Democracy as a Social System is on Trial
In a preceding chapter I stated that we Americans are barely
reproducing our numbers on our own soil. In comparison with the colored
and foreign elements our percentage is every year being reduced.
In full view, within a few decades at most, lies the new America.
Perhaps it has been fear of giving offense to others, more likely it
has been pure carelessness and individual selfishness on our part,
which has prevented us from discussing our country of to-morrow. The
new America, if the present tendencies continue, will be a nation
composed of a majority of American white farmers only in the middle
western and plains states. Black farmers will ultimately predominate
throughout the coastal regions of the South and the Mississippi Delta,
and Japanese farmers will rapidly multiply their numbers on the Pacific
coast. But the ever-increasing city population already numbers over
half the nation. This city population in the North and East contains
to-day about fifteen per cent. of original Americans. Presently this
diminishing element will count only a few capitalists and professional
persons. The majority of the business class, even, will be composed
of Greeks, Jews, Germans, Italians and their descendants. The great
working class of the cities is even now composed of two elements.
First, there are the skilled workers, mainly British, Irish, Germans,
and Scandinavians, with their immediate descendants. The unskilled
working people of the cities, always tending to submerge the skilled,
are composed of Italians, Negroes, Slavs, Jews, French-Canadians, and
thirty-odd other elements from the south and east of Europe and from
Asia. Recently seventy-two Americans, members of a literary club, in
a small industrial town in New York, took a census of their children.
They discovered, much to their surprise that altogether they were
rearing exactly fourteen offspring. Meanwhile fourteen children is not
an uncommon number at all for an Italian or French-Canadian couple to
add to the citizenship of our country.
Questions arise here which it is quite necessary for us to answer at
once. Why, indeed, do we Americans lay such great store by our peculiar
racial heritage? Are not our recent immigrants, taken as a whole, as
"good" as we? If we do not desire to bring children into the world,
should not our country be left to others who are willing to undertake
the responsibilities of parenthood? Hence, why are we not disposed to
accept our dissolution silently and go to the grave with a smile?
The answer to these questions is implied in the title of this article.
It is the cherished belief of the members of the Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan that democracy--democracy in all its aspects, the social spirit
of democracy, the practice of democracy, the regeneration of the soul
of mankind through democracy--that this is the greatest of all values
created by modern civilization. We hold further that the part played by
the American people in the evolution of democracy has been of primary
importance. Despite all our mistakes, and they have been many, we have
succeeded. And our success, even with its limitations, has been, we
fully believe, as a light and as a leading to all the world. It was our
glorious privilege to unlock the prison door of France when our sister
republic was first created in the French Revolution. It was largely the
success of universal, white, male suffrage in America which impelled
our brethren of the British Empire to undertake the same colossal
experiment. No doubt our history has been the subject of far too much
fervid eloquence and vain boasting. We have not often hesitated to tell
all the world about ourselves. Here I am seeking merely to state the
simple facts, because without them the standpoint and argument of the
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan could not be understood.
Among the most false of theories which sane minds ever gave themselves
over to believing, has been that which claims that the democratic
system, if only put on trial, will work among any people at any time.
Indeed, many persons otherwise well informed still accept this folly.
They believe that democracy is a sort of "universal truth." All that we
must do is to preach it to all mankind as a sort of saving gospel. All
the heathen need do is to accept it, believe it, and forthwith practice
it. Oh, vanity of vanities! It has been three hundred years since the
English Bill of Rights was signed by King James First and nearly one
hundred and fifty years since our American Declaration of Independence.
And now the Great War has ended with our seeking to ram democracy down
the throats of nations which do not want it. What blows in the face our
optimism receives from the simplest facts of history! One hundred and
thirty years ago the French revolutionists attempted to pull down every
throne in Europe and plant democracy in every land. And then only
seven years ago the hosts of the Kaiser made their plunge toward Paris
in order to destroy the French Republic and establish absolutism and
kultur in its place.
No! The practice of democracy does not spread around the world as
rapidly as we can tell people how nice it is and how much we like it
ourselves. Democracy has been a slow, delicate and perishable growth
among a specific group of Europeans. These peoples have been much
favored through a peculiar heritage. No doubt, ages ago, it took the
ancestors of man a long, long time to stand upright. Some quadrupeds
seem to have tried but never could learn the new method, so they still
amble along half the time on all fours. So to-day it seems to take a
considerable period for the masses to learn how to rule themselves
successfully. Yet we ought not to be utterly discouraged. If the facts
indicate that some peoples can never learn, that is no reason at all
why we should surrender our own learning and growth in order to be
equal again with the weaker brethren.
Democracy is on trial. It is on trial in America just as much as
anywhere else. It is being weighed and revalued before the whole
world. We have seen many a European people after being overurged to
accept a republican form of government, again returning to autocracy.
The Greek majority which recently voted to bring back the Kaiser's
ally, King Constantine, and the Kaiser's sister, the Queen, was rather
staggering in its size. If a vast majority of the Greeks in their
home country joyously accept monarchy and Hohenzollernism, how can
we expect our Greek immigrants here in the United States to enthuse
over our republican institutions? They come, like others, as everybody
knows, to avail themselves of the opportunity to advance their material
interests. This has been true with the majority of our immigrants for
over fifty years. Who, indeed, can blame them for taking advantage of
economic conditions in America? Indeed, these immigrants of every
sort and kind are well within their rights. If some of them seem to
make too much money out of us, is it not because some of our employing
class first urged their coming in order to make money out of them? We
brought them in because we thought they would be cheap and profitable
to us. Some of them have proved in the long run to be very dear and
unprofitable.
Let me here make a general observation regarding the attitude of
my colleagues and myself in connection with this whole matter of
immigration. Where, in these chapters, mention is made of any
particular race or group of immigrants, not the slightest offense is
intended. But too often our squeamish fear of giving offense to the
over-sensitive has prevented our discussing this most crucial of our
national problems. Everyone feels free to-day to discuss Russia, to
investigate Russia, to come to conclusions with reference to what is
being done in Russia, and to make suggestions as to a Russian policy.
Why, then, we ask in the name of all common sense, should it be an
offense to anyone to discuss the millions of Russians who live in the
United States? How do they make a living, and what is their percentage
of national increase? Are they or are they not desirable immigrants?
The same holds good of the Germans, the Irish, and of every other
racial element which is increasing among us. All this is interesting
to us and greatly important. It is interesting and important in more
ways than one. What the immigrants may and should demand, what the
Negro or the Japanese are quite right in demanding of us, is that we
as native-born, white Americans should discuss these questions of
population in a way that is at once honorable and kindly. We must
stick to the facts. We may indulge neither in slander nor in base
insinuation. Those of our immigrant population who have been received
into citizenship may ask especial consideration. We, of the Klan, on
our part propose to bring facts in support of a policy. There may be
those who wish to disagree with us publicly. If so, we shall expect to
be asked to consider only facts brought in rebuttal. As man to man,
marshalling fact for fact, let us sit down together and seek to sift
this matter to the bottom.
[Illustration: The Emperor Addressing First Imperial Klonvokation.]