HEREDITY AND DEMOCRACY 



A Reply to Mr. AUeyne Ireland 



Edwin G. Conklin 



IN SEVERAL addresses given during 

 the course of the war and in an 

 article in Scrihnefs Magazine for 

 April, 1919, I have attempted to 

 show that the principles of heredity and 

 evolution are not opposed to the essen- 

 tial principles of democracy. In the 

 Journal of Heredity for December, 

 1918, Mr. Alleyne Ireland comes to a 

 directly opposite conclusion. Mr. Ire- 

 land speaks out of an experience of more 

 than twenty-five years as a student of 

 government in a score of countries 

 "with a dozen governmental systems 

 ranging between the extremes of the 

 autocratic and of the democratic forms." 

 As a result of this experience he con- 

 cludes ' ' that the best governed countries 

 were those in which the mass of the 

 people had the least control over the 

 administration of public affairs. By 

 'best governed' I mean best provided 

 with internal peace, with justice, with 

 honest and competent officials, with 

 protection for life, property, with free- 

 dom of individual action, with arrange- 

 ments for promoting the general wel- 

 fare." 



This is a conclusion of such a startling 

 character that it may well challenge the 

 attention of students of government 

 throughout the world. The facts upon 

 which it is based need to be presented 

 in greater detail, and if it is confirmed 

 by further study it behooves the 

 defenders of democracy to show that the 

 evils of democratic government are not 

 necessary evils or that they are more 

 than compensated for by other advan- 

 tages. As one who is only a casual 

 student of government I shall not 

 venture upon this task, but I cannot 

 help wondering whether Mr. Ireland 

 includes Russia under the Czars and 

 Turkey under the Sultan or the ' ' Com- 



mittee of Union and Progress" among 

 the best governed nations or whether 

 he may not be thinking rather of 

 British colonies in which a highly 

 enlightened race rules over an inferior or 

 primitive one. 



No doubt it is generally better for 

 parents to govern young children than 

 to make them absolutely self-governing ; 

 no doubt races of superior intelligence 

 and morality can govern primitive races 

 more efficiently than they can govern 

 themselves ; no doubt a wise and benef- 

 icent autocracy can accomplish many 

 desirable things which an ignorant and 

 corrupt democracy cannot. The ques- 

 tion which lies back of all this is. What 

 is the purpose of government? In the 

 case of children is it not to bring them 

 to a condition where they can wisely 

 govern themselves? Is the purpose 

 different in the case of primitive races 

 or of the masses in a democracy? Is 

 not the chief aim of government the 

 highest possible development of the 

 individual, the nation and the race? 



In all kinds of development and 

 evolution progress depends upon increas- 

 ing specialization and cooperation, and 

 this is as true of human society as of 

 anything else. As a nation we have 

 only recently emerged from the pioneer 

 condition in which there was little 

 specialization and cooperation but such 

 a condition is not a necessary part of 

 democracy and our people are rapidly 

 becoming more highly specialized and 

 more intimately bound together without 

 becoming less democratic. Many faults 

 of democracies are not so much results 

 of the form of government as of the 

 condition and character of the people. 



Lack of specialization is said to be one 

 of the fatal faults of democracy. Mr. 

 Ireland says that in all other affairs of 

 life we demand specialists and experts 

 but "in government we arc asked to 



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