The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-06-24
B0LSHEVISTS ARE GUESTS, SAYS
 NOTED AUTHOR

l New York, June A. Especial Cor | respondence) Characterizing reac- | tionary capitalists as 'Bourbons' and | 'Cavemen, and Bolshevists as Cub | ists,' and demanding a. set of rational policies which will be neither reac- ! tionary nor revolutionary, but sanely ! progressive, Economist Glenn Frank, ! in an article on "The Parliament of I The People," in the July Century points out the need for full public discussion of great national questions | and indicates some of the grave dan
 gers peculiar to the time.
 | If there ever was a time in Amer . 1 ican history" says Economist Frank. l when the need for setting up the in | struments and methods for common discussion of common interests was ! imperative, it is imperative now in this time of flux, when reckless revo- lution and stupid reaction are alike coquetting with the public mind. mak- | ing balanced sanity of mass Judg | ment increasingly difficult. There are those who would have our laws and | institutions lumber along in sublime disregard of the necessity for their 1 being adjusted to current circum- stances; there are those who would | have our laws and institutions race ahead of the facts in a Sir Galahad
 
 Both groups, reactionists and revolu- tionists, make spacious pleas. The task remains of producing national policies that will go between and be- yond the caveman policies of the Bourbon and the Cubist politics of the Bolshevist. In the sort of time we are passing through, nothing will so surely protect us from nasty experiment and insure rational progress as the full, frna md tai oo6 Df public problems-discussion in which
 the rank and file of the people par ticipate
 But the major difficulty with us is that we lack the machinery and we have lost the habit of community dis cuSsion. We are a press-reading and ] lecture-hearing people, but our genufs for debate has gone long unused. We
 are a chronic audience, and the audi ence habit is death to the political creativeness of a people. The average American must listen to discussions less and participate more- We need an agora, forum. a folk-moot, a town meeting.
 "One of the manifest intellectual
 weaknesses of the average American citizen is his lack of background for the consideration of specific public problems. American citizenship lacks a mental "hinterland.' The average
 American vote is prompted in part
 by heriditary opinion, in part by mob psychology, and in part by selfish in-
 terest. No small part of this is due to the fact that many of us do not
 have an information basis for under standing, forming conclusions upon, and dealing with the dominant prob- iems of our time.
 "Government by discussion breaks
 down the tyranny of fixed customs; problems is the root of change and progress; community discussion breeds tolerance; it makes for steady instead of intermittent progress. In fact, common council, public debate, com ! munity discussion, call it what you tion of all the vexed situations that
 nation faces in a time of readjust- ment and change.
 Opinion arising from a hurried and uncritical reading of headlines at the breakfast table or en route to the office is thin soil from which to expect constructive policies to spring We must utilize the method of sus- tained discussion if we are not to turn national policy over entirely to a po- l litical leadership of shifting personnel and uncertain qualities of mind and purpose. We must set up The ParIia- ment of the People,"