The Meaning of Democracy

In 1943, amid World War II, E.B. White received a request from the Writers’ War Board asking for his definition of “The Meaning of Democracy." His one-paragraph answer might be the best ever given.

E.B. White in his writing shed in North Brooklin, Maine. Photo by Jill Krementz.

Friends, I am committed to updating you here every other week with my reflections on philanthropy, civil society, and democracy in America. Alas, a sprawling and recalcitrant draft has conspired against me this week. But in the spirit of holding this space, and to equip you with more insight and inspiration than I ever could, let me share this evergreen reflection on “The Meaning of Democracy” from E.B. White:

“Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in don’t shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is a letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.”