Democracy

Our country is cited as the great exemplar of democracy. Do the changing social conditions make the adaptation of democracy a problem? We note lines, which if projected into the future would lead in opposite directions, one away from democratic control and the other toward a more perfect realization of its principles.

From one point of view our observations show great cities from time to time the grip of organized and defiant criminals, rural districts often forlornly governed, masses of persons losing confidence in the ballot and elections, and regarding liberty, equality, and democracy as mocking catchwords twisted into legalistic defenses of special interests. The swift concentration of vast economic power in a period of mergers, and the inability of the government to regulate or control these combinations, or in many cases to resist their corrupting influences, are not encouraging in their sinister implications; the organized labor movement seems declining in numbers and vigor. The difficulty of providing a steady stream of high competence in political leadership and administration has contributed to the difficulty of our problem, while the expensive control of masses of people through the arts of organized publicity and propaganda presents its dubious aspects to the observer of democratic trends. Many have been led to conclude reluctantly that the emergence of some recognized and avowed form of plutocratic dictatorship is not far away.

But in considering the movement of American democracy and its collective competence, it is important not to lose sight of specific and basic tendencies revealed in this report and bearing directly on the future of our institutions.

One of these is the habituation of the American people to large scale organization and planning in industry, keenly appreciated by the Soviets; another is the American tendency to make relatively prompt use of the latest fashions in science and technology; the lack of sharply defined and permanent classes or castes obstructing either economic or governmental change, and finally, the wide prevalence of democratic attitudes and practices in social life.

Our experts show in great detail the wholly unparalleled democratization of education in recent years; the unexampled democratization of forms of transportation, long an index of aristocracy; the democratization of recreation through the moving pictures, the radio, the park systems; the democratization and standardization of dress and fashion, often obliterating long standing marks of class. If we care to look upon democracy as a way of life, these fundamental facts are to be considered along with the corruption and ineffectiveness of much of our governmental machinery.

An interpretation which seems to have a margin of advantage is that of the prospect of a continuance of the democratic regime, with higher standards of achievement, with a more highly unified and stronger government, with sounder types of civic training, with a broader social program and a sharper edged purpose to diffuse more promptly and widely the gains of our civilization, with control over social and economic forces better adapted to the special social tensions of the time, with less lag between social change and governmental adaptation and with more pre-vision and contriving spirit.

Source: Recent Social Trends in the United States, an examination of the social state of the United States at the end of the 1920s undertaken at the direction of President Herbert Hoover.