Organizations Promoting Civil Rights and Liberties

Abstract

ficials hold their positions by the consent of large constituencies in which the individual is lost. Our days are shaped by vast corporations which may be regarded as supplemental governments in themselves. The individual has no power over these vast forces. Organizations, therefore, exist for the purpose of uniting the forces of those who share a belief in some objective. But, even among those who share a common desire to implement the constitutional guarantees of freedom and equality, there is wide divergence as to objectives. There is further divergence as to the best means to achieve agreedupon objectives. It sometimes appears as if at least one organization now exists in America for each objective and for each conceivable path to that objective, and that these organizations are supplemented by a vast number combining two or more objectives, plus a superstructure of coordinating and special-purpose agencies. To most citizens, therefore, the network of organizations now seeking to effectuate democracy is a jerry-built affair which must be inefficient to the point of ineffectiveness. Before considering whether that is true, a brief review of the existing organizations is in order. Since no entirely logical system of classification is possible, the classification below necessarily has as haphazard an appearance as the organizational structure itself.