A Danger Of Democracy

Book excerpt: Quail hunte rs appreciate a bird dog that doesn't give up ,th at ch ases the last bird after a covey rises, that is joyouslyunwilling to let even one get away . Old Pal was such a pointer ,an d on one day he leaped for a last fluttering single , missed ,of course, but, sad to say, leaped also over a sixty-foot cliffinto the icy Flint River. The moral is that he was going afterthe right bird b ut he wasn 't looking where he was going.The political party, with new rules calculated to open thepresidential nominating process, to involve more people ,to reach the ultimate in democracy , may find itself in thesame plight as th e conscientious pointer. It is possible to goover the cliff in reaching for too much democracy . Somethink the parties have already fallen into the river .