Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-07-20
GOVERNMENT BY CLASS
BY DR.. Frank Crane
The enemies of democracy are legi

The enemies of democracy are legion.
Democracy means life And all life is con-
tinually threatened by microbes. All life is
a struggle.
One of the sublest enemies of democracy
is government by class. Government by any
class negatives democracy and destroys it,
and it makes no difference whether the class
is composed of Cars and Grand Dukes or
is composed of BolshevikS and plumbers.
The seed of error is in half understanding
what democracy means. 1t does not mean
government for the benefit of the poor man,
Or of the laborer. 1t meauS government for
the benefit of everybody. And the college
professor and banker have Just as much rights
under a true democracy as brickIayer or a
coal HEAVIER.
1t is in connection with this that we see
the danger that lies in labor unions, and in
the whole So-called labor movement. That
danger consists in the fact that laborerSi are
encouraged to think of themselves as class
whose only hope Of getting their share of the
good things of the world lies in fighting other
classes.
The class spirit in any way, shape, or form
Is an enemy OF democracy, for the only true
spirit in democracy is enthusiasm for the COM
mon good.
Classes, as we'll as political parties, are
symptoms of the childiShneSS and imnlaturity
of the world, of the inability of men to think
of themselves as human beings.
Government by rich men or government by
hereditary mobiles is, of course, unwarranted
tyranny. We have all got that far in the
worlds lesson book. But it is time that we
should go on to the next chapter and Learn
that government by coal miners or steel work
ers is tyranny just as bad. You have only tc
carry out the aim of the average labor union
to its logical conclusion to see that it would
result in the cancellation of all human progress
For that logical conclusion is such state oil
affairs as we have in Russia, where the coun-
try is run for the benefit Of what is called
the proletariat.
The end is Stag1ation famine, and collapse,
The fact is that, important as the probe
tariat may be, and great as may be the rights
OF the hand-workerS and wage earnerS, they
are by no means the only pebbles on the beach
They absolutely need the assistance of thu
| other classes of society to ensure any kind
of prosperity.
Since the world began, the curse of the
human race has been its tendency to coagulate
to form in thick Jumps
The cause of this has been that men are
not able to grasp SO profound an ethical prin.
ciple as the good of humanity when all theil
minds can see is the necessity of working foi
the good of the cotton Spinners and building ur
a protective tariff, or working for the good
of the steel puddlers and organizing a strike
or working for the good of the Republican
| party and wrecking world to secure offices
or the good of the Baptist church, not for til;
benefit of the world of lost sinners, but TO,
the sake of beating the MethodistS across the
way.
| All this may be human nature But it is
human nature as measles or tuberculosis is
human nautre; it is something to be got rid
of and grown out of.
copyright, 1922, by Frank Crane)