Aristotle On California: a Consultant's Report

• Published date: 01 September 1949
• DOI: 10.1177/106591294900200309
• Date: 01 September 1949
• Subject Matter: Articles

ARISTOTLE ON CALIFORNIA:
A CONSULTANT’S REPORT
SYNOPSIS BY JOHNA.VIEC,
Pomona College
HEN
the Governor of California called me out of my long
slumber at Chalcis (the time, as I learned later, was January of
1945 A. D.) and invited me to prepare a report for the people
of the state on the adequacy of their political institutions to the attain-
ment of their democratic ideals, nothing in the conversation prepared me
for the grandeur of the vistas, geographical and governmental, on which
it has been my delight to gaze during these past four years. Never in all
my wanderings over the ancient world, nay, nor even in the highest
flights of my imagination at the Lyceum, was it my good fortune to see
such potentialities as exist within this commonwealth. Given the will
to realize even half their possibilities, the people of California can bring
their common life to a level that would comprise a new definition for a
Golden Age. For them to fail would be to call down upon their heads
the contempt of free men everywhere and to prove that though at his best
man is only a little lower than the angels, at his worst he is also a little
lower than the animals.
&dquo;Given the will ....&dquo; There is the crux of it. For obviously it will
not be given. Munificent though their endowment of resources is, the
citizens of California are not exempt from the necessity of taking thought
about their polity and taking action to bring their best thought into effect.
There is no special providence for the people of the Golden State aside
from that latent in her good earth. Like other men in less favored lands,
they will have to find it in themselves to summon up the resolution to
fulfill the destiny open to them. Yet, given or gotten, the question of
sufficiency of will power lies outside the scope of this report. Likewise
the question of ideals and values. Without claiming that they were
noticeably more intelligent or public,spirited than other men, the Gover-
nor assured me in his terms of reference that, having rediscovered for
themselves in the ghastly light of Munich, Warsaw and Pearl Harbor &dquo;that
suddenly-precious thing: democracy,&dquo; his fellow citizens were determined
to cherish it with new devotion, and that all they needed was dependable
counsel with regard to the methods most conducive to effective self.
government and the standards they should expect of each other in civic
conduct.
It is also to be noted that my first report, which was to be submitted
sometime during the centennial celebration, was to confine itself primarily
to the question of the changes Californians should consider making in
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420
their political institutions in order to achieve a flourishing democracy
insofar as that could be guaranteed by their electoral and legislative pro-
cesses. It is intended that a second, supplementary report, dealing with
executive organization and administrative management, will be ready for
presentation on or before September 9 (Admission Day), 1950. A third
and final report, exploring the problem of local government, may be
issued in 1951.
As already...