The Quota Issue...

The Republican Convention revived an old code word in the American political lexicon: quota. The Democratic reforms this year employed a kind of quota system to require more representation among the delegates for women, blacks and young people. Many Democrats were themselves disturbed by the quotas; at Miami Beach, the President and other G.O.P. speakers damned them as anathema to the American system. The resonance of the issue may well carry through the campaign.

Quotas can be justified in opening up closed enclaves to outsiders, in forcing the majority to make room in its ranks for others. One of the dilemmas of democracy is simply that the majority frequently discriminates; thus quotas often are an undemocratic means to a democratic end. In the past, however, quotas have been used more often to exclude than to include. They are inherently unfair in a nation based on majority rule and representative government. They suggest that a white cannot fairly represent a black, or a woman a man.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's delegation was thrown out of the Democratic Convention largely because it did not include a strict proportion of blacks, youth and women. Yet the Daley delegation was democratically elected. Moreover, it could be argued that the McGovern delegation seated in its place failed to include a just proportion of, say. Polish Americans, or senior citizens, or vegetarians.

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