The first test, and it is one to tax the genius of any people, is the
ability to create and maintain institutions that not only permit but en-
courage popular participation in the basic decision-making processes of
the society. The institutions may be formal or legal; they may be informal
or extralegal, but they must exist and be in good working order. In this
country, the basic institutions through which the citizens participate in
government are frequent elections for most offices, universal suffrage, po-
litical parties, pressure groups, and the organs of the mass media. The
selections in this book are intended to provide insights against which
the effectiveness of these institutions can be tested.

Another test of a healthy representative democracy is the degree to
which the people practice their politics with verve, devotion, and skill.
It is quite possible that people may fail this test regardless of how mar-
velously wrought their political institutions may be. On the other hand,
lack of confidence in the political institutions can induce political apathy.
At any rate, some people think that we may be failing the test in this
country. It is possible that we are in a long retreat from political life, that
our institutions are growing rusty, and that our political interest is
atrophying.

Is there a retreat from politics in the United States? It is difficult to
answer precisely, but there are some signs that such a retreat does exist.
Robert E. Lane, relying on a variety of sources, shows that there has been
a one hundred-year-long steep decline in the percentage of eligible voters
who actually cast ballots in presidential elections. Lane's figures show
that in 1856 83.5 per cent of those eligible voted in the election, while
in 1952 only 63.6 per cent of the eligible exercised the right to vote. The
trend did not end in 1956. The World Almanac figures show that in that
year only 60.4 per cent of eligible voters went to the polls. In nonpresi-
dential election years, the total vote for Congress often falls below 50
per cent of the number of eligible voters, and in many state and local
elections the normal turnout is around 25 per cent of them. These are
startling figures, especially when we note that in the western European
democracies 75 to 90 per cent of the eligible voters regularly turn out
in national elections.

But voting percentages are not the whole story. Voting is the most
elementary form of political action, and voting in a presidential election
can be a profoundly indifferent act. The Survey Research Center reported
that in the presidential election of 1952, which brought out the highest
percentage of the electorate of any election since 1916, approximately one-
third of the electorate did not care deeply about which candidate or party
won the election. The same study, incidentally, also reported that all of
the political activity of the campaign year was carried on by about one-
tenth of the population.

Social scientists are not the only ones who bear witness to a drift

-4-