A PROGRAM OF RADICAL DEMOCRACY 607 



2. Personal liberty and local government. The liberty of the in- 

 dividual should be limited only when it interferes with the liberty or 

 the rights of others. The man who has smallpox must be isolated ; one 

 who mistreats his children must be imprisoned; the owner of an auto- 

 mobile, the upkeep of which costs more than the support of an average 

 family, should be taxed; because each of them would otherwise inter- 

 fere with the welfare of others. But legislation to suppress unobtrusive 

 vice, to keep people married who want to separate, to prevent polyg- 

 amy, and the like, is of doubtful value. The national congress should 

 not do what state legislatures can do equally well, or the state legisla- 

 ture interfere with local government. The inequality and artificial 

 boundaries of the states, the disastrous growth of cities, the heterogene- 

 ous and changing population, are among the conditions which make 

 local government difficult. But the nation should not lord it over the 

 states, the state over the county or city, the county or city over its local 

 units, these over the group or family, the group or family over the 

 individual. 



3. The abolition or the limitation of the powers of the constitution 

 of the United States, of the president, of the senate and of the supreme 

 court. Similar limitations in state governments. The national gov- 

 ernment being historically a federation of states may need some con- 

 stitution, but it does not need much of one or one very much. It would 

 be entirely safe for the congress to decide what the nation shall do and 

 what shall be left to the separate states. Great Britain is better off with- 

 out a written constitution. The scheme of checks and balances is 

 wrong in theory and bad in practise. Men will nearly always rise to 

 the level of the responsibility put on them. The existing lack of re- 

 sponsibility demoralizes the legislature; placing responsibility on the 

 individual autocrat makes, as a rule, a good autocrat; but that is not 

 what democracy wants. The president should be only the executive 

 officer of the congress. The senate is a superfluous nuisance. A su- 

 preme court may be needed to decide what the congress intended when 

 it enacted a law, but it is not there to play with the meaning of words 

 or to interfere with legislation. Every outworn constitution and law, 

 every perpetual franchise and charter, should be scrapped. The dead 

 can not be permitted to rule the living. 



4. Government and all its functions to be executed by those most 

 fit, selected by and responsible to the people. Political democracy does 

 not mean government by the uninformed, but by those best able to serve 

 the people. Delegated and expert government is necessary; it is clearly 

 impossible for the people to consider all the minor measures that must 

 be enacted and all the minor officers that must be selected. The proper 

 condition seems to be for those of a neighborhood to select the men in 

 whom they have from personal acquaintance the most confidence, these 



