[Although he was a lifelong liberal in his politics, this entry — written at the age of 23 — shows that my father looked upon political organizations of all types with a jaundiced eye. He even cites the dictatorial control of John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers of America union, to illustrate how individuals within larger organizations are expected to march in lock-step behind the policies established by the groups’ leaders. In explaining why he could never join a political party (a stance he would later shift) or attempt a career in politics, my father says, “… politics is a game which can be successfully played only by those who regard mass power as more important than individual rights.” It’s hard to argue with that insight.]
May 26, 1946 (Fort Lawton, WA)
In college it was fashionable to be on the liberal side of the fence on questions involving labor, Russia and similar current objects of intellectual controversy. I was a campus liberal, and fancied that some of my opinions were based on personal conviction substantiated by the “facts” in the case. I was enthusiastic over cooperation with Russia during and after the war, and in all struggles with employers the laboring man had my support, qualified only by my disapproval of the feather-bedding practices of certain unions. Apparently I was not cut out , however, in the pattern of a campaigner or a propagandist. Though I was accepted by the more voluble left-wingers as one of their number, I left behind me no record of militant support of the various liberal issues which arose from time to time. I joined the Student Action Assembly, and was actually given a post of some sort on its executive council, but I don’t now recall any contribution I made to the leadership of that organization. I accepted the notion that there was something vaguely laudable in the concern which this organization showed for the freedom of India and the liberation of the US Negro, but its connection with and effect on the actual problems was too indistinct to rouse me to any earnest endeavours on its behalf.
I have read enough history to admit the inevitability of political organizations, and to convince me of their general worthlessness and not infrequent malignancy. I am less and less tempted to become a partisan for any cause or group. If I were to be accused of political apathy, my feelings would not be hurt. In any political organization there are those who run the show and those who perform the paces directed by those at the top. The motives of the leaders may be idealistic or materialistic, or, in the great average, I suppose, a combination of the two. In any case, to fulfill his motives the leader must concentrate on building an organization powerful enough to defeat all organizations which stand in opposition to it. His power comes from the support, voluntary or coerced, of his followers. The organization assumes the right to dictate to its members what their action shall be in any given situation, no matter what the private opinions of these members may be. This “right” is buttressed by every device from flowery propaganda to outright physical intimidation. Thus when John L. Lewis calls a strike in the bituminous coal field, some 400,000 miners stay home from work. No doubt the majority of these men believes in the wisdom of Lewis’ order, primarily because the union’s efficient propaganda machine has made it practically impossible for them to form an independent opinion in questions affecting their livelihood. But even supposing a large minority of the miners did not believe in the wisdom of the strike, there is plenty of evidence to show that it has no practical choice of acting independently of the union. There may be the formality of a strike vote, but the union leaders need never fear that they will be repudiated by their rank and file. I use the union as the most clear cut example today of the dictatorial nature of any political organization.
It is often true that the rank and file members of a political organization exercise the voting power, but the vote is becoming an ever more meaningless symbol of freedom. When candidates and policies are chosen at the top, the individual is given nothing more than the choice of voting yes or no, and he will often be shown convincing “reasons” why it is expedient to vote yes.
Freedom may be an overrated concept, but the fact that I still value it highly will not allow me willingly to become a member of a political organization, no matter how worthy its published aims. Nor do I possess enough of the prophet or of the cynic to let me attempt to become a political leader. In college a favorite thesis of our political science classes was the need for more educated and idealistic young men in politics and public administration. Administrative jobs, I believe, offer a legitimate opportunity for such young men to perform the public service they may feel called upon to offer, but politics itself has no place for them. They will never succeed in “reforming” politics, since politics is a game which can be successfully played only by those who regard mass power as more important than individual rights. The public administrator, on the other hand, can be concerned to his heart’s content with individual rights, but the irony of his position is that he is dependent for his job, more often than not, on the power of a political machine. He may often be faced with the equivocal necessity of playing politics to hold onto his job.
Henry Thoreau demonstrated graphically how difficult it was for a man to be spiritually and economically independent in the world of one hundred years ago. I can’t agree with his ideal of complete independence, if only for the reason that it can obviously never be more than the privilege of a few isolated and fortunate individuals. I believe, in fact, that economic independence is as mistaken an aim for individuals as it is for nations. The great heresy being propagated by political leaders as zealously today as in the past is that which uses man’s inevitable economic dependence as a weapon for striking at his spiritual independence. Of course there are plenty of people who insist that the chief heresy is man’s spiritual independence. Not a few exhibit their intellectual arrogance by arguing that while freedom of thought and expression is desirable for the emancipated class of which they are members, it is too prohibitively dangerous a plaything to allow in the hands of the masses of people. Some men forget very easily by what narrow margins, hollow standards, and lucky accidents they are able to consider themselves above the masses; very few realize that the masses are much easier to find in political theory than in the world of people. Behind the mass reactions, mass demonstrations, and mass opinions reported in the newspaper there are millions of individuals with certain similarities, which are the concern of the politicians, but also with certain differences, which are the concern of the writer of fiction.
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