A LETTER TO THE LAWYERS CLUB

Authors

William W. Cook, Of the New York Bar; founder of the Lawyers Club at the University of Michigan.

Abstract

The critics of democracy in Europe and America claim that democracy will fail. To refer to but one of them, Ludovici says that democracy is certain to be a failure because it does not and will not delegate to its best men the solution of difficult governmental problems; in other words, will lack competent leadership. Even our friend, Lord Bryce, wrote that "in all political action, and especially in foreign relations, the masses of the people have comparatively little knowledge and even less initiative. Broadly speaking, the people are what their leaders make them. Under every political constitution that has ever been devised the Many are inspired and led by the Few. Indeed, the larger the mass, the fewer are those to whom it looks and whom it follows, for the less the mass knows of the real facts and the really significant issues, the more must it depend on prominent individual men for guidance." Hence with reason I say that leadership is the greatest problem that faces America today. I refer not to industrial leadership but to intellectual leadership in governmental problems. In the past the legal profession has led. As Chief Justice Taft has said: "The American bar not only had largely to do in constructing the government, but they were most instrumental in launching the Ship of State in its triumphant and useful course through a century and a half."

Recommended Citation

William W. Cook, A LETTER TO THE LAWYERS CLUB, 28 Mich. L. Rev. 1003 (1930).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol28/iss8/4