Quote of the Day (Archibald MacLeish, on Why ‘Democracy is Never a Thing Done’)

“Democracy is never a thing done. Democracy is always something that a nation must be doing. What is necessary now is one thing and one thing only, that democracy become again democracy in action, not democracy accomplished and piled up in goods and gold.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, playwright and statesman Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982), The American Cause (1941)

When MacLeish wrote these words, Americans would shortly unite in the most dramatic fashion possible: to defend their nation following the attack on Pearl Harbor, and in the process take up arms against dictatorships overrunning Europe and Asia.

But democracy depends on quieter moments, too—like voting. (Only, since the turn of the millennium, even this action has become unexpectedly fraught with tension.)

Nevertheless, it remains the case that, if this country desires to remain intact and to preserve what Abraham Lincoln termed “the last best hope of earth," performing this civic, and profoundly patriotic, duty in an informed, non-frivolous manner remains a prerequisite.

(The image accompanying this post, an example of a voting booth in the Old State House in Hartford, CT, was taken Dec. 22, 2023, by Kenneth C. Zirkel.)