[Ads-l] Request help tracing (Before Churchill): Democracy =?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=A6_?=worst form of government, except for all others which have been tried

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

In November 1947 Winston Churchill popularized the following quotation
about democracy:

[ref] UK Parliament Hansard, Commons, Volume 444, Date: November 11,
1947, Orders Of The Day, Parliament Bill, Speaker Winston Churchill
(Woodford), London, England. (UK Hansard) link [/ref]

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1947-11-11/debates/ab1e1152-6b4a-4d04-ac38-954df6634b08/ParliamentBill

[Begin excerpt]
No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has
been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all
those other forms that have been tried from time to time …
[End excerpt]

Interestingly, Churchill prefaced the quotation with the phrase "it
has been said". Hence, researchers have attempted to find earlier
close matches without success (as far as I know).

Here is a candidate for an earlier close match in 1946. Would you
please help me to verify this citation with scans or hardcopy?
Carefully verifying the date is crucial.

Year: 1946
Title: Journal of Education (for Nova Scotia)
Supplement: Provincial Support of Adult Education in Nova Scotia: A Report
Author: Guy Henson
Quote Page 25 (According to Google Books)
Publisher: Education Office, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Description: A magazine provided by the Dept. of Education for the use
of Nova Scotian teachers and their co-workers
Database: Google Books Snippet: This data may be inaccurate and must
be verified with scans or hardcopy

https://books.google.com/books?id=BwpsdWFZeBQC&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=worst

[Begin excerpt]
This dilemma in education depends for solution on the meaning of
democracy in practice. This is commonly called the most difficult form
of government in the world; it has even been called the worst form of
government, except for all others which have been tried. Certainly it
is the form of government which our people are agreed to make work.
[End excerpt]

The notion that democracy is the worst form of government was
expressed in ancient times and is associated with Plato, but that
statement was not a close match to the modern quotation.

In 1923 British author Israel Zangwill said that “Democracy is the
least bad form of government” which is a concise conceptual match.

[ref] 1923, "Watchman, What of the Night?" by Israel Zangwill, Note:
Address delivered before The American Jewish Congress, Carnegie Hall,
New York City, October 14, 1923, Quote Page 12, Published by The
American Jewish Congress, New York. (Google Books Full View) link
[/ref]

https://books.google.com/books?id=ngalH-uWSkAC&q=%22least+bad%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
For my part I am not a die-hard Democrat. I have always, indeed, more
or less humorously defined myself as a Democrat with a profound
mistrust of the people. But I recognize that Democracy is the least
bad form of government. It is, of course, peculiarly liable to be
exploited by demagogues, who, instead of uplifting the masses, use
them as a means for lifting themselves up. But whereas there is no way
of correcting a maleficent autocracy save by smashing it, a maleficent
Democracy contains the cure for its own evils. For the people has a
sound instinct in the long run.
[End excerpt]

Fred Shapiro presented a thematic match from 1930 in "The New Yale
Book of Quotations".

[ref] 2021, The New Yale Book of Quotations, Compiled by Fred R.
Shapiro, Section: Robert Briffault, Quote Page 108, Column 1, Yale
University Press, New Haven, Connecticut. (Verified with hardcopy)
[/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
Robert Briffault
French-born British anthropologist and
novelist, 1876-1948

Democracy is the worst form of government. It is the most inefficient,
the most clumsy, the most unpractical. . . . It reduces wisdom to
impotence and secures the triumph of folly, ignorance, clap-trap, and
demagogy. . . . Yet democracy is the only form of social order that is
admissible, because it is the only one consistent with justice.
Rational Evolution (The Making of Humanity) ch. 15 (1930)
[End excerpt]

In 1940 William Ralph Inge received credit for: democracy was the
"least worst" form of government yet discovered. But I have not found
any direct evidence for this attribution.

[ref] 1940 August 20, Amarillo Daily News, Letters to Editor Roll in,
Letter Title: In God We Trust, Quote Page 8, Column 6, Amarillo,
Texas. (Newspapers_com) [/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
It was Dean Inge—the gloomy dean of London—who said that a democracy
was the "least worst" form of government yet discovered.
[End excerpt]

If you can help verify the 1946 match or you can find an earlier close
match then please contact me on-list or off-list.
Garson O'Toole
QuoteInvestigator.com

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