Evening star., 1939-05-21
WANTED -ANCrnER MOSES

gaps, dictated largely by minority pres
sure groups rather than by what would
be best for the Nation as whole, or bv
the results of elections in which issues
more often are confused than clarified.
A citizen may vote, of course, but
usually he feels that he has had little
part in selecting the men or issues on
which he votes, and all too frequently
that his ballot is only a choice between
two evils. After he has cast his vote,
his control ends: he has no effective
method of translating his desires into
action by the men he has elected, ex-
cept the negative one of refusing to vote
to re-elect. them if he disapproves of
their actions.
Limits Pressure Groups.
Organized minority groups with axes
to grind can influence Government policy
through lobbies or barrages of kilograms.
but the dlslnterested citizen is almost
poWerless
TO change this Sltuation-to take the
formulation of Government policy out
OF the hands of the professional poll
ticians and the pressure groups and
give 1t back to the citizens-the idea of
the National Policy Committee was con.
celVed in 1885 by Raymond Leslie Buell.,
round-table editor Of Fortune magazine,
and Francis P. Miller, organization di.
rector of the Council on Foreign Rela-
tons and member of the Virginia House
of Delegates.
The two men, longtime friends. dis
covered IN a chance conversation in
New Yorks Yale Club one day that
both had long been pondering the prob
lem OF restoring policy formulation to a
more democratic basis, and each had
reached similar conclusion.
They agreed that there would be
lasting value in an organization which
would bring together responsible per-
sons in all parts of the Nation-educa-
tors businessmen, authors, editors, public
officials and others-and help these per-
sons discuss the Nations problems on
factual, disinterested basis, later pre-
senting their flndingings to the public as
the best opinion of group whose mo-
tlves and intelligence were bound to COM
mand respect.
Bonus March Inspiration.
Mr.. Miller. when in St. Louis as
chairman Of the meeting held there told
the writer he had begun considering the
possibility of such an organization short
ly after the bonus march, which oc-
CURED in the first year of the New Deal,
and which impressed him as a parti-
cularly bad example of perversion Of the
democratic process.
Here was time" he said, when
the Nation faced a crisis of immense
proportions, involving the most COM
plcated questions of political and econ
omic policy-and it was a demand for
the bonus that received the most at
tention. At the same time. other groups
were making loud demands for share
the-wealth scheme.
1T was obvious that some general
participation in Government by respon-
sible and wellinformed people was vastly
preferable to fly-by might, demagogic
pressures by those with purely selfish
motives"
Miller found precedent for his idea in
tiiS SohliAhttCCS Ol Correspondents
which functioned early in the United
States history under the leadership of
Thomas Jefferson. This informal or.
ganization of serious-minded citizens.
separated widely on a geographic basis,
but united by common desire to keer
informed about the state of the nation
and to help determine what the next
step should be, had filled an important
role at one period in American history
Why should not similar organization
be even more valuable in a more COM
plex age?
Along with such men as Richard F.
Cleveland. Baltimore attorney and son
of the late President; w. w. Waymack,
editor of the editorial page of the Des
Moines Gowa) Register and Tribune,
and Herbert Agar, Pulitzer prize-win-
ming author, they established the Ma
tional Policy Committee and various To-
cal and State committees affiliated with
it. The idea was to bring together men
and women representing all points of
Observation-Disclosures and labor leaders,
economics professors and practical poll
ticians-who would meet for a rational
discussion of the Nations problems, ex-
anime them without bias and report their
findings through the machinery a ma
tional organization would provide.
The varying points of view expressed
end any recommendations on which
there is substantial agreement, are pub
hshed afterward Reports of this nature
already have been prepared on the SUBJ
jects of labor, the national economic
policy, the functioning of the democratic
process, and the Constitution, the last
published when President Roosevelts
plan to enlarge the Supreme Court was
national issue
A reader seeing these booklets for the
first time is likely to be amazed at the
vast range of the discussion reported,
and the concise way in which factual
data and opposing theories have been
summarized. More than a million of
them have been sold, and they undoubt-
edly have had an important effect in
clarifying issues