There is an increasing demand for a textbook which will bring the
student into direct contact with the great current issues of American
life, and which will afford practical training to those who soon must
grapple with the economic, social, and political problems of our own
time. It is with the hope of meeting such a demand that this text has
been prepared.

The plan of the book calls for a word of explanation. It is poor
pedagogy to expect the student to attack the defects of American life,
and at the same time to place in his hands a book which deals
predominantly with the mechanism of government. As well send a boy to
a hardware store to buy tools before he is told whether he is to make
a mouse-trap or a boat. Furthermore, to spend much more time on the
mechanism of government than on the actual problems of democracy is a
mistake in emphasis. Government is a means, not an end. It is a tool
by means of which we attack and solve our problems.

Therefore the student of this text begins, not with the mechanism of
government, but with the historical background of American democracy,
its origin, development, and promise for the future. Following this is
a brief survey of the economic life of the nation, because that
economic life constitutes the fundamental basis of our problems.
Considerable space has been devoted to a problem growing directly out
of economic conditions, _i.e._ the question of social justice or
industrial reform. This is the most pressing question before any
modern people, but strangely enough one which heretofore has been
neglected by our schools.

Because they tend to arise primarily from a bad economic situation,