Page:Back to the Republic.djvu/47

 we make the world safe through democracy, because democracy itself is one of the most dangerous things in the world. The proper reply to that slogan is that the first republic made a nation safe for the first time in history and helped make the world safer until we modified the republic by adding the elements of democracy. To discuss a governmental situation in terms of autocracy and democracy and ignore the republic is as shallow and unscientific as it would be to discuss a food problem in terms of starvation and gluttony and ignore nourishment, which is the vital thing; or to discuss the drink problem in terms of thirst and drunkenness and ignore temperance, which is the important thing; or to discuss the question of human rights in terms of bondage and license and ignore liberty, which is the essential thing.

The tendency, however, during recent years, of those in authority in all countries has been to go to one extreme or the other; to appeal to ignorance, passion, prejudice, emotion, hate and fear by intemperate speech, and to ignore the danger signals of history. There is an appalling need today for a knowledge and an observance and an application of the law of the golden mean in word, thought and action.