But while the direct nomination of candidates would doubtless go far toward making public officials respect the wishes of the people, it would not provide adequate protection against misconduct in office under our plan of election for a definite term without any effective power of removal. A corrupt official may often find that by favoring private interests at the expense of the people who have elected him, he can afford to forfeit all chance of re-election. The independence of public officials which our forefathers were so anxious to secure has been found to be a fruitful source of corruption. A realization of this fact has been responsible for the introduction of the recall system under which the people enforce official responsibility through their power to remove by a vote of lack of confidence in the form of a petition signed by a certain percentage of the voters. Such an expression of popular disapproval has the effect of suspending from office the offending official who can regain the office only by offering himself again as a candidate at an election called for that purpose. This is as yet merely an innovation in municipal government, but if it proves to be satisfactory, the principle will doubtless be incorporated, not only in municipal charters generally, but in our state constitutions as well.

Simultaneous with this movement to make government really representative by enforcing official responsibility is another movement which also

aims to make the will of the majority supreme, but by a totally different method of procedure. This is the movement looking toward the establishment of the initiative and the referendum. Instead of leaving power in the hands of representative bodies and seeking to make them responsible as the first plan of reform contemplates, the second plan would guard representative bodies against temptation by divesting them of all powers which they are liable to misuse and conferring them directly upon the people. This is merely an attempt to get back to the basic idea of the old town meeting, where local measures were directly proposed and adopted or rejected by the people. It is, moreover, the logical outcome of the struggle which the advocates of majority rule have been and are now making to secure control of our state and municipal governments. The constitutional checks on democracy have greatly obstructed and delayed the progress of political reform. Some of them have been removed, it is true, but enough still remain to make it possible for the minority to defeat the will of the majority with reference to many questions of vital importance.

It must be admitted, when we review the course of our political development, that much progress has been made. But the evolution has been toward a direct rather than toward a representative democracy. The reason for this is not far to

seek. The system of checks which limited the power of the majority made the legislature largely an irresponsible body; and since it could not be trusted, it was necessary to take out of its hands. the powers it was most likely to abuse.

The legislature was first deprived of its power to enact constitutional legislation, though it was allowed to retain an effective veto on such changes through its refusal to take the initiative. With the progress of the democratic movement some of the legislative powers most frequently abused were, like the state constitution itself, made subject to popular ratification. This submission of constitutional and certain kinds of statutory legislation to the people before it could go into effect merely gave them to this extent a veto on the recommendations of their legislatures and constitutional conventions. There was still no way to prevent the legislature from misrepresenting the people with respect to those measures which did not require popular ratification. The tendency was to diminish the power of the legislature by including in the constitution itself much that might have taken the form of ordinary statutory legislation, as well as by requiring that some of the more important acts passed by the legislature should receive the direct assent of the voters. This merely gave to the people a partial negative. It enabled them to reject some measures which they did not approve of, but not all, since in those

cases where popular ratification was not required, public sentiment could be disregarded by the lawmaking body. Moreover, the people did not have the right to initiate measures-a right which is indispensable if the people are to have any real power to mold the policy of the state. The logical outcome of this line of development is easily seen. As pointed out in an earlier part of this volume, constitutional development first limits and eventually destroys irresponsible power, and in the end makes the responsible power in the state supreme. The prevalent lack of confidence in our state legislatures is no indication of hostility to the principle of representative government; for representative government in the true sense means government that is responsible to the people. The popular movement has in modifying our state and municipal governments merely taken the line of least resistance, and that has involved the transfer of legislative powers to the people themselves.

Just how far this movement will go it is impossible to foresee. A government of the representative type, if responsive to public sentiment, would answer all the requirements of a democratic state. It would at the same time be merely carrying out in practice what has long been the generally accepted, if mistaken, view of our political system. The adoption of some effective plan of direct nomination and recall of officials would accomplish much in the way of restoring

confidence in legislative bodies. To this extent it would check the tendency to place the law-making power directly in the hands of the people. Popular ratification of all important laws would be unnecessary, if our legislative bodies were really responsible to the people. Nevertheless, the popular veto is a power which the people should have the right to use whenever occasion demands. This would prevent the possibility of legislation in the interest of the minority as now often happens. The popular veto through the referendum is not, however, of itself sufficient. The people need the power to initiate legislation as well as the power to defeat it. The initiative combined with the referendum would make the majority in fact, as it now is in name only, the final authority in all matters of legislation.

It is in our state and municipal governments that democracy is likely to win its first victories. The minority, however, will make a desperate struggle to prevent the overthrow of the system which has been and still is the source of its power. The political machine supported by every privileged interest will oppose by every means in its power the efforts of the people to break down the checks upon the majority. To this end we must expect them to make large use in the near future, as they have in the past, of the extraordinary powers exercised by our courts. In fact the courts as the least responsible and most conservative of our