ublic
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 organs
of government have been the last refuge of the minority when defeated in
the other branches of the government. The disposition so generally seen
among the opponents of democracy to regard all measures designed to
break down the checks upon the majority as unconstitutional points to
the judiciary as the chief reliance of the conservative classes. Indeed,
the people are beginning to see that the courts are in possession of
political powers of supreme importance--that they can, and often do,
defeat the will of the majority after it has successfully overcome
opposition in all other branches of the government. If the will of the
majority is to prevail, th