Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1918 — World as Now Constituted Unsafe Place for Undisciplined Democracy [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

World as Now Constituted Unsafe Place for Undisciplined Democracy

By DR. THOMAS NIXON CARVER

Profemor of Rural Economics. Harvard Uruverdty

Is democracy worth saving? A democracy may. be just as bad as an autocracy, depending on the kind! it is. It may be made up of undisciplined persons, or it may be the kind of democracy in which every person, does just as he pleases regardless of anyone else—then it is not worth saving. The world as it is now constituted is an unsafe place for undisciplined democracy. The world has always been ruled by disciplined people, and of these there is more than one kind. First, there is the discipline of the benevolent despot, and a disciplined autoc-

racy will always rule over an undisciplined democracy. The other discipline comes from within—this is the discipline of the true democracy. It is a law of the universe that discipline rules and there is no going against the laws of the universe. In a football team each player does not play for himself but for the whole team, and so it must be with a nation. The disciplined man subordinates the lesser needs of the individual to the larger needs of the group, and thus a disciplined people has the essential teamwork. Democracy will win in the present war only if the devotees of that democracy will so sacrifice that good teamwork is accomplished. Much has been said recently about spending money freely in order to keep it in circulation and thus make for .prosperity. In this the people should be careful as to whether the money kept in circulation is spent on frivolities and nonessentials or in ways in which it can help the government. If invested in Liberty bonds, it is spent and will circulate, and will do much good, as will also money that is given to the Young Men’s Christian association and the Bed Cross, while money spent for mere peacetime trivialities simply makes for exchange. Exchange is a good thing only if it permits specialization of production, and under these conditions work will be done better. Exchange simply for the sake of trading is valueless from an economic standpoint, because nothing is produced.