The Dangerous Goodness of Democracy

Abstract

The reason for our inveterate devotion to these millennial ideas is to be found in the nature of our kind of democracy.¹ Ours is the only country in which the public at large participates actively in the daily conduct of government; it is the only one in which the opinions of amateurs on foreign affairs are listened to by statesmen and taken seriously by them; consequently it is the only one in which the moral standards of the general public are decisive in the making of policy.²