that it is impossible for the people to govern themselves. Take the crowds of a great city, those that flock to the theatres for some variety in their monotonous lives, those that fill the factories and workshops and the thousand daily rounds of life; how is it possible that they can ever have any effective ideas either as to the details or the principles of government? Yet they are not bad people, but have on the whole a lively sense of right and wrong. Almost the first reflection suggested is, how defenceless they are! How completely at the mercy of selfish interests which can combine together against those who cannot combine! The most obvious question is the one of the most immediate practical importance in the United States. How can the many be protected against the few? And as an immediate consequence, supposing the many to get an idea, rightly or wrongly, that they are oppressed by the few, how are they to be restrained from outbreaks of violence from which they are the worst sufferers, and which if continued are the inevitable precursors of military despotism? Dr. Snow himself would not maintain that seventy millions of people acting in a mass could either make laws or execute them. And whether they delegate their power to five men or five hundred men the principle is the same.

Bagehot seems to hope that the mass of Englishmen will always remain in a state of respectful ignorance, merely indicating, now and then, which of the best and wisest statesmen of England they wish to have as rulers. It is needless to say that this is not a picture of democracy.1

Why not? Is democracy to choose the worst and most foolish statesmen? For it must choose them of some kind, unless we propose to give up representative institutions and have the people of the United States do business in mass meeting. If in the above passage in place of the

1 Ibid.

words 'respectful ignorance' we substitute the words 'enlightened independence' there seems to be nothing to which the most ardent advocate of popular government – we hesitate to trespass upon Dr. Snow's definition of democracy-need object.

Following the idea that the people must have representatives, Dr. Snow arrives at the conclusion, almost universally accepted in this country, that the legislature is really the government.

Legislation calls for deliberation and discussion, in which the interests of every part of the country are represented; and therefore "it shows the necessity," says Chancellor Kent, "of a free, full, and perfect representation of the people in the body intrusted with the legislative power." But how can these ends be attained if the legislative body is under the immediate direction of the executive power, which exercises an authority out of all proportion to that of mere legislators?1

Is there no medium between this and the entire exclusion of the executive - which in the United States directly represents the people and the whole people just as much as the legislature from all voice in its deliberations?

In a popular government legislation should be, within the powers of the legislators, free from extrinsic authority and restraint.1

Here is the pivot upon which the whole question is supposed to turn. In a free government, the legislature being assumed to be the same thing as the people, it is claimed that every member must have the right to ask for whatever legislation he wants, and whether it shall be granted or not must be settled wholly within the legislative body, with no limitation except by the Constitution. We have seen to what confusion and anarchy such a system leads. In the order of society it is necessary that every individual should submit to some restrictions. Nobody is free to do what he likes, and the freest government allows only such

1 Snow, op. cit.

liberty as is consistent with the general welfare. The welfare, even the existence, of society requires that some check shall be put upon promiscuous demands for legislation. The only possible restraint must come from the executive. The vital question is whether that executive shall be an arbitrary despot, a committee of the legislature, or a separately elected and direct representative of the whole people.

Administration is of a different order. "In the execution of the laws," says Kent, "no discretion is submitted to the executive officer. It is not for him to deliberate and decide upon the wisdom or expediency of the law." Here authority and discipline are proper and necessary; to obtain efficiency the responsibility of administration should be concentrated as much as possible.1

Is it not just as necessary for efficiency that the laws! shall be so framed that they can be administered; that they are not contradictory, impracticable, or dangerous; and how can this be assured if they are left wholly to the discretion of a legislature which is entirely irresponsible for administration? In all private enterprises the executive is consulted first of all. What would be thought of a great railroad company in which the general manager was not expected "to deliberate and decide upon the wisdom or expediency of the regulations"; in which these were all made by the directors, the general manager having nothing to do but to carry them out? It may be said that the executive officials may appear and give advice to the committees, which might perhaps answer if the committees were actuated by a single desire to promote the public interest, but we know that they are under pressure from local and private interests to which they feel their responsibility much more than they do that to the public at large.

In absolute monarchy the power to make laws and to execute them resides in the same person. What is distinctive of democracy is that

1 Ibid.

the people make laws for their own government, and the executive is merely the servant of the people to carry out their will as expressed in the laws.1

Observe that the word 'legislature' has wholly disappeared and 'people' been substituted as identical. If there is one complaint in politics, it is that the legislatures do not represent the people but only the caucus politicians, the reasons for which we have already given.2

To just the extent that you take legislation from the control of the people [legislature ?] and place it in the hands of a powerful executive, though that executive is nominally dependent upon the people, to that extent do you depart from the principles of popular government and approach those of personal government or absolute monarchy. "Unitarianism," says Mr. Dicey, "means the concentration of the strength of the state in the hands of one visible sovereign power, be that power parliament or tsar.1

Precisely, and it is Parliament, that is to say the legislature, in whose hands we have made the concentration. It is not proposed to put legislation in the hands of a powerful executive, but to authorize an agent, really and not nominally dependent upon the people, to have the guidance of legislation, under such order and system as will admit of its being done publicly and in sight of the people, so that the latter may understand both the arguments and the men, instead of having the work done in the secrecy of committee rooms with no personal responsibility of any kind.

It is objected that such narrowing of the field of legislation would prevent the consideration and passage of many laws for the public good as well as for reasonable private advantage, and that may be true to some extent. It may well be replied, however, that excess is now the prominent characteristic of lawmaking. The life of a nation is long. Even if only one grievance is taken up at a time, all other

1 Snow, op. cit.

2 See Chaps. XVIII., XIX.

public affairs being allowed to flow on in their accustomed channels, great and varied reforms may be accomplished within a century; and the delay is well compensated by the absence of that uncertainty and fear of change which paralyze industry and to a large extent all social conditions. An agency for preventing is quite as much needed as one for promoting legislation, particularly if it is so adjusted as to weigh wisely and impartially the relative merits of the many schemes proposed.

The sentence last quoted from Mr. Dicey also includes an important problem. Any proposal to concentrate power in a single executive head is met with a charge of seeking monarchy or despotism. The writer of this work is often reproached with being a disciple of Carlyle. But Carlyle's idea was of a heaven-born genius forcing his way to the top and compelling a nation to conform to his will. Surely, that is not the same thing as advocating selection by the people of an agent to govern in their interest and according to their will, and held in control by a watchful legislature informing the people how he does his work and whether they had better continue to employ him or replace him with somebody else. Observe that the object is not to give power but to obtain efficiency and responsibility; efficiency, by the action of a single head transmitting its force through subordinates to any needed extent, and responsibility, by concentrating all the nerves of administration at a single point where a white light can be turned upon it in the full view of a whole people. Mr. Dicey's alternative is between giving the whole strength of the state either to a parliament or a tsar. The former is what we do now, except for some wholly inadequate negative checks. Why need either be done, if there is a suitable division of power between the two branches? That can never be arrived at by the physical isolation of the persons composing each, which, under our conditions,