6. What are the three branches of American government? 7. Why do we have a government and what does it do?

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What makes a good captain in a game?

2. Do you know the names of any famous captains of ball teams? 3. Who were our Presidents during wars?

4. Can you state six rules in baseball, in football, in basket-ball, in any other game?

5. Have you a copy of a baseball guide containing the rules in full? 6. Can you state some of the penalties for breaking rules in a game?

CHAPTER III

THE TEAM

Democracy. All these are important, the captain, the umpire, and the rules. But you cannot play ball without a team. After all is said, it is the whole nine that wins a game or loses it. It is the team that does the work.

Now in a well-run ball team this is recognized and the team runs things. The captain is chosen by vote of all the players. The most important questions are put before the team for decision. The captain runs the team not to please himself or any one or two players, but for the whole nine. That is the American way. It is the democratic way. It is the way the American nation is governed.

Despotism. You all may have seen teams which were not run in this way-in which one big boy, something of a bully, got together a team of smaller boys and made them do as he wanted, for instance. The smaller boys lacked the spirit to stand up for their rights and so they received just what the captain chose to give them. That is un-American. It is the way a despot rules, an emperor like the Czars of Russia, or, to go farther back in history, Henry VIII, of England (1509– 1547), and Louis XIV, of France (1643-1715).

Anarchy. Suppose, on the other hand, you tried to run a team without any leader. Probably no boys

were ever foolish enough to attempt this plan, but suppose some boys did. You can imagine what confusion and quarrelling there would be and how poor a game such a team would play. Every boy would do as he pleased and boss just as many other boys as he could. We saw how important rules and an umpire are. Take away the captain, too, and you have exactly the condition known as anarchy, which means the attempt to run a country with no government whatever. Certain theorists, impressed by the defects of government, have urged anarchy as a solution of all our troubles. But, as you can see, the remedy would be far worse than the disease. We should have a whole nation of despots, every one ruling himself as he pleased and just as many of his friends and neighbors as he could.

Aristocracy. Sometimes it is not one boy who runs a team but three or four boys. Perhaps they have more money than the others and can buy bats and balls and masks, and therefore think they have the right to tell the others what to do. Perhaps they are older and bigger than the rest. Well, that is not American, either. When it comes to electing a captain or deciding any important matter, every player on the team ought to have his say. Big or little, rich or poor, they are all players; it is their team, and they ought to run it. That is the theory of America.

When, instead, a few put their ideas over on the rest, you have what is called an aristocracy. The word means a government by the best. Occasionally a ruling class of aristocrats are the best, but usually they only think they are the best because they are the richest

and the most powerful. At any rate, even if the aristocrats who rule a country happened to be the wisest and finest, it is the American theory and the right theory that, with the best intentions, they could not know what was best for their poorer and weaker neighbors, that every man has a right to decide his own affairs, and that no man has a right to rule any other

man.

England, France, America, and Germany.-A typical aristocracy was England at the time of the American Revolution. George III was not a despot, because the nobility and upper classes of the country shared the power of governing with him. But the working people of England had nothing to say whatever in the government. Power belonged only to nobles and landowners. A limited monarchy is another name for such a government, since the power of the monarch or king is not absolute, but is limited by the power of others.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that England of to-day is either a despotism or an aristocracy. It is a democratic monarchy and its government is fully as democratic as our own. It is a limited monarchy in which the limits have swallowed the monarch. He remains simply as a figurehead to symbolize the unity of the nation and represent it on state occasions. The real head of England is the prime minister, who acts for the people of England just as our President acts for the American people.

That is the normal growth of governments, away from despotism, through limited monarchies to democracy. France and America have arrived at complete

democracy, in name as well as in fact. England has reached democracy in fact but not in name. Germany, at the time of the Great War, was still a long way from democracy. Her Kaiser had much of the power of a despot. The people were allowed to vote and elect legislators, but the power of these legislators was small. Next to Russia, Germany and Austria possessed in 1914 the most despotic governments in Europe.

The People's Rule.-In America the only rulers are the people. As we have seen, they elect a President to lead them, legislators to make new laws or rules for them, and judges to act as umpires for them when laws are disputed. But the President, the legislators, and the judges are simply the agents of the people to carry out the wishes of the people. The Constitution of the United States, the highest law of the land, begins with the words: "We, the people of the United States. do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." When a criminal is arrested or punished the order reads not in the name of the judge or the officer, but in the name of "the people.'

"Of the people, by the people, for the people" was Abraham Lincoln's description of the American system of government, and it is the best description there is.

A Republic.-America is both a democracy and a republic. It is a democracy because the people rule it. It is a republic because the people rule it through representatives. The other kind of popular rule is sometimes called a "pure democracy," and in it the people meet and run their government directly without electing any officers to act for them. This sort of democracy is possible