Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1943-09-24


Clayton w. On the side
Fountain of the United
Nations, we scream aloud at the
very top of our voices that we
are fighting to save democracy.
We crowd the air waves with ra-
dio broadcasts proclaiming our
devotion to the democratic faith,
And, in between the broadcasts,
the speeches and the passing out
of tracts, we plaster the land
scape with billboards affirming
our democratic idealism.
We are sometimes like the
small boy whistling in the night
as he passes the village ceme-
terry. We make big noise, but
for all the democracy that issues
from our mouths and our print
ing presses, we practically have
to club our people into taking an
active part in the democratic.
process.
SOMETHING is WRONG
1t is fine and dandy for a To-
cal union to hold meeting and
to vote unanimously in favor of
democracy. But it is something
else again to check up and find
out that a minority of those so
voting are registered voters.
1t is also fine thing to put
out a pamphlet acclaiming the
faith of the workers in the dem
ocratic process. But again, it is
something else to hear people in
beer garden sneering at poll
tics and cussing out all politici-
ans with impartial vehemence.
Something is radically wrong
somewhere.
If we really believe in the
democracy for which we are
fighting this war, and about
which we write and talk so much,
it behooves us to get up off our
fannies and practice what we
preach.
Talk is cheap, but it takes
votes to repel the domestic ene-
mics of democracy.
AN EMOTIONAL FRENZY
1t is useless to work ourselves
into an emotional frenzy over the
glories of democracy for which
fine young men are giving their
lives on the battle fields-when
W, can literally count our regis
tered voters on our fingers and
toes.
Our love for democracy is the
grossest kind of hypocricy if we
cannot wrench our fingers away
from our noses and get at the job
of taking the stink out of poll
tics.
If we do not registeI and vote;
if we are conteA to cuss out the
politicians and sneer at politics;
if we are too selfish to mingle
with our neighbors and thresh
out solutions to community prob
lems-then all the fine words we
speak and write about democracy
are just so much hooey.
TRANSLATE DEMOCRATIC
IDEALS
We cannot preserve democracy
by killing Fascists on the firing
line, while we abstain from the
labors of democracy at home. De-
mocracy can only be kept alive
when it is, made to live by the
daily action of people who have
the will to translate democratic
ideals into democratic activity.
Democracy must first be alive
at the grass roots of politics, or
else it will die from lack of ex-
E. else.
Elections, referendums, legis-
latures and the rightfu' rule of
majorities-these things are the
tools of democracy but they are
not the life of democracy.
The life of democracy is the
participation of the people as hu-
man beings in community life
as well as politics. Politicians
can pass laws and enforce them;
but only the people can keep de-
mocracy alive.
Democracy will stay alive as
long as free citizens talk politics
across the back fence and swear,
by God, that Congressman Zileh
is a skunk, and we are going to
throw him out next election.