example how much has been obstructed and prevented, not alone in England but also in America, and particularly under President Hoover, by commissions, legislative committees, investigations, conferences and by legislatures themselves. As long as political life can be confined to talk, most of the steam is blown off or used up by devious procedure and thus no action is taken to disturb the status quo. Of course the affairs of all large organizations are very complex. Of course knowledge, discussion and planning are necessary. Of course there must be legislatures. Nevertheless discussion is often abused and used as a trap and a blind. The principle of “divide and rule” applies to people themselves and to their ideas and feelings. Many a desirable public reform has been defeated by splitting it into many minor issues and examining and debating these separately and thwarting, obscuring or burying one at a time. By referring matters to committees that often sit in private, intrigue and corruption are made easier. Or, while the matter is being delayed by discussion, one of the other three devices of control is being used to modify the situation in favor of the rulers.
Most intellectuals tend to have too great faith in the efficacy of talk. Educated people therefore easily succumb to parliamentarism. Members of a legislature discuss not what they will do, but what they will have others do or permit others to do.
The word “constitutional” as applied to methods of reform, usually means an attempt to gain a political majority by means of discussion and persuasion of words, in the press and on the platform, and to register and make effective the wishes of that majority through the legislative and executive branches of the government, among the permanent administrative staff of officials, and also through the financial and other economic controlling forces of the country.
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