BRASS TACKS

Politically America is undergoing a self-couscious analysis to determine and re-evaluate the ideals of democracy and to adjust the existing governmental structures to them. President Butler, of Columbia, in a speech at the University of California, has presented his views of the problems of democracy and indicated the direction of possible reform.

Mr. Butler first makes the plea for a return to a real national political interest in the fundamental issues in government, in an attempt to replace the present emphasis on election as an end in itself, where principle plays so small a part, and shoddy party politics for personal gain, so great a one. He then proceeds to champion the ideals of Jeffersonian democracy as the true basis for American representative government, the foundation of which President Butler considers to be individual liberty, rather than equality. A practical step toward the guarantee of true representation, he feels, should be the revision of the electoral systems now in use; for Mr. Butler, like many others, feels that the party system is dead and that consequently its functions must be reconstructed.

The problem of individual liberty versus the theory of equality, as stated by Columbia's President, is one which touches the philosophic basis of the Republic. There are many today who feel that absolute democracy is a failure and that the solution lies in the establishment of an aristocratic republic such as that existing in the time of Jefferson, where public office would be removed from the reach of the spoils system and would no longer be accessible to any able to manipulate the party machine.

To protect the rights of the individual Mr. Butler would limit government to prevent it from encroaching on the real of "civil and political liberty which, the people of the United States wisely and justly reserved to themselves." In his speech President Butler presented his analysis of the country's problems and it is through intelligent criticisms such as his that America may hope to readjust its governmental structure on a sound foundation.