Quotable Bailey

War is organized anarchy.

The popular notion that the electing of any man to office is democracy, if only he is an upright citizen, is one of our precious fallacies. It is no more to our credit to " pass around " the offices than to ask first one neighbor and then another to serve as the family physician.

The wealth of a democracy lies in its people, not in its government or its goods. The product of democracy is self-acting men and women. The well being and progress of society require that every citizen, of whatever age, may have the opportunity to discover himself or herself and to make use of himself largely in his own way.

Responsibility, not freedom, is the key word in democracy,—responsibility for one's self, for the good of the neighbor, for the welfare of the Demos. Until every citizen feels this responsibility as an inescapable personal obligation, there is no complete democracy.

All quotes taken from Bailey's fourth Background Book, What is Democracy? (1918)