Our Democratically Elected Leader

Our Democratically Elected Leader

    If there is one thing that I learned about democracy from working in a group on this presentation, it is that the individual is as important as the masses in making progress. That is, a strong and effective leader can make the difference between a focused and regarded voluntary association and the unruly mobs that Alexis de Tocqueville described as rampant across Europe. We can see this at any large meeting or legal hearing. While the assembled are ultimately responsible for the decisions, there is always a chairperson, president, speaker, or judge responsible for maintaining order, calling meetings, planning the agenda, and just in general representing the voice of the congregation. This individual is essentially the engineer of the great machine that is democracy. Of course, democracy hardly offers any sort of predictable function similar to a machine, but that is the ideal, anyway. A proper leader can go to great lengths to ensure democracy does not fall to its inevitable weaknesses.

    While our group wasn't exactly large enough to be considered a borderline mob, I think we still benefitted greatly from Steph's leadership. Her actions were not really monumental in a group our size, but the role she did play in organizing our group greatly streamlined the process. By merely suggesting meeting times and keeping a light task schedule, Steph focused our group on the presentation and kept us productive. At this point I would like to point out that my memory does not always serve me well and it may have been Rachel who did some of our group's organization, but the point of who did what is not so important as the point that our group was organized. Considering that I have very rarely seen or experienced a group project that went smoothly without one person doing a disproportionate share of the work, I have to attribute our group's success to our organization. I think Tocqueville would be inclined to agree with me, considering that a voluntary association is pointless if it cannot accomplish anything.

    In our group, organization may have made the difference of at most a few hours of work, but when the stakes are raised and the group's expanded, the importance of leadership and organization increases exponentially. For example, my contribution to our group's presentation, the VFW's role in the Bonus March, demonstrates this importance. Sure the thousands of veterans in Washington were what actually motivated the legislature to finally act, but don't forget the relative few in the VFW who decided when the veterans should come, what they should do, and how they should be provided for during their stay. Without this the Bonus March could not have been the success that it ultimately was.

    Looking beyond voluntary associations, we can see the role that leadership and organization play across all sorts of assemblies. Both the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate are considered very important positions, and the nation can feel the aftereffects when the leader of either house either abuses his/her power to partisan ends or fails to keep the assembly productive and focused.