our war with other nations,
an organization which I hope to show ought to be formed, and which I am
rising to make the motion to form, in this book.

I put these principles forward as the by-laws of America's faith in
itself, as the principles that should govern the brain, the heart and the
hand of each man in a democracy, toward all other men and that should
govern all other men toward him--the skeleton of the body of the people.

VIII

THREE RIGHTS OF MAN IN A DEMOCRACY

I--THE RIGHT TO THINK

I am entitled to one one-hundred millionth of President Wilson's time in
a year.

1/100,000,000th.

If I want 2/100,000,000ths of President Wilson's time in a year I must
show him why. I must also show the other 99,999,999 people who think I
deserve no more than my regular 1/100,000,000th why I should have two.
Not allowing for the President's sleeping nights, my precise share of his
time would be one-third of a second once a year. Why should I have
two-thirds of a second?

I have to show.

The success of democracy as a working institution turns on
salesmanship--upon every man's selling himself--his right to the
attention of the Government.

A democracy which considers itself a queue of a hundred million people
standing before the window of the President's attention to be waited upon
by the President in the order in which they are born or in which they
come up, would be a helpless institution. The success of democracy--that
is, the success of a government in serving the will of the hundred
million people in the queue, turns on sorting people in the queue out,
turns on giving attention to what some people in the queue want before
others. The man who gets out of line and walks up ahead of people who
have been standing in line longer than he has, must get the permission of
the queue. He must make the people in the queue feel he represents them
with the President if he steps up ahead. Then they let him have their
turn. They are glad to let him have hours with the President if they feel
he is giving hours' worth of representation to their minutes. All each
man wants to feel is that in letting Gompers, for instance, or Schwab, go
up ahead, he is getting with the President a minute an hour long. Miles
of people in rows say to a man like this, who can give them and their
interests with the President a minute an hour long, "You first, please."

Political democracy, if it works, turns on getting the attention of the