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LINCOLN'S DEFINITION

The Mail

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Whilst I found myself in warm sympathy with Professor Kohr's attack upon blind conformity, in his letters published in the CRIMSON for February 5, I was, I admit, startled by his dictum on democracy. I had hitherto accepted Lincoln's definition of democracy as government by the people; Professor Kohr tells us that "the most characteristic feature of democracy is not cooperation but opposition." Freedom to oppose is indeed of the essence of democracy, but to regard the government as something set up by the popular vote which it is then the main duty of the people to oppose turns it into a cocoanut-shy and democracy into a game. Helen Maude Cam   Radcliffe Professor of History

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