extent this has diminished the influence of the professional politician by enabling the rank and file to choose men for office who will be more free to carry out their wishes.

But it is of course still possible that the elected representatives may not carry out the wishes of the people. Municipal councilors, state assemblymen, members of the House of Representatives, even United States Senators, are not demigods, but more or less ordinary human beings. They have their political careers to consider, often place loyalty to party above loyalty to ideas even if they have any, or to the welfare of the people even if by chance they know what it is. Consciously or not, they are often the instruments of malign influences-selfish or corrupt or vicious organizations that prey upon society and exploit the people. Thus it happens that the laws passed by the representatives of the people, even when these representatives are men whom the people choose willingly, are often not such as the people desire.

To correct this evil by bringing the action of elected representatives more directly under popular control even during their terms of office, there has been under way for many years a movement which is symbolized by the letters I. R. R.—the Initiative, the Referendum, and the Recall. The Initiative (which

is at least as old as the French Revolution) is a scheme which permits a certain proportion of the voters to initiate legislation—that is, to formulate and propose bills which the legislature must consider and vote upon. The Referendum is a scheme which requires certain bills or laws passed by the legislature to be referred to the voters for approval or rejection. The Recall is a method of permitting the voters to "recall"-that is, to remove from office-an elected official before the term of his office expires, in case he acts contrary to their wishes. These methods, which have been adopted to a greater or less extent in a number of states, are all designed to give to the people a more direct and a more effective control of legislation, and of the conduct of elected representatives. Their effect is in some measure to transform elected officials from representatives to agents of the people.

Meantime, the trend toward a greater degree of democracy has taken the form of an extension of the suffrage. Many people have always regarded women as reasonably honest and intelligent at least, as much so as men; and for a long time these people have been asking a very embarrassing question. If it is true, they say, that "all just government rests upon the consent of the governed," why should

women, who have as well as men to submit to government, not be allowed to consent to it also. No convincing reason for not allowing women to vote has ever been advanced which would not apply equally well to men. But it takes a great deal of reason to overcome the force of a little inertia; and it is only in recent years, when the economic and intellectual emancipation of women has somewhat broken down the solidarity of the family, that the political emancipation of women has made much headway. At the present time women have full or partial rights of voting in seventeen states.1 Above all, the Great War, with the stimulation of democratic ideals which has come out of it, has. given a great impetus to the woman's suffrage movement in this country. There is now a joint resolution before the Congress of the United States proposing an amendment to the Constitution which, if adopted, will give to women throughout the United States the same rights of voting as men. The resolution has been passed by the House of Representatives, and, although recently rejected by the Senate, there seems little doubt that it will ultimately be carried into effect. If this should come to pass, the political system of the United States, so far as the right of the people to share in the

1 October, 1918.

election of those who exercise governmental power is concerned, will be as democratic as it could well be.

V

Americans do not as a rule follow closely the work of their various legislatures, or take much interest in the great majority of the laws they make. In a single session of almost any state legislature a thousand or more bills are introduced. Most of these are happily never enacted into law; but very few people indeed ever hear of the majority of those that are enacted into law. Only in those laws. which are the result of wide-spread interest and of much discussion in the newspapers do the people take any interest; and on the other hand, aside from a few very special laws, those laws in which the people are not interested cannot long be enforced. In other words, the right to vote for representatives is only one method of expressing the popular will; a less tangible but a much more effective way is through the force of public opinion. Public opinion, when it is once definitely crystallized, can easily force legislatures to make the laws that are desired, and it can with equal ease compel officials to enforce or to ignore any law after it has once been made. In the

United States there is no power that can long resist a consolidated public opinion.

But what is public opinion? There are of course many public opinions. Wherever you have a group of people who think alike in respect to any matter, there you have, for that group and in respect to that matter, a public opinion. In respect to many things, there is a public opinion of the village which is different from the public opinion of the city, a public opinion of the city which is different from the public opinion of the state, a public opinion of the state which is different from the public opinion of the nation. Again, in any territorial area, public opinion may differ from class to class and from group to group. There is what may be called the public opinion of the Democrats as opposed (it must be opposed) to that of the Republicans, the public opinion of the laboring class as opposed to the public opinion of the capitalists, the public opinion of the Brewers' Association as opposed to the public opinion of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

Over large areas these various group opinions often neutralize one another so effectively that the practical result is nil; and it is obvious that the larger the area and the more diverse the groups concerned the more difficult it is ever to get a thoroughly consolidated