racially to great nations, organized as great independent States, and that from time immemorial there have been no racial conflicts in Switzerland.
Thanks to the Swiss mobilization, I saw something of the army and studied the militia system which the Socialists recommended and which I also adopted. The very fact that a militia is possible proves how firmly founded is Swiss democracy. But observant foreigners must study the democratic institutions and the freedom of a nation as a whole. Therefore I visited various Cantons and studied the relation between Federalism and democracy, comparing it with the arrangements in the United States and Germany.
The Swiss Cantons are small and the whole Federation is thinly populated. Hence many forms of direct Government by the people, such as the Referendum and the Initiative. The smallest Cantons have no regular Parliament. The people meet and decide. The election of the Government and of the President, the nature and the duration of their functions, correspond to the peculiar simplicity of this State mechanism. Switzerland has also proportional representation.
The tendency of Swiss democracy towards direct government found expression in Rousseau, the leading theorist of modern democratic philosophy, whose political and religious outlook was influenced by his Swiss Fatherland. Upon him and his theory of democracy the Calvinism of Geneva also set its mark; and his statue, which I saw several times a day, brought again to my mind the whole problem of Rousseau and impelled me to study it anew.
