different groups of people concerned that we parties are in fact equally powerful. It may must look for the power which shall offset be neutralized because the weaker has in­ the arbitrary power that bears upon them. visible allies among the other powers of the The reduction of capitalism to workable law world, or in domestic affairs among other is no matter of striking at it wholesale by interests in society. But before there can general enactments. It is a matter of defeat­ be law there must be order, and an order is ing its arbitrary power in detail, in every an arrangement of power. factory, in every office, in every market, and The worst that can be said of the national­ of turning the whole network of relations ists and collectivists is that they attempted to under which industry operates from the establish balances of power which could not dominion of arbitrary forces into those of endure. The pluralist at least would say settled rules. that the end they sought must be attained And so it is in the anarchy among nations. differently, that in place of vast wholesale If all the acts of a citizen are to be treated as balances of power it is necessary to create organically the actions of that nation, a stable many detailed balances of power. The people balance of power is impossible. Here also it as a whole supporting a centralized govern­ is necessary to break down the fiction of ment cannot tarne capitalism as a whole. identity, to ins ist that the quarrel of one For the powers which are summed up in the business man with another is their quarrel, term capitalism are many. They bear sepa­ and not the nation's, a quarrel in which each rately upon different groups of peopIe. The is entitled to a vindication of his right to nation as a unit does not encounter them all, fair adjudication but not to patriotic advo­ and cannot deal with them all. I t is to the cacy of his cause. I t is only by this dis- 186 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE REALMS OF DISORDER 187 sociation of private interests that the mass of disputes across frontiers can gradually be 4 brought under an orderlYJ process. For a These in roughest outline are some of the large part, perhaps the greatest part, of the condusions, as they appear to me, of the disputes between nations is an accumulated attempt to bring the theory of democracy mass of undetermined disputes between their into somewhat truer alignment with the nationals. If these essentially private dis­ nature of public opinion. I have conceived putes could be handled, without patriotic public opinion to be, not the voice of God, fervor and without confusing an oil pros­ nor the voice of society, but the voice of the pector with the nation as a whole, with govern­ interested spectators of action. I have, there­ ments acting as friends of the court and not fore, supposed that the opinions of the specta­ tors must be essentially different from those as advocates for a dient, the balance of power of the actors, and that the kind of action they between governments would be easier to were capable of taking was essentially differ­ maintain. It would not be subject to con­ ent too. It has seemed to me that the public stant assault from within each nation by had a function and must have methods of its an everlasting propaganda of suspicion by own in controversies, qualitatively different private interests seeking national support. from those of the executive men; that it was And if only the balance of power between a dangerous confusion to believe that private governments could be stabilized long enough purposes were a mere emanation of some to establish a line of precedents for inter­ common purpose. national conference, a longer peace might This conception of society seems to me result. truer and more workable than that which 188 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC THE REALMS OF DISORDER 189 endows public opinion with pantheistic siders, for in this theory the public intervenes powers. It does not assume that men in only when there is a crisis of maladjustment, action have universal purposes; they are de­ and then not to deal with the substance of nied the fraudulent support of the fiction the problem but to neutralize the arbitrary that they are the agents of a common purpose. force which prevents adjustment. It is a They are regarded as the agents of special theory which economizes the attention of purposes, without pretense and without em­ men as members of the public, and as~s them barrassment. They must live in a world to do as little as possible in matters' where with men who have other special purposes. they .can do nothing very weIl. It confines The adjustments which must be made are the effort of men, when they are a public, to a society, and the best society is the one in part they might fulfill, to apart which corre­ which men have purposes which they can sponds to their own greatest interest in any realize with the least frustration. When men social disturbance; that is, to an intervention take a position in respect to the purposes of which may help to allay the disturbance, others they are acting as a public. And the and thus allow them to return to their own end of their acting in this role is to promote affairs. the conditions under wh ich special purposes For it is the pursuit of their special affairs can be composed. that they are most interested in. It is by the It is a theory which puts its trust chiefly private labors of individuals that life is en­ in the individuals directly concerned. They hanced. I set no great store on what can initiate, they administer, they settle. It be done by public opinion and the action of would subject them to the least possible inter­ ference from ignorant and meddlesome out- masses. 190 THE PHANTOM PUBLIC

5 I have no legislative program to offer, no new institutions to propose. There are, I INDEX believe, immense confusions in the current Absentee rulers defined, 163-176 Centralization of government. See Action,public,defined,63-64 Government theory of democracy which frustrate and Ageneies defined, 115-132; fact- Change, unnoticeable, 78 finding,35 Chanticleer, 5 pervert its action. I have attacked certain Agent, public not, 159 Chicago mayoral e1ection, 7 Agents and bystanders defined, 30- Chinese and Greco-Roman of the confusions with no conviction except 43 eivilizations, 164 Anarchy, 151 Citizen, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, tha t a false philosophy tends to stereotype Anderson, Jr., B. M., 166 15,16,17,28,29,30,35,36, Arbitrary force, neutralization of, 42, 138, 185 thought against the lessons .of experience. 53-64 Citizenship, 141 Aristotle, 67-70 Civic duty, derision for, 5, 136, 141 I do not know what the lessons will be when Assent, defined, 107-113; 119, 179 Civil rights, 48 Civilization, 164 we have learned to think of public opinion as Bacon, Franeis, 152 Clover, cats and mice, 21-22 Balkans, 178 Competence, 140 it is, and not as the :fi.ctitious power we have Behavior, 45, 58-59; reasonable, Conduct, 172 defined, 135 Conformiry, test 0[, defined, 113- assumed it to be. It is enough if with Ben­ Benrham, Jeremy, 190 114 , Bergson, Henri, 22-23 Conseience, 18 tham we know that "the perplexity of am­ Birrh contra!, its relation to food Contracts, soeial, 30, 85-96; supply, 77-78 defined,91-92;94-95 biguous discourse . . . distracts and eludes Bismarck, Prince von, 4, 159 Contro!, 45 Brun, J. Charles, 173 Contraversy, 67 the apprehension, stimulates and inflames Bryan, William Jennings, 26 Coöperation, 89 Bryce, James, 8-9 Corruption, 61, 62 the passions." BuI~aria, 178 Criteria of reform defined, 115-132 Business, new gospel of, 168 Cri tieism, 113 Bystanders and agents defined, 30- Crises,57 43 Crisis, public opinion reserve force in, 59 Capitalism, 27, 169, 181, 182, 184, 185 Dante, 159 Carr-Saunders, A. M., 77 Darwin, CharIes, 21, 22 Cassel, Gustav, 82, 84 Debate, public value of, defined, Cats, mice and c1over, 21-22 100-104 Cavour, Count di, 159 Defective rule defined, 105-114 191 192 INDEX INDEX 193

Defoe, Daniel, 167 German diplomacy, 178 Law,59,90,98, 105, 106, 113, Nationalism, 55 Delbrück, Hans, 50 Germans, 169 114, 181-182, 183 Neutralization of arbitrary force, Democracy, 14,25-27,61, 136- Goethe, 163 Laws, 59, 61; assent to, defined, 57-64 141, 145, 179, 187-190 Gosnell, Harvey Foote, 7 107-112, 113, 114; defective, Neutralized power, 183 Democratic theory, 4, 51, 137 Government, 4, 31, 40, 51, 52, 60, defined, 115-132, 126; test of, Newspapers, 3 Democrats, 49 61,62,63,116,163-176,184; defined, 128 Nonvoting, 7-8 Derision of citizens, 5 defined,67, 116; function Leaders, 9 Descartes, 71 defined, 60-63 League ofNations, 123 Officials, government, 62 Dibblee, G. B., 166 Grant, Madison, 12 Lenin, 159 Ogburn, W. F., 79, 90 Dictatorship, 180 Great Society, 33, 69, 88, 164, 173, Liberal defined, 152 Omnicompetency of citizens, 11,29 Disenchanted man defined, 10 178-179 Liberalism defined, 152-162 One and Many problem, 161 "Disorder, idea of," 22-23; realms Greco-Roman and Chinese Liberals, 152, 156 Opinion, 38, 42, 46, 51 of, defined, 177-190 civilizations, 164 Liberties of men defined, 45 Opinion, public. See Public opinion Dogma of assent, 107 Grey, Lord, vii, 178 Liberty, spirit of, 177 Opinions defined, 34-39, 152, 187 Duties and rights. See Rights and Guedalla, Philip, 4 Lloyd George, David, 147-148, Opposition parties, 10 duties. Gun elevation, 81 178-179 Lombart, Werner, 167 Party government, 49-50 Economic problem defined, 82-84 Hamilton, Alexander, 159 Lowell, Lawrence A, 9 Party in power, 116 Education, 12-13, 14, 17; public, Hege!, 88 Party system, 120 defined, 136-137, 138-141, Hegelian mystery, 37 Macaulay, Lord, 39-40 Panies political, 117 159 Herrzen, Alexander, 10 Macgowan, Kenneth, 153 Partisanship, 24 Election, defined, 46, 50, 51 Hughes, Charles Evans, 169 Majority, 9; rule defined, 47-48, 50 Pawlow, Ivan Petrovich, 20 Elections, defined, 117-120 Human values defined, 85-87 Malthus, T. R., 75-77 People, 9, 26, 31; Macaulay on, 40; England, 49, 76 Man, disenchanted, 3-11 51,52,58,59,61, 170, 171, Enterprise, Macaulay on, 39-40 "Idea of disorder," 22-23 Manchester, Lloyd George at, 178- 181, 184 Enterprisers, 166 Ideal, 10, 12,29,53,58, 145 179 People's will defined, 62 Environment, 4, 68, 69, 169 Idealization, 47 Mayoral election in Chicago, 7 Physical force in South, 51 Erickson, E. M., 6 Ideals, 4 Merriam, Charles Edward, 7-8 Plato, 159 Eugenies, 24-25 Ideas, 37, 38 Methods of public men, 149 Pluralistic theory defined, 141, 151, Evasion oflaw, 113 Imperial Party, 159 Mice, cats and clover, 21-22 184 Evils of democracy, 25-26, 27, Initiative and referendum, 9 Michelet, Simon, 6 Political capacity, 68 163-176 Innovation, 106 Michels, Robert, 4, 12-13 Political evils, agents against, 159 Evolution, 71-74 Inquiry, test of, defined, 120-125 Minorities, 48 Politicalleaders, 9, 12 Executive action, 134 Intelligence, 59, 125 Monistic theory, 151, 163 Political system changes, 74-75 Expectations, 23 Monodrama, 153-155 Political talent neglected, 174 Exploiters, 156 Jefferson, Thomas, 149 Moral Code, 19-20,25,64 Political theories defined, 12-29 JustiCe, 57 Moral codes, 20 Politicians, 31 Fable of professor, 18 Moralists, 18 Polities, truth in, 147-148 Food supply, 76-77 Keynes, J. M., 147-148 Morality, 90 Policy, public, 47 Franklin, Benjamin, 167-168 Knowledge, 20 Morrow, Dwiglu, 49-50 Population problem of, defined, 75- French security, 169 Ku Klux Klan, 169 Morse, Prof., 19-50 77 French Revolution, 49, 173 Power, arbitrary, 64; balance of, Frugality, 167 Lancashire goods, 166 Napoleon III., 4 defined, 182-186; of public Function, government, defined, 60- Laski, Harold J., 151 National defense, problem defined, opinion,60 63; relation to competency, 140 Latin America, 51 80-81 Principles of public opinion, 133 Latin verse, 174 Nationals, 186 Problem, nature of, 71-84, 120; of 194 INDEX INDEX 195

One and Many, 161 Reformer, 119,120 Trade, 167 Vote, 26, 45, 46 Problems of citizen defined, 3--6; Registered voters, 9 Truth,57 Voter, 9, 26, 136 15,16,24,54,62,71-84,115, Revivalists, 12 Turks, 178 Voters, 6-7, 8-9, 31 119,121,130,131,177 Revolution, 49, 51, 126, 180 Tyranny, 60--61 Voting, 42,45,46, 48, 49 Professor, fable of, 18 Revolution, French, 49, 173 Protocol for the Pacific Settlement Rights, 90 Unattainable ideal, 12-29 War, 80,180 of International Disputes, 123 Rights and duties defined, 90-97 United States government, 51 Williams, John Sharp, 149 Public, 32; powers defined, 39-42, Rousseau, J. J., 88 Win, William, 149 44-52; relation to public affairs Rule, 58-59; defective, defined, Validity oflaws, 98 Woman suffrage, 50 defined,53-56,57,58,67,93, 105-114 Value is measurement, 86 Work, 163 95, 96, 97, 98; debate value of, Rules. See Laws Value of public debate defined, World,19 defined, 100-104; 105, 108, Rules of society, 107 100-104 "World power or downfall," 169 109,110,111,112,114,115, Rulers, absentee, defined, 163-176 Values, human, defined, 85-87 119, 121, 123, 124, 130, 131, Vinue, 20, 47 Yevreynoff, 153-154 133,134,135;education Santayana, George, 85 Voice of public opinion defined, Young, Arthur, 173 defined, 136-141, 145, 146, Schlesinger, A.M., 6 187 147, 149; in any situation School,4 defined, 158, 159; dangers to, Self-government, 9 defined, 179-181; 183, 187, Settlements, 11 0 188 Shaw, G. Bernard, 49 Public affairs, 3-11, 14, 15, 17, 18, Smith, Logan Pearsall, 5--6, 16 26,28,29,31,34,45,46,54, Social contracts defined, 85-96 59, 179 Socialism, theoty of, defined, 27- Public judgment, 105 28,29,55 Public life, candor in, 147 Socialists, 146 Public men, methods of, 149 Society, 18,20,21, 22, 32, 35, 61, Public office, education for, 141 63,69,78,88,93,96,124; Public opinion, 34, 38, 42, 43, 45; functions defined, 145-151; and public affairs, 45-46, 55; defined, 145-162, 166, 173 defined,55-60, 61,62,63,64; Socrates, 20 function of, defined, 64, 69; Sovereign people, 8-9 principles of, 133; tests of, Sovereignty,4 defined, 134-135, 137, 141, Standards, 20, 133 171, 187-190 Statesmanship defined, 145-151 Publicity, 33 Steffen, Gustaf F., 9 Publics, random, 69 Stoddard, Lomrop, 12 Submission, 152 Question Aristotle asked, 67-70 Supply and demand, 82 Questions, two, 97 System, economic, 84; prevailing, 90; of rights and duties, 90 Realms of disorder, 177-190 Reason,59 T eachers, 17 Reform Bill, 40 Theoty, citizen reigns in, 4 Reform, criteria of, 115-132 Thomson, J. Arthur, 21 Reform, 119; test of, defined, 125- Times (London), 40 128 Tocqueville, de, 173