resident of the United States is more
in the nature of a selected man than any other conspicuous figure at the
present time. He is specially elected by a special electoral college
after an elaborate preliminary selection of candidates by the two great
party machines. And be it remembered that Mr. Wilson is not the first
great President the United States have had, he is one of a series of
figures who tower over their European contemporaries. The United States
have had many advantageous circumstances to thank for their present
ascendancy in the world's affairs: isolation from militarist pressure
for a century and a quarter, a vast virgin continent, plenty of land,
freedom from centralization, freedom from titles and social vulgarities,
common schools, a real democratic spirit in its people, and a great
enthusiasm for universities; but no single advantage has been so great
as this happy accident which has given it a specially selected man as
its voice and figurehead in the world's affairs. In the average
congressman, in the average senator, as Ostrogorski's great book so
industriously demonstrated, the United States have no great occasion for
pride. Neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives seem to rise
above the level of the British Houses of Parliament, with a Government
unable to control the rebel forces of Ulster, unable to promote or
dismiss generals without an outcry, weakly amenable to the press, and
terrifyingly incapable of great designs. It is to the United States of
America we must look now if the world is to be made "safe for
democracy." It is to the method of selection, as distinguished from
delegation, that we must look if democracy is to be saved from itself.

X

THE RECENT STRUGGLE FOR PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION IN GREAT BRITAIN

British political life resists cleansing with all the vigour of a dirty
little boy. It is nothing to your politician that the economic and
social organization of all the world, is strained almost to the pitch of
collapse, and that it is vitally important to mankind that everywhere
the whole will and intelligence of the race should be enlisted in the
great tasks of making a permanent peace and reconstructing the shattered
framework of society. These are remote, unreal considerations to the
politician. What is the world to him? He has scarcely heard of it. He
has been far too busy as a politician. He has been thinking of smart
little tricks in the lobby and brill