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Show Newsax Behini By PaulMallon .y Released by Western Newspaper Union, DISCIPLINE IN OUR DEMOCRACY WASHINGTON. One editorialist has implied that my exposures of the laxities in discipline and scholarship scholar-ship in the schools strikes at the heart of democratic institutions- leaving a reader to suspect that discipline dis-cipline would overthrow democracy. Now where in the world did he get that idea? The truth is the opposite, oppo-site, as any reasonable man should be I able to deduce for himself. Why did ' Naziism, Communism and Tokyo dictatorship rise to their present i power in the world? Because they said democracies were weak, our j people undisciplined, and 'our sys- terns deficient? " Democracy failed in Germany be-I be-I fore Hitler on this very ground. The Weimar Republic was a moral forerunner fore-runner of what weak France later suffered before her fall. The people were not strong, 'well ordered, but confused and lax in all ways. I say we shall suffer the same fate unless we mend our easy ways and reestablish discipline in home, school and church. Juvenile delinquency is only a first crack that shows in our gilt. Deficient scholarship from progressive pro-gressive education is another. So j is adult delinquency. These are warnings of the degenerating de-generating road that is leading on into business (condoning of black markets, etc.), into politics poli-tics (easy-going acceptance of lack of common integrity and respect for promises), and into personal attitudes of some of our people who have no righteous indignation in-dignation against cheapness, ignorance, ig-norance, laziness or even dishonesty. dis-honesty. They are more apt to scorn work than crimes against nature. They , not only tolerate sloth, they worship it. These are weaknesses when we need strength. At the end of this road is dictatorship, not democracy. By discipline, I do not mean German Ger-man heel-clicking, Russian servility, or Tokyo bootlicking of an emperor. These critics even seem to have forgotten for-gotten the meaning of democratic discipline as well as its operation. It is only a national standard a state of national mind maintained main-tained insistently by a majority. It is a custom established by the people themselves. " FIX A JUST STANDARD The army and navy do not maintain main-tain discipline with a cat-o'-nine tails. They fix a just standard to which all must subscribe, and all save a very small minority of the misguided do subscribe. The guardhouse guard-house is maintained for them as a last resort of punishment based on a fair trial under majority democratic standards and customs. If you think the example of the army too strained for civilian application, appli-cation, consider how order is maintained main-tained in your church. There, you have no guardhouse or sergeant-at-arms, or even written rules of conduct, con-duct, yet the sternest discipline is maintained by majority demand. You see very little vandalism such as carving of seats, such vandalism van-dalism would be practically eliminated elimi-nated also in the movie houses, street cars, and other public places where it is now rampant if a majority of this country only firmly insisted. SCHOOLS CAN HAVE IT Discipline can be restored to the schools the same way. So can good scholarship. Parents can thus be induced in-duced or compelled by scorn alone to take the reins at home, and churches invited to assert themselves them-selves again. This then is the democratic way of maintaining a strong and orderly nation, and when it fails you get dictatorship; in fact, you must have dictatorship as a necessary consequence conse-quence of your own degeneration. All today who condone the easy-way easy-way doctrines, easy learning, easy discipline, who have only sympathy and "understanding" for everything weak, wrong and inefficient, are the ones who are striking at the heart of democracy and will kill it by leading it to its inevitable ruin. The majority must maintain J standards of behavior in home, school and church, in business, in politics, which will require both children chil-dren and adults to express their better selves, to study, to work, to develop themselvs, to obey, to stop condoning and sympathizing with rottenness and laziness, to eliminate the standard of sloth and ease, to make this nation strong within itself and stronger than its dictato-enemies dictato-enemies or competitors. S OKLAHOMA'S TRUE MEANING True meaning of the somewhat surprising Oklahoma special election elec-tion result seems to have been lost. Itsimply suggested the Democrats can win if they ofCer the best man. Their candidate for. the congres-i congres-i sional seat was a former state commander com-mander of the American Legion, and the more popular man. The Republican Republi-can candidate had been to the same well once before, and ran close to victory then solely because the Democrat who then held the seat had ; become personally unpopular. I Some have attributed the outcome ' to the Democrats pouring in Sena-I Sena-I tor Barkley and promises of some war plants (the district had received few) while others conversely claim the closer-than-normal Republican ra$e was due to the Republicans pouring in some money. Far more important was the fact that the Democrats had the assistance assist-ance of a state machine and county machines, which nearly always can wield dominant power in special elections where the general run of people do not go to the trouble of voting. |