The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-01-31

the little Latin Amerlcan Q1ctatOrS,
among whom there are few, if any,
who have transmitted their powers
effectively. No doubt there are peo-
pie who are politically too imma-
ture to establish governments that
endure, and it may be that an oc-
casional dictator of exceptional
gifts is the best they can hope for.
But as a consequence they never
really achieve security. Who is to
be the successor of MuSSolini?
Where is he being trained? How
is he to be chosen? And what if
he is an ordinary fellow and no
genius at all? What then?
For a country habituated to an
omnipotent government, the ques-
ton what them" is terrifying.
For it is of the very essence of des-
potism that it can never afford to
fail. That is what distinguishes it
most vitality from democracy. In a
despotism there is no organized OPP
position which can take over the
power when the administration in
office has failed. All the eggs are
in one basket. Everything is staked
on one coterie of men.
WHEN the going is good, they
w move more quickly and
efficiently than democracies where
the opposition has to be persuaded
and conciliated. But when they lose,
there are no reserves. There are
no substitutes on the bench ready to
go out on the field and carry the
ball
That is why democracies with the
habit of party government have out
lived all other forms of government
in the modern world. They have,
as it were, at least two governments
always at hand, and when one fails
they have the other. They have
diversified the risks of mortality,
corruption and stupidity which per-
wade all human affairs. They have
remembered that the most beauti-
fully impressive machine can not
run for very long unless there is
available complete supply OF spare
parts.
So it is a symptom of national
health that the Republicans have
begun to take seriously their role
as an opposition party Their task
is not an easy one. When party
has been defeated, as the Demo-
Gratis were in 1920. 1924 and 1928
and the Republicans in 1882, it
seems almost unbelievable that it
can ever revive. After crushing
defeat it's principals are discredited,
it's leaders are in eclipse, the rank
and file of party workers dismayed
and demoralized. Our political GUS
toms accentuate the difficulty of
organizing the opposition. For those
most content to lead it, namely
those who have held responsible
posts in the previous administration,
are forced into complete retirement.
1t is a wasteful and inherently
absurd arrangement, which depriveS
the nation of the services of those
most able to criticise, and produces
such spectacles as the attempt of
Republican senators to debate the
money bill though they do not
understand it, while Mr.. Hoover and
Mr.. Ogden Mills, who have the
equipment to understand it, are not
heard in the debate.
NEVERTHELESS, though it is
~ difficult for an opposition to
organize quickly after bad defeat,
it does in the course of time get it
self organized. 1t is always a mis-
take to assume that either Of the two
American parties is dead, however
divided and crushed it may seem to
be. Herbert Croly used to say that
the two parties were virtually in
destructible; they were low-grade
organisms which had neither
brain nor a heart that could be
stopped, and so you could cut them
in half and the two halves would
wiggle on and somehow grow to-
gether again. This idea ought to be
a great comfort to Republican pol
iticians. 1t was until quite recently
a great comfort to the Democrats.
And it will be again.
So unimpressive a view of Amer
lean party life is often discouraging
to men who would like to think of
parties as associations of men COM
mitted to great principles. But our
own history seems to show that we
never have developed a system of
parties based on permanent con-
f1icts of principle There is a rea-
son for that, I think, and good
one. America is too extensive and
too diversified to be divided per-
manently by any one conflict Of in
terests, and of principles which ra-
tionalize those interests.
We have class conflicts, but they
are localized. We have regional
conflicts, but there are many re-
gions and the issues are continually
shifting. For that reason America
is the despair of all those who like
their politics to be neat and logical
individualists and planners and up
of Marxians for example and rugged
holders of laissez faire, and all
others who have an internally con-
sistent social philosophy.
WET the key to the mystery of
l. American politics is there for
any one to see who will look at it
simply as it is. The United States
is not a cOnDact nation like tne
European nations among whom
political science, as we know it,
was first developed. It is a CONT
mental nation of a kind hitherto
unknown in history, the kind of
nation conceivably that the whole
of Europe might have become had
Latin be4jme its Universal Ian