The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1893-03-16
WHAT IS DEMOCRACY2
Prof. woodrow. Wilson's Address
Before Johns Hopkins Students.

/ Wv I4A1 OEMOSfAC4 r
Prof. Woodrow, Wilson's Address
Before Johns Hopkins Students.
Prof. Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton,
gave an address on Democracy" at a
public session of the Johns Hopkins
economic conference last week. He is
at present delivering his annual course
OF lectures on administration at the uni
versity. He said in part:
"What we really mean when we say
that the people govern is that they free
ly consent to be governed on condition
that certain part of them do the gov
erning-that part which by one process
or another shall be elected out of the
mass and elevated to places of rule-and
that is the best democratic government
in which the processes of this selection
are best; where self-selection for leader
ship and influence is most encouraged;
virtue provoked to exhibit itself and ex
cite emulation; strength, knowledge and
originality heartened to display them
selves and compete tor the best prizes
A self-instructed, self-mastered, self-ele
waited man, like Lincoln, is no more a
man of the people than Washington
was. He has come out from the people;
has separated himself from the mass of
unknown men by reason of excellency
and knowledge; has raised himself above
the common level of others and consti-
tuted himself a master spirit among
men holding credentials of rulership
which they can never show unless they
likewise strive as he strove.
"That this is much higher and no.
bier conception need not claim. The
people do, indeed, govern just in proper
ton as they produce the stuff out of
which Governors and Kings are made;
just so far as they show the discrimina-
ton to choose such when they are made
manifest. Democracy's advantage is its
variety and symmetry of development,
it's fullness of opportunity and richness
of material. In it not few men of
privileged blood only, but all men of
original force, are quickened to make
the most of themselves. Self-prepara
ton is the stimulating law of success for
every man. 1t is the freedom to at
tempt to live as models for the mass
that fills a democracy with an unextin-
guishable life, an uncomfortable energy
an undismayed confidence, an unfalter-
ing hope.
''When take this view of the life of
free nation-a people not self-directed,
but directed by it's boldest, most preva-
lent minds-I can justify my tolerance
of parties and my impatience with those
that scorn them and make as if they
could do without them. Parties pre-
serve impulses which would otherwise
be diffused and lost. They are often
blind and intractable and they almost
always take ideas slowly and reluctantly.
But they are the whippers>in for those
who plan and originate and render per-
manent the impression which these
make upon their generation. They per-
petuate approved opinions, energize ac-
cepted convictions. They must be for
given much of their worship of dead
issues, for they can keep their sense of
identity only by remembering old strug
giles, maintaining old comradeships-
only by keen pride in what they have
done:
1.-The freedom of the democratic ma
ton consists, allow me to repeat, not in
governing itself, for that it cannot do,
but in making indicated choice of the
things it will accept and of the men it
will follow. 1t need not always accept
and always like the things it is told to
like. 1t makes adult choice. Conceive
it mechanically and it is a great sensi-
tive registering machine. We study to
play on it; we make it register our 'best
impressions. This, it seems to me, is an
infinitely more vital, animating way to
conceive democracy than to imagine the
people what they are not-our masters.
II they are, indeed, sovereigns, why,
then, we must conform in all things,
must be patient and humble under the
tyranny of our neXt-door neighbor, must
repress our individuality, endeavor to
catch the common thought, the cant
phrases and repeat them continually.
But if we live in nation that waits to
be led and which has sovereign liberty
to follow even us, if we can convince or
please it. what an incentive we have to
be ourselves in all sincerity. press our
claims, mend our lives to suit the station
we would achieve"