sale adoption of new schemes, but they deny that its normal attitude is one of resistance to progress. Rather, its proper attitude is one of alertness for new ideas, of readiness to test their value, of eagerness to find improved ways and means for solving the problems of government. And so we come once more to the fundamental party division between those who believe in going backward and those who believe in going forward. Both parties use certain words and phrases in common and join in professions of loyalty to certain institutions, such as representative government, but when they use the same words they mean different things and when they worship the same gods it is with different thoughts in their hearts. To the progressive party Majority Rule means, not the destruction of representative institutions, but the perfecting of them. It is not proposed to abolish the legislature, the executive, or the judiciary. It is only proposed to connect them vitally with the people and make the connection continuous. The storage-battery method has proven unequal to the constant and heavy demands on government. It is not proposed to do away with representatives but to make them represent their voting constituents instead of their campaign contributors. The checks and balances deliberately adopted in the constitution, the bicameral legislature, the veto power of the executive, the judicial power of interpretation, the restrictions of the fundamental law, are regarded as sufficient guaranties of governmental sobriety of action without the addition of a double-headed allegiance in the breast of the individual representative. To destroy this fatal dualism, the people who stand

back of the representative assume the right to furnish him with his inspiration and to check him or withdraw him entirely if he goes elsewhere for it.

Now, one of the strongest points in favor of Majority Rule is its promise of the development of a new type of leadership. Representative government logically favors responsive popular leadership, but under the system that has actually developed in American politics leaders in the true sense are at a discount. Votegetting leadership is in demand, to be sure, but it is vote-getting on the basis of personal popularity and ability to make promises that sound well until election day and that can easily be explained away afterwards. Under the system that has generally prevailed in this country until very recent years, and that still prevails in many states and cities, the best opportunities for leadership with the greatest assurance of stability even in public office have been offered to men who would devote themselves not to the leadership of the people but to the leadership of the cohorts of corporate wealth. The new leadership promised by Majority Rule will necessarily be of a different type. It will not be a leadership of manipulation and false promises. It will not be a leadership where the led exist for the sake of the leader. It will not be a leadership modeled after the organized brigandage of the high seas or of the mountain fastnesses. It will be a leadership of political thought rather than of the strong arm or the glad hand. Surely this does not spell destruction for representative government.

The argument in this book has proceeded on the theory that the devices of Majority Rule would be

ready for use at all times and would in fact be used from time to time. Some of the advantages claimed for them will be secured to the people merely by the possession of them. Others will come only as a result of their practical use. Yet no one, not even the most ardent advocate of the Initiative, the Referendum, and the Recall, contends that these instruments should be regarded as tools for everyday use. The government is not to be conducted mainly by them. They are for emergencies. They are the kit of tools which democracy uses to repair the representative system when it breaks down. The old ladies who have ridden in the vehicle ever since their childhood are afraid to have anyone touch it with wrench and hammer even when they see it lying on its side in the ditch. They even regard the use of an oil-can as an unheard-of and dangerous interference with its natural propensity to creak and to squeak as it lumbers along the highways of the state. But modern conditions demand comfortable, safe, and rapid transit. Even the old ladies will be reconciled when they come to enjoy the benefits of the overhauling.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

FIFTH GENERAL ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF MAJORITY RULE THAT IT WOULD BE A BULWARK OF TRUE

CONSERVATISM

CONSERVATISM is a good word that ought to represent a good idea. It ought to mean thrift as opposed to prodigality, wise use as opposed to wanton waste, steadiness in action as opposed to going by jerks, preservation and development of all the resources at our hand rather than miserly hoarding or careless destruction of them. Those who sit securely in the possession of vested wrongs and pray not to be disturbed, abuse the word when they call themselves conservatives. A surgeon who finds a man sorely wounded and before sewing up his gashes waits to see whether he is going to bleed to death, cannot properly be called conservative. A fruit-grower who refuses to trim his trees one year for fear that they are going to stop growing the next, and refuses to thin his fruit when it is small for fear that most of what he leaves will fall off later on in the season, is a reactionary ignoramus, not a conservative. The statesman who sees corruption in its beginnings but refuses to interfere with it on the ground that it may correct itself if let alone or that it is not yet important enough to bother about proves thereby, not his conservatism, but his laziness. A street railway

company that runs its cars by horse-power a score of years after electric traction has been proven to be the only practical mode of operation, is stupid, not conservative.

In politics both the opponents and the advocates of Majority Rule claim to be conservative. The former think themselves conservative either because they confound conservatism with fixity or because they sincerely believe that Majority Rule would lead to confusion, hasty and ill-considered action and disaster. If their claim to conservatism is based upon their hostility to change as a general principle, we may fairly dispute their right to use the word. If their claim is based on fear of the specific consequences of the adoption of Majority Rule we may reason with them to show that their fears are unfounded. Their motives are conservative, though their program of resistance to the instruments of democracy may be in its effect quite the opposite. The advocates of Majority Rule claim to be conservative because they regard the mass of the people as necessarily careful to husband and make the best use of what they have, and because Majority Rule puts the people in effective control of the government. They regard the progressive adjustment of governmental policies to the changing conditions of social and industrial life as a necessary element of true conservatism in politics.

To quibble over words is fruitless, but to define them is often necessary. In maintaining that Majority Rule would be a bulwark of true conservatism, I shall assume for the word conservatism the meaning which I have said it ought to have-thrift, wise use, steadiness in