in centralized power and responsibility,
expedient or inexpedient, is injurious to certain aspects of traditional
American democracy. But the fault in that case lies with the democratic
tradition; and the erroneous and misleading tradition must yield before
the march of a constructive national democracy. The national advance
will always be impeded by these misleading and erroneous ideas, and,
what is more, it always should be impeded by them, because at bottom
ideas of this kind are merely an expression of the fact that the average
American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a
serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat.
An American national democracy must always prove its right to a further
advance, not only by the development of a policy and method adequate for
the particular occasion, but by its ability to overcome the inevitable
opposition of selfish interests and erroneous ideas. The logic of its
position makes it the aggressor, just as the logic of its opponents'
position ties them to a negative and protesting or merely insubordinate
part. If the latter should prevail, their victory would become
tantamount to national dissolution, either by putrefaction, by
revolution, or by both.

Under the influence of certain practical demands, an increase has
already taken place in the activity of the Federal government. The
increase has not gone as far as governmental efficiency demands, but it
has gone far enough to provoke outbursts of protest and anguish from the
"old-fashioned Democrats." They profess to see the approaching
extinction of the American democracy in what they call the drift towards
centralization. Such calamitous predictions are natural, but they are
none the less absurd. The drift of American politics--its instinctive
and unguided movement--is almost wholly along the habitual road; and any
effective increase of Federal centralization can be imposed only by most
strenuous efforts, by one of the biggest sticks which has ever been
flourished in American politics. The advance made in this direction is
small compared to the actual needs of an efficient national
organization, and considering the mass of interest and prejudice which
it must continue to overcome, it can hardly continue to progress at more
than a snail's pace. The great obstacle to American national fulfillment
must always be the danger that the American people will merely succumb
to the demands of th