Rough Draft Chapter IV -- Overall Report

September 13, 1957

CHAPTER IV

THE CHALLENGE TO THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

As we look across the seas toward the grim bastion of communist power and ponder what problems it presents for our society, it becomes evident that the threat of war does not loom alone as the exclusive source of our concern. While the military menace of the Soviet bloc offers the paramount challenge to our survival as a nation, it is also the wellspring of many subsidiary problems. For in opposition to the monolithic communist states with their capacity for complete mobilization of manpower and resources, complete control of all media of thought and opinion, and the ability to make abrupt changes of policy without popular consent, we in America must operate through the traditional processes of our free and pluralistic democratic system.

The challenge to democracy today is threefold. First stands the stark necessity of sheer survival. Yet survival itself, however fundamental a goal, is nonetheless an inadequate one if it means surrendering the historic aspirations of our society. The challenge of survival thus carries with it the secondary question of whether we can survive in the face of mortal threat and still encourage the material achievement that has lifted the American people to existing levels of comfort and well-being. And thirdly -- and this may be the most difficult challenge to our society --

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can we at the same time preserve the essentials of our democracy, the moral
values and political institutions without which mere survival would connote
not victory but defeat? This last challenge is directed squarely at our meth-
ods and processes of governance. For democracy is, more than anything
else, a way of doing things. And the way is lighted by America's historic
dedication to the dignity of the individual and the preservation of freedom.

The governing processes of any society grow naturally out of the
goals and aspirations that brought that society into being. It is a curious
phenomenon of the American character that we tend to be diffident and inar-
ticulate about the philosophical concepts on which our nation was reared.
This fact was noted recently by Charles Malik of Lebanon, who observed:
"You have in your own traditions certain invaluable beliefs about man and
society and history and human destiny and the nature of God -- beliefs that
you should feel free to export and to teach others . . . You practice these
things -- they are more or less unconscious with you -- but you have not
sufficiently articulated them to the extent of being able to mediate them
intellectually to the rest of the world."

Our diffidence in this respect may stem from the fact that so many
of the historic words and phrases of our political tradition have grown stale
and meaningless as a consequence of their overuse in patriotic oratory.
Yet it is important today, as never before, that we should rediscover the
concepts that underlie these words and phrases, and that, having

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rediscovered them, we should reaffirm them with some of the deep emotional
sense of mission that inspired their authors more than two and a half centu-
ries ago. Nowhere have they been more succinctly stated than in the Preamble
to the Constitution of the United States:

" . . . to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common
defense, promote the General Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . ."

These principles are morally, politically and socially as valid now
as when they were first articulated. Our necessity in today's tumultuous
world is not to revise them, but to seek afresh the avenues to their attain-
ment and to select with care the specific actions that may help create both
a national and an international community in which they will find universal
acceptance. In order to capitalize on the weaknesses gradually being
revealed within the Soviet system, we must offer a morally acceptable
alternative -- in terms of process as well as principle -- that will appeal
not only to our own people and our allies, but to neutrals and the captive
populations of the enemy as well.

What then are some of the processes by which we have traditionally
sought to activate and extend our national ideals? It is important to reiter-
ate that the processes of democracy are no less a part of our national iden-
tity than the principles that undergird them. For the consensus of any

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society -- that mutual, often undefined concord of the minds and spirits of its members -- is cemented not only by the values it professes but also by the ways in which those values are expressed, by modes and habits of action, by the conduct of daily affairs, and by the crystallization of its ideas into its institutions. The exterior, visible facade of a society is the living manifestation of its interior, inspirational core.

This ultimate inner core -- the moral and political heart of the American consensus -- consists in respect for the dignity, freedom and opinion of the individual. And it is evidenced in many ways. It is evidenced in the American recognition -- even encouragement -- of diverse opinions and views. Our society does not insist on a uniform application of political ideas or social attitudes. Rather it tolerates all manner of beliefs about the ways in which its ultimate belief can best be realized, and it imposes no penalty for intellectual dissent. Political argument in the United States thus takes the form of peripheral debate around a central idea rather than a head-on collision of mutually irreconcilable ideas.

Although the debate may occasionally become vehement, it seldom becomes violent; and the final victory is won by rational appeal. Why is this so? Because we hold that man is a rational being, and that his gift of reason includes the capacity to be persuaded -- that fine flexibility of the human will which is man's unique endowment and which provides the essential psychological basis of every democratic process. It is because of our

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belief in the possibility of persuasion that America has never been an authoritarian nation at home and a missionary rather than a colonizing nation abroad.

How then have we translated these convictions into the working mechanisms of the democratic process? What are the actual institutions of American life which have been erected to defend the dignity of the individual and to help him fulfill his potentialities in a free, pluralistic and rational society? In political terms they reside in the basic rules of our constitutional democracy: equality before the law, universal suffrage, a free and secret ballot, legal recognition of minority dissent, the right of petition, and a Constitution which is itself subject to revision by orderly processes of law. In social terms they include equal opportunity for education and equal opportunity for the achievement of material well-being through ability rather than inheritance. All of these institutions combine to form a structure of government designed to protect and encourage the individual and, if necessary, to restrain the individual but never to dominate or engulf him. Finally, in economic terms, the democratic process operates through the American form of capitalism which uniquely combines private initiative and public responsibility, freedom and restraint. In its variety, in its absence of compulsion, capitalism represents at once a pluralistic and free form of economic organization which recognizes the privacy as well as the primacy of the individual.

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American society has been called an "open society" -- which is to say that, imbued with its belief in the ultimate inner worth of man, it has created institutions which in politics allow him freedom of dissent and intellectual dissociation from the immediate government, which in economics allow him free access to the productive mechanisms of the nation, and which in society grant him freedom to develop his personality to the fullest and most creative limits. These are the great institutions through which the American democratic process operates and by which the American emphasis on the value, perfectibility and concern for the welfare of the individual is sustained.

Underlying the broad features of our democratic process are certain subsidiary structures unique to the American system. One of these is our Constitutional limitation on the supremacy of a simple majority. The United States is a _constitutional_ democracy and not a _direct_ democracy. Certain important legislative actions -- for example, the decision to limit Congressional debate or to over-ride a presidential veto, require not a simple majority but a majority of two-thirds. Through such checks and balances, the transient impulses of temporary majorities are curbed, and the rights and opinions of minorities (whether regional, political, economic, or moral) are safeguarded by law.

Our democratic process also takes into account, though in a less clearly defined way, the existence of specialized groups -- labor unions,

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professional organizations, business associations, patriotic and fraternal orders -- which operate to protect their special interests by political means. Through these private organizations all segments of our multifarious society are able to exert a varied and often powerful influence on government. For it is a corollary of our pluralistic system that its elected leaders have a constant obligation to endeavor to reconcile the contesting claims of diverse groups or communities whose interests may be affected by any proposed legislative or official action. The essential function of the democratic process is the creation of a national consensus amid competing centrifugal pulls.

If the prime purpose of the democratic process is to synthesize divergent views into a program of common action based on common principles, its prime political problem is to secure continuity and responsibility of leadership. Our system of regular elections is designed to produce leaders who truly reflect the views of their local constituents and are pledged to uphold them -- but always within the framework of the overall national purpose. The problem of leadership is thus inherent in our democratic process. Today, more urgently than ever before in our history, we require leaders who can infuse into the complex democratic process a sense of national destiny and focus it on issues that may affect the survival not only of this nation but of the free world.

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To discover such leaders is a task involving more than the mechanics
of party politics, nominating conventions, campaigns or any other instrument
of the American electoral process. The roots of the leadership problem lie
deeply imbedded in our entire system of education and are intertwined with
its every level from grade school to graduate college. For it is here that
qualities of leadership first evolve and either flourish or wither away. It
is here that sights are set to standards of mediocrity or excellence, to
initiative and originality or the simple wish to conform.

The education, and development of potential leaders, however, is
a long range problem. A more immediate necessity is to abet and improve
the operations of the responsible leaders we have today. One primary approach
to this end is to facilitate communication between our current leaders and
those on whom they must depend for their continued support and from whom
they derive their ultimate power. In any democratic society -- and especi-
ally in our own diffuse and decentralized democracy -- communications are
of transcendent importance, for they represent the means of persuasion and
consent. Our role in the world today, moreover, requires that the nature
and achievements of our democracy should be communicated abroad.

To say that a primary attribute of leadership is the ability to commu-
nicate does not imply that a leader must be endowed with mere oratorical
or rhetorical gifts, a television personality or a facile pen. It does imply
the ability to indicate objectives, to canalize action and organize consent,

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to inspire and command confidence. On the one hand he must show a receptivity to his people's own expressed values and views, to retain a sense of identity and mutual understanding with them, and on the other hand to educate them to perceive and comprehend his role as leader. Finally he must distinguish between personal popularity and popular acceptance of the policies he may espouse.

Perhaps the cardinal difficulty a democratic leader encounters in his attempts to communicate with his people is the profound philosophical quandry of determining where truth lies. For the democratic process relies on truth as its most potent implement. Democracy, indeed, rests on the assumption that the truth will make men free. We believe that, given the truth, the people of a democratic society and their leaders will make the best possible decisions on most issues most of the time. But Pilate's question, "What is truth?" has especial relevance today.

The difficulty of answering that question has long been appreciated by philosophers. It has been the constant concern of scientists seeking to uncover the ultimate processes that underlie the bewildering phenomena of the visible world. For centuries the quest for scientific truth was impeded by the Aristotelian method of deductive thinking: i.e. the drawing of conclusions from self-evident or *a priori* principles. Aristotle's explanation of gravity as exhibited by a falling stone, for example, began

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with the _a priori_ principle that everything in the world has its proper
place, and from this principle deduced that (1) the proper place for a
stone is on the ground, (2) _ergo_ it falls. It was not until Galileo and
Newton developed the inductive method of science: i.e. the orderly
progression from observed facts to final conclusions, that scientific
truth began to emerge. The difference in method was defined by Sir
Francis Bacon who observed, "He who begins in doubt shall end in
certainty, but he who begins in certainty shall end in doubt."

In our present nuclear age, the pure scientists are well aware of
the stimulus of doubt and the elusiveness of truth. For they have witnessed
revolutionary transformations in every category of science. And they know
now that the scientific "truths" and "laws of nature" of a half century
ago were simply hypotheses which seemed plausible at the time. By the
same token the scientific "fact" of today may be tomorrow's discarded
theory. So contemporary scientists seldom employ terms like "fact" or
"truth". Aware of the limits of man's perceptions and the complexity of
the physical world, they recognize the difficulty of ascertaining where
truth resides.

Other men in less disciplined callings acknowledge no such
limitations and seldom bother to differentiate between truth and opinion,
conjecture and fact. Unhappily the ease of communication in this articulate
age of mass media, of television and radio, of a prolific press and torrential

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political oratory, makes it possible for anyone's utterances on any
subject, however inaccurate or ill-advised, to be transmitted around
the globe with the speed of light. This represents, perhaps, a price we
must pay for our heritage of freedom of speech. While in totalitarian
countries the truth is deliberately distorted or perverted for political ends,
in our democracy the truth is often unwittingly distorted, blurred or be-
clouded by partisanship, prejudice or simply the confusion of voices that
assails the air waves 24 hours a day. Some of our difficulties derive,
therefore, less from the lack of freedom of speech than from a surfeit of it.

The problem of making truth an implement of the democratic process
is essentially a problem of leadership. It is the fundamental problem of
leaders of the press, of publishers, of broadcasting systems and other
media of communication, of government information services, private
research organizations, public opinion polls, and of all educators. It is
also the peculiar and perplexing problem of the political leader. For
while he has at his disposal, at all times, a vast profusion of data
assembled by the most elaborate and far-flung fact-finding apparatus
functioning anywhere in the world today, the mere collecting of information
is simply the beginning of his task. For it is the political leader's
complex and arduous duty to interpret the factual information he receives,
to sift truth from falsehood and conjecture, to transmit his conception of
the truth to the people he serves, and to employ it as an implement of

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persuasion and a lever for political action. He must both clarify and dramatize the truth. Moreover, if he is a man of conscience and integrity, he must symbolize it in his own person. The process of communication is a two-way process, channelled in one direction from the people to the leaders who need to be informed, and in the other direction from the leaders to the people whose consent they require for any proposal of action.

In this process the major difficulty of the leader who earnestly aspires to any approximation of truthful and accurate knowledge of states of public opinion, is to cut through the enormous and often deceptive multiplicity of "facts" which pour into his office, to evaluate them and determine the extent to which they may be regarded as the framework of a national consensus. Although much of the information which political leaders receive from fact-finding agencies tends to report perfunctory or superficial opinions on isolated issues, people, for the most part, habitually relate issues one to another and react to them in ways determined by their individual circumstances and needs. Manifestations of this tendency have been noted often by public opinion experts, with respect to international relations no less than domestic affairs. For example, it was discovered that the greatest opposition to our foreign aid program came from people who were retired. Why? Because retired people with fixed incomes are more sensitive to inflation. A more baffling relationship

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emerged from a poll taken during the Korean War which found that a remarkably large section of the public who professed not to understand the reasons for our involvement consisted of parents whose sons were then serving in the armed forces. They did not understand because they did not want to understand, and their profession of ignorance was a way of denying justification for the war. By the same token the isolationists who were so articulate prior to Pearl Harbor did not advocate isolation because they truly believed that America could stand aloof from the community of nations in an interdependent world, but because, for personal reasons, they did not want our country to fight against Germany or conversely to wage war in alliance with Britain and France.

The lesson inherent in these situations is that the analysis of public opinion entails far more complex processes than the mere assembling of data. Congressional mail, though it invariably worries and frequently influences Congressmen, is a notoriously inaccurate barometer of popular sentiment. Letters written in anger or protest vastly outnumber those expressing satisfaction or approval, or offering encouragement for affirmative action. Moreover, despite the coast-to-coast machinery of communication in our country, vast multitudes of people fail to become informed or to evolve opinions on crucial but complex issues. A recent survey on the controversial question of farm subsidies produced the astonishing finding that of 3,000 representative American farmers, only

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14% knew what a subsidy was. (Some of them thought it was a cover crop). Another poll on inflation found that only 30% of the people in the country knew what inflation was.

Confronted with such a pattern of complex personal motivations, lacunae of ignorance, and unbalanced pressures, the political leader who aspires to lead his people and reflect their wishes, must endeavor first to understand *why* people hold the opinions they profess. He must take into consideration their manifold assumptions, hopes and fears, and sift out any anomalies and idiosyncrasies which may confuse the general picture. This is not to suggest that the leader's effort to penetrate and understand the public mind is for the simple purpose of telling him how to obey and activate its every wish. On the contrary, the function of a leader is to lead. The leader must be an educator, who can bridge the gap between the experience of his people and his own vision, between their tradition and their future. The reason he must endeavor to understand public opinion and the forces that mould it is that only by virtue of his awareness of conflicting popular interests and motivations will he be able to evolve sound and practical recommendations of policy. The formulation of any policy is a process of reconciling disagreement, and it is seldom that any policy can be effected without opposition from some quarter. The practical leader's tactical requirement is to make sure at the outset that his opposition will be minimal and dispersed. He must

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remember, moreover, that opposition tends to increase in inverse ratio to strength of leadership. It is an axiom of statesmanship that vacillation invites opposition while decisive action dissolves it.

Here again problems of leadership and problems of communication come together. There is abundant historic evidence that our government tends to underestimate the willingness of the people to go much farther than their leaders request with respect to measures affecting the national interest. Such errors invariably derive from an inaccurate assessment of the public's degree of suggestibility -- that is, from a failure to discern that in the absence of an intense, clear-cut nationwide opinion on a given issue, there may nevertheless exist a diffuse, ill-defined and inchoate body of sentiment which might be mobilized by perceptive and forthright leadership. To accomplish this the leader cannot talk in abstractions. He must define his goals in concrete terms of action which relate to specific personal interests of the people. He must never forget that every person is an ambiguous aggregate of diverse interests, who will view all issues, not in the abstract, but in terms of how they will affect his own life, his family, his income, and his religious and social predilections. No issue stands alone.

As opposed to the powerful centrifugal force of individual interests, there has been developing in the United States an equally powerful centripetal force in the form of a new sense of national

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community which is gradually nationalizing the whole basis of
American politics and the whole basis of public interest and popular
thought. It derives in part from the mobility of the population and
the consequent dissolution of regional ties, in part from the shared
emotions and exertions of the last two wars, and in part from certain
economic factors, such as inflation, which compel a greater awareness
of the national economy and the influence exerted by the Federal
government upon its fluctuations. For these reasons the American
people, more than ever before, have become acutely conscious of
conflicts between their own personal feelings and their feelings of
national allegiance and responsibility. And they tend more willingly
to subordinate their personal interests to the interests of the nation as
a whole, when the realization of such conflicts is brought home to them
by firm and imaginative leadership. Out of a broad popular sense of
involvement in important issues, the truly able leader can organize the
consensus he may require to initiate a given program of affirmative
action. Public opinion is thus never static, inflexible, immutable --
on the contrary, it is plastic, responsive to countless stimuli, and
subject to ceaseless change.

The very life-blood of our democratic process, therefore, is the
free and vigorous circulation of ideas and opinions between leaders and
led. And the forces which promote and preserve their circulation are the

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dynamics of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It is
important to bear in mind that these historic freedoms cannot be taken
for granted. They are indeed under continual threat. The requirements
of national security necessarily restrict the freest possible dissemina-
tion of information. And the pressures of various commercial,
political, and religious interests are constantly brought to bear through
various modes of direct or indirect action. None of these pressures
will disappear. None can be ignored. The problem appears to be one
of achieving a balance between occasional mandatory restrictions --
and happily they are only occasional -- and the necessity of preserving
our traditional open system of communication through which every kind
of idea, every shading of opinion and counter-opinion, may find ex-
pression and compete for the minds of men. The tremendous development
of television, which has already proved its usefulness as a medium of
communication, education, and political persuasion will undoubtedly
present as it is further perfected, a continuing opportunity for leader-
ship in all areas of national life.

Over and above his duty to understand, shape and direct public
opinion, the function of the democratic leader is to make decisions.
It is a characteristic of our democratic process that, in our hierarchy
of government from the President down, virtually every program of action
is the product of many leaders on many levels and represents a synthesis

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of many conflicting views. In some ways this is a wholesome and
beneficial feature of our system. Yet in times of crisis certain weak-
nesses become visible in the governmental machine. These weaknesses
however, reflect the very qualities that make for ease of relationships
in our society and blunt the sharp edge of controversy. For example,
we appear at times to be so preoccupied with the business of resolving
differences that a fear of dogmatism permeates our social scene. Vigor
of opinion and strength of affirmative action are often debilitated by the
hint that their proponents do not really expect them to be accepted in
the end. Throughout our government there is an evident preference for
decisions by committee -- for the committee process permits disagreements
to be discovered and adjustments made before individual positions have
congealed.

In the light of the menacing world situation today, it is clear
that the national leadership of the United States must be at once more
decisive and better staffed at the top for swift and decisive action.
Without sacrificing the essentials of our democratic process, we must
evolve more efficient ways of formulating policy and implementing it.
How this might be done will be discussed in a subsequent chapter.
One generality, however, may be mentioned here: a closer liaison between
the White House and Congress would avert many of the bitter and time-
wasting controversies that so often arise as the price we pay for our

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Constitutional separation of legislative and executive powers. The
principle of separation is, of course, basic to our government, for it
reflects the pluralistic nature of our society. The organization of our
government echoes that pluralism in many ways -- in the decentraliza-
tion of power, in the particularism of the Senate, in the constant
formation and reformation of coalitions within the government. What the
formal structure of our system may lose in efficiency is perhaps more
than outweighed by what it gains in flexibility. To a society relying
on communications, persuasion and the voluntary union of diverse
elements in common action to achieve great national goals, flexibility
is a priceless asset. Within such a system coercion is unnecessary and
unthinkable, and discipline plays only a minor role.

In a very deep sense the fact that we not only tolerate but
cherish individual difference stands as <u>the</u> basic difference between our
political philosophy and those of other lands. By our emphasis on
harmony without conformity we achieve political effectiveness. By our
unwavering determination to pursue our political ends through the
traditional mechanisms of our democratic process we preserve both
tolerance and faith. The challenge to our democratic process today is
to defend our priceless heritage amid the stresses of a seemingly unending
crisis and within the black penumbra of a threatened total war.