Monday, July 9, 2007

Fruition of Ideals of Democracy (1923)

In a February 12, 1923 Bridgeport Telegram (Bridgeport, Connecticut) article Cordell Hull, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, bet on the survival of the American two-party system. That wasn't a surprising prediction. What is somewhat surprising is that the assumed alternative was a one-party system.

The principle of democracy being eternal, they will necessarily exist a hundred years from now, and the achievements of government, through the application of those principles to changing conditions, will logically be greater than they have been in the last 100 years.

That there will be two political parties then as now seems almost inevitable, if progress is to continue. It is scarcely conceivable that human nature can change in one century sufficiently for all to think alike. In such an event there would also be danger of inertia - and inertia would mark the beginning of decadence.

Democratic government means a greater diffusion of power, less restriction of the individual and therefore less regulation by laws. With the development of intelligence class differences and distinctions should disappear, therefore the representative legislative bodies of the people, if there are more than one, would be truly representative bodies of all the people.

With a continuation of the discoveries of science, their uses and applications, and a more general acceptance of the fundamental moralities of Christianity I should say that the world, and the United States in particular will be a pretty good place to live in 2022.

See also:
Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence (1923)
Governor Knight and the Videophone (Oakland Tribune, 1955)
Hubert H. Humphrey's Future (1967)
Hubert H. Humphrey's Year 2000 (1967)

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