Evening star., 1933-07-02

n UIN at arms length stared the
- country in the face. Dreadful
forecasts were current of the
L Y collapse of civilization. So
| severe was the depression and
so intolerable the suffering among
farmers and small tradesmen, heavy
laden with debt, that revolution ap-
peared to irnpend. Having been in
trusted in this crisis with powers al
! most dictatorial, and having set in mo-
ton emergency relief measures, such as
lowered interest rates to relieve debtors
and currency depreciation to buck up
business, Solon gave an account of his
stewardship
1t was Solon's notion to take Ahenian
business into sort of partnership with
the government. Moreover he wanted
to engage the interest even of the la
boring. and producing classes, thereto
fore heartily despised and excluded
from political privileges. He was ex-
tremely progressive" for the sixth CEN
tury B. c., but he was no reckless radi-
cal. His legislative measures were sug-
gested in large part by Brain Trust"
400 strong, the celebrated Senate of the
Areopagus, which consisted Of men of
superior education and attainments.
Their influence with the Assembly and
! with the masses arose from their
ability and merit
I Laid Foundation of Democracy.
Now, one is tempted to press a paral-
lei OF this sort too far. Solon was not
the president of the city-state, but its
principal archon, and his name has en-
| rlched our vocabulary with a synonym.
1t is refreshing to recall that the Greeks
had a profound respect for law, vir-
tually identifying it with justice. Thus
the Spartans had thought Lycurgus in
| spired by Apollo, and the Cretans had
supposed Minos heard directly from
Zeus. find no record that Solon was
| credited with Olympian authority, but
there Is abundant evidence that he
laid the foundations of modern democ-
racy.
To be a citizen In those days meant
active participation and cooperation in
the affairs of government. In modern
times we have seen nothing approach
ing that, 1 suppose, since a provincial
Frenchman wandered about the streets
OF Paris asking to be shown what was
to him an actuality, ''l'Etat." In Attica
the citizen, not king, was the state,
! ana the citizen thought it quite congru-
Gus (although such a matter of perso-
nal department as wine bibbing was
exempt) that legislation should deal in
| detail with clothes, houses. food, chill
dren, servants, horses and dogs.
Aura of Aristocracy.
| To be citizen was to wear an aura
of aristocracy and the archon's ex-
, tension of the suffrage was a drastic
innovation. Solon did not dismiss the
tariff as beneath his attention, as Plato
| was to do later, nor did he think that
tyranny, ollgarchy and democracy were
about equally reprehensible, as Aristotle
was to do. He was unique in his atti-
tude toward business and in his demo-
| cratic predictions, yet it must be said
that his innovations. if 1 read history
Alright, were responsible for the rise of
Cleon, tanner, as a demagogue.
! When Solon gave an account of his
stewardship it was a comparatively
simple matter. The theory was that
while 10 citizens were too few to make
a state, 100000 were too many, and all
Scion had to do was to address his fel-
low citizens in the Assembly and the
Agora. Thus he talked over as man to
man, the legislation he had in mind
and was getting enacted into law.
Roosevelt Inherits Much.
| Franklin D. Roosevelt, nheriting
over gap of $500 years some Of the
responsibilities, some of the ideas and
some of the legal devices which fell to
Scion, can talk to the 100000
! who voted in our last National
election as easily as the Archon could
| talk with his thousands. On a Sunday
evening. eight days after he moved into
:, the White House. he sat before micro
phone in his study and discussed the
banking holiday" in terms which
subway guard could understand
| Franklin said the First Lady, not
unmindful of the talking motion pic
lures which were being made, fix your
hair" The Secretary of the Treasury
smoothed out an insubordinate lock-
MY friends" said the President of the
United States, when you put money
| in a bank"
And two months later from the oval
room, MIR. Roosevelt, in that ingenious
and disarming way he has, discussed
With Nation his legislative program
and purposes, in order that every man
and Woman-yea, every child-might
see the wheels of Government go round
and experience a personal interest in
, the machinery. Thus across the void
of millennia, like lightning bolt from
| Solon to Roosevelt, sprang the expert
ment of Government by publicity.
Inventive ingenuity, which has so
| contracted the area Of the State that
the human voice may reach 100000 600
; persons concurrently. lies at the very
| heart of the industrial revolution, and
we are wont to suppose that this revo-
| luton has so complicated world affairs
as to put them beyond the comprehen-
sion of the man in the street. We sup
pose, for example, that the outcry
against the gold standard Is distinctly
modern, forgetting that Plato said that
'the worlds coinage (of gold) has been
, the cause Of countless impieties."
Discussed Problems in Comedies.
Aristophanes discussed many of our
present day problems in his comedies;
i in "Ecclesiazurae," Praxagora and
Blepsyrus analyzed the fundamentals Of
the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics
in Russia with extreme penetration.
Plato's Republic was distinctly
Communist state. Every man is likely
to think, as Job thought, that his af-
| f1ictions and his problems are the first
| and the worst in the world. The ques-
ton is not whether our difficulties are
more delicate and dangerous, but
| whether we have the capacity, as
Franklin Roosevelt believes We have, to
think them through.
{ Although the radio and the talking
motion picture are the novel and spec
tacular agencies available in Mr..
RooseveltS attempt to set up a Gov
ernment by publicity, they are not the
only agencies. At every important con-
ference Charles Nicholson, the sagacious
director of publicity for the Demo-
cratic National Committee, is an in
f1uential figure, frequently referred to
in the phrasing of public utterances
and as regards legislative provisions
His bureau, through the daily press,
exercises a profound educational and
propaganda sway. Mrs. Roosevelt her
self is a factor by no means negligible
in holding the attention and enlisting
the support of the public.
People Consulted.
Official radio talks are widely pub
| lished that all who run NAV read. This