Through neighborhood organization we hope that real leaders instead of bosses will be evolved. Democracy does not tend to suppress leadership as is often stated; it is the only organization of society which will bring out leadership. As soon as we are given opportunities for the release of the energy there is in us, heroes and leaders will arise among us. These will draw their stimulus, their passion, their life from all, and then in their turn increase in all passion and power and creating force. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ XXVI NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATION VS. PARTY ORGANIZATION A Responsible Neighborhood -------------- WE have said that neighborhood organization must replace party organization by evolving a true will of the people, by giving us leaders instead of bosses, and by making possible a responsible government to take the place of our irresponsible party government. Let us now consider the last point: the possibility of an integrated neighborhood responsibility. Under our party organization the men who formulate the party platform do not have the official responsibility of carrying it out. Moreover at present representative government rests on the fallacy that when you delegate the job you delegate the responsibility. Most of the abuses which have crept in, business corruption and political bossism alike, are due in large measure to this delegating of responsibility. What we need is a kind of government which will delegate the job but not the responsibility. The case is somewhat like that of the head of a business undertaking, who makes the men under him responsible for their own work and still the final responsibility rests with him. This is not divided responsibility but shared responsibility—a very different thing. Consider what happens when I want to get a bill through the legislature. I may feel sure that the bill is good and also that “the people” want it, but I can work only through party, and at the state house I have to face all the special interests bound up with party, all the thousand and one “political” considerations, whether I succeed or fail. But of course I recognize the humor of this statement: _I_ ought never to try to get a bill through the legislature; special and partial groups have to do this simply because there is at present no other way; there must be some other way, some recognized way. We do not want to circumvent party but to replace party.