are governed, and
not as persons who govern or help to govern. It is pleasant, perhaps, to
have plenty of servants to wait upon one, but surely health, physical,
mental and moral, waits on him who does most things for himself. I once
heard Lincoln Steffens say: "What we want is not 'Good Government'; it is
_Self_-Government." But is it not possible to get the advantage of
government by a few, with its possibilities of continuous policy and its
freedom from "crowd-psychology," with its skillful utilization of expert
knowledge, while admitting the public to full knowledge of what is going
on, and full ultimate control of it? We evidently think so, and our present
tendencies are evidence that we are attempting something of the kind. Our
belief seems to be that if we elect our despot and are able to recall him
we shall have to keep tab on him pretty closely, and that the knowledge of
statecraft that will thus be necessary to us will be no less than if we
personally took part in legislation and administration--probably far more
than if we simply went through the form of delegating our responsibilities
and then took no further thought, as most of us have been accustomed to do.

Whether this is the right view or not--whether it is workable--the future
will show; I am here discussing tendencies, not their ultimate outcome.
But it would be too much to expect that this or any other eclectic policy
should be pleasing to all.

"The real problem of collectivism," says Walter Lippmann, "is the
difficulty of combining popular control with administrative power.... The
conflict between democracy and centralized authority ... is the line upon
which the problems of collectivism will be fought out."

In selecting elements from both despotism and democracy we are displeasing
the adherents of both. There is too much despotism in the plan for one
side and too much democracy for the other. We constantly hear the
complaint that concentrated responsibility with popular control is too
despotic, and at the same time the criticism that it is too democratic. To
put your city in the hands of a small commission, perhaps of a city
manager, seems to some to be a return to monarchy; and so perhaps it is.
To give Tom, Dick and Harry the power to unseat these monarchs at will is
said to be dangerously socialistic; and possibly it is. Only it is
possible that by combining these two poisons--this acid and this
alkali--in the same pill, we are neutralizing t