r example, or if it could
be put in jeopardy by an affront which in the line of duty ought, we
will say, to be given to some organization or faction or cabal, what
could we expect? Is it not inevitable that such a system would drive
out of our public life the men of real character and courage and leave
us only cowards and trimmers and time servers? May we not well
hesitate to introduce into our political system a device which, had it
been in vogue in the past, would have made it possible for the Tories
to have recalled Washington, the copperheads to have recalled Lincoln,
and the jingoes to have recalled McKinley?

In all the literature of the age-long struggle for freedom and justice
there is no phrase that occurs oftener than "the independence of the
judiciary." Not one man could be found now among all our ninety
millions to declare that our Constitution should be changed so as to
permit the President in the White House or the Congress in the Capitol
to dictate to our judges what their decisions should be. And yet it is
seriously proposed that this power of dictation shall be given to the
crowd on the street. That is what the recall means if applied to the
judiciary; and it means the destruction of its independence as
completely as if in set terms it were made subject to the President or
the Congress.

Do you answer, "Oh, the recall will never be invoked except in an
extreme case of obvious and flagrant injustice"? I reply, "How do you
know?" It is the theory of the initiative that it will never be invoked
except to pass a good law, and of the referendum that it will never be
resorted to except to defeat a bad law; but we have already seen how
easily a bad law might be initiated and a good law referred. And so it
is the theory that the recall will be invoked only for the protection
of the people from a bad judge. What guaranty can you give that it
will not be called into being to harrass and intimidate a good judge?
There never yet was a two-edged sword that would not cut both ways.

Mr. Chairman, I should be the last to assert that our present system
of government has always brought ideally perfect results. Now and then
the people have made mistakes in the selection of their
representatives. Corrupt men have been put into places of trust, small
men have been sent where large men were needed, ignorant men have been
charged with duties which only men of learning could fitly perform.
But does it follow that because t