The people's voice., 1959-03-06
By
THE REV. VINCENT O'CONNELL

THE REV. VINCENT O'CONNELL
Catholic pastor, educator and la
Dor arbitration consultant, in his ad-
dress to the 42nd annual convention
of the American Federation of Teach
ers.)
1t seems to me that the history of
American democracy, as taught in
our schools, is incomplete if not incor-
rect. In modern times, the word de-
mocracy has been much misused and
much abused.
We hear the Soviets referring to
their political units as the peoples
democracies. We know of people in
our own country who call themselves
democrats while denying to their fell
low-citizens full political, cultural and
even religious participation in COM
munity life.
In my mind, democracy means,
at the very least, a social system
wherein the people have a voice in
all human decisions affecting their
lives.
Democracy as Taught in Our
Schools: Most every student, at least
beginning with the high school level,
has pretty fair understanding of the
early history of our political democ-
racy.
He has heard the story of our break
with the British Empire; he has heard
of Valley Forge; if he cannot identify,
at least most of the time he can recog-
nize the saying: Taxation without rep
resentation is tyranny.
If he has paid attention in class,
most likely he can quote from the
Declaration of independence: "He
(the king) has denied unto US the
right of representation, right which
is inestimable to us and formidable to
tyrants only.
If he has paid attention in civics
class, he knows that our federal gov
ernment is made up of three branches
the executive, the legislative and
the judicial. He has been well-enough
inspired by the ideals of representa-
tive political democracy that he, like
his forefathers, is ready and willing to
resist the threat of political dictator
ship, even if it means sacrificing his
own life.
The schools in the greater part of
our country have done a fair job of
and inspiring our pupils
with an understanding Of representa-
i've political democracy.
Complete Representative Democ-
-acy: Decisions made in a peoples
economic and professional life have t
always been important but it seems to
ne that today, in many cases, the de-
,isions made by professional, finan-
,ial, employer and labor groups af-
'ect human lives more directly and 2
more Importantly than many political :
decisions. This is especially true of .
,ur country. A man cannot be consid- ::
red full citizen unless he exercises
10Th economic and political citizen
hip.
In our age, the term, good citizen, {
hould imply more than it did in years 0
zone by. Formerly, good citizen was p
person who respected law and order, S
person who took part in community c
ffairs, paid his taxes, registered and
'oted. s.
There are problems today affecting ir
he general welfare of the city, state, a
ation and family of nations which Il
equire of each one of us a much p
uller participation in the life of our p
ociety. If we are members of rep fl
democracy, then the peo- =
lie whom we elect as our civic, busi- e
ess, agricultural, labor and profess y
ional Representatives are our respon- .
ibility.
What our government says and does =,
l international affairs is our busi- "
ess. Solving the problems Of infla- c'
on, unemployment, integration, pub u u
C health, housing and farm parity is u
Iso our business. u =,
But the question arises: How is
the ordinary citizen to find the
means to exercise his economic and b
professional civic obligations? How es
does he become an econsmic citi-
zen? 81