On Free Elections

University of Pennsylvania/September 20, 1940

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With the gaining of our political freedom you will remember that there came a conflict between the point of view of Alexander Hamilton, sincerely believing in the superiority of government by a small group of public-spirited and usually wealthy citizens, and, on the other hand, the point of view of Thomas Jefferson, and advocate of government by representatives chosen by all the people, and advocate of the universal right of free thought and free personal living and free religion and free expression of opinion and, above all, the right of free universal suffrage.

Many of the Jeffersonian school of thought were frank to admit the high motives and disinterestedness of Hamilton and his school. Many Americans of those days were willing to concede that if government could be guaranteed to be kept always on the high level of unselfish service suggested by the Hamiltonians there would be nothing to fear. For the very basis of the Hamihonian philosophy was that through a system of elections every four years, limited to the votes of the most highly educated and the most successful citizens, the best of those qualified to govern could always be selected.

It was, however, with rare perspicuity, as time has shown, that Jefferson had pointed out that, on the doctrine of sheer human frailty, the Hamilton theory was bound to develop, in the long run, into government by selfishness or government for personal gain or government by class, that would ultimately lead to the abolishment of free elections. For he recognized that it was our system of free unhampered elections which was the surest guaranty of popular government. Just so long as the voters of. tbe Nation, regardless of higher education or property possessions, were free to exercise their choice in the polling place without hindrance, the country would have no cause to fear the hand of tyranny.

At all times in our history of nearly a century and a half since then, there have been many Americans who have sought to confine the ballot to limited groups of people. It was a quarter of a century ago that President Eliot of Harvard University summarized this view when he said to me something like this: he said, “Roosevelt, I am convinced that even though we have multiplied our universities in every state of the Union, even though higher learning seems to have come into its own, nevertheless, if the ballot were to be confined to the holders of college degrees, the Nation would go on the rocks in a very few years.” It may—it may seem ungracious for a very new degree-holder to say this to this audience of older degree-holders, but my authority for that view is a great educator, noted for his efforts to disseminate college education throughout the country.

And I must admit that I agree with him thoroughly in his estimate of the ability of the whole of the voters to pass upon political and social issues in free and unhampered elections, as against the exclusive ability of a smaller group of individuals at the top of the social structure.

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