The Evening Star (April 12, 1946)
ON THE RECORD —
Our times
By Dorothy Thompson
This is the evolution of many self-governing societies:
The masses, those who work with their hands, often have little to live on. They, when assembled, are the most powerful class in a democracy. But they are seldom willing to take political action, except for money. So their leaders promise to deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them to the masses.
Then the persons whose property is threatened feel compelled to defend themselves, though they have no desire to overthrow the existing system, when they are charged with plotting against the people, and see the masses, through ignorance and deception seeking to do them wrong, they become revolutionary, and, then come impeachments, judgments and trials of one another.
The masses always have a champion whom they nurse into greatness. This, and no other, is the root from which a tyrant springs. He first appears as the people’s protector, and, having a mob at his disposal, is not restrained from shedding the blood of citizens. By the favorite method of false accusations he brings them into court; some he kills, and others he banishes, at the same time hinting of abolition of debts and partition of land. After this he must either perish at the hands of his enemies or become a wolf – that is, a tyrant.
If his opponents are not able to oust him, they conspire to assassinate him.
Then comes the famous request for a bodyguard, which is the device of all who have got thus far in their tyrannical career. “Let not the people’s friend,” they say, “be lost to them.” The masses assent, fearing for him, not themselves. And when an opponent sees this, he flees the country and is not ashamed to be a coward.
And he, the protector, standing up with the reins of state in his hand, is no longer protector, but tyrant absolute.
At first, he is full of smiles – he, to be called a tyrant, liberating debtors, distributing land and wanting to be so good and kind to everyone! But even when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty and there is nothing more to be feared from them, he is always stirring up war so that the people may require a leader. Furthermore, he impoverishes them by taxes, and compels them to devote themselves to their daily wants, so they are less likely to conspire against him. And if he suspects any one of them of having notions of freedom, and of resistance, he will find a pretext to destroy them by putting them at the mercy of the enemy, and for all these reasons he must always be getting up a war.
But now he begins to grow unpopular. Then some of those who set him up speak their minds, and the more courageous of them cast in his teeth what is being done. The tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of these. He, therefore, looks about him to see who is valiant, wise or successful. He is the enemy of them all and seeks occasion to purge the state – not the sort of purge which physicians make, for they eliminate the worst to save the better part of the body. He does the reverse.
The more detestable his actions are to the citizens, the more satellites he will require. He will find new devoted bands – and from every land – to flock to him, if he but pays them. Even poets will eulogize the tyrant, and go to other cities and attract mobs and draw them over to tyranny and “democracy.” They are paid for this and receive honor – from tyrants and masses.
You may ask how the tyrant maintains that fair, numerous and ever-changing army of his.
Well, if there are treasures in the state he will confiscate and spend them. As long as the confiscated fortunes of opponents suffice, he will diminish the taxes on the masses. But when these fail, he and his retinue will maintain themselves from the masses.
If then they fly into a passion and remonstrate, they will discover what a monster they have been fostering, but they will find that he has grown strong, while they have become weak.
It may be protested that no tyrant will use violence against the masses who gave him his power, but he will. And at that point he becomes the real and complete tyrant, about which no one can make a mistake. The people who sought escape from the smoke which is the slavery of free men will have fallen into the fire, which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, when it passes out of order and reason evolves into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery.
Every word in this column is a free translation of a conversation between Socrates and Adeimantus as recorded in Plato’s “The Republic.” The passage is recapitulated as an answer to those who believe classical studies should be eliminated from our high schools and universities as useless to education for our times. And they are further addressed to the American Youth for Democracy, who are being encouraged to lead this land along the course of development, here sketched out 25 centuries ago.