that it brings immediate material benefits to all and paves the
way, either for capitalistic or for Socialistic progress, robs
capitalism of all fear of the masses, and is ready to remove all
undemocratic constitutional barriers and to do everything it can to
advance popular government. These constitutional checks and balances
prevent the small capitalists and their progressive large capitalist
allies from bringing to time the reactionaries of the latter class,
while they are so many that, in removing a few of them, there is little
danger of that pure political democracy which would alone give to the
masses any "dangerous" power. At a later stage, when "State Socialism"
will have carried out its program, and the masses see that it is ready
to go only so far as the small capitalists' interests allow and no
farther, and when it will already have forced recalcitrant large
capitalists to terms, and so have reunited the capitalist class, we may
expect to see a complete reversal of the present semi-democratic
attitude. But as long as the "State Socialist" program is still largely
ahead of us, the large capitalists not yet put into their place, and
full political democracy--in spite of rapid progress--still far in the
distance, a radical position as to this, that, or the other piece of
political machinery signifies little. So many reforms of this kind are
needed before political democracy can become effective--and in the
meanwhile many things can happen that will give ample excuse to any of
the "progressive" classes that decide to reverse their present more or
less democratic attitude, such as an "unpatriotic" attitude on the part
of the masses, a grave railroad strike, etc.

For there will be abundant time before democratic machinery can reach
that point in its evolution, when the non-capitalist masses can make the
first and smallest use of it _against_ their small and large capitalist
masters. If, for example, the Supreme Court of this country should ever
be made elective, or by any other means be shorn of its political power,
and if then the President's veto were abolished, and others of his
powers given to Congress, there would remain still other alternatives
for vetoing the execution of the people's will--and one veto is
sufficient for every practical purpose. Even if the senators are
everywhere directly elected, the Senate may still remain the permanent
stronghold of capitalism unless overturned by a political revolution