at all, only by the meshes of governmental organization. This absence of homogeneity, this imperfect fusion of interests, this discrete mass of tendencies, do not hold out a very strong promise of enlightened use of the instruments of democracy. And yet there is no process of political education that can compare with Majority Rule. Here again the conditions that are said to make Majority Rule dangerous are the very conditions which no man wishes to make permanent. The more rapidly we can change them the better it will be. If a fluid democracy will fuse these inharmonious elements and establish a unity of purpose and feeling in city life, gradually developing a nucleus of civic consciousness around which may gather the aspirations and the jubilant purposes of a composite people, then Majority Rule is the very instrument most needed for the purpose.

The dangers that arise from the facility of communication in great cities, from the incitements of street agitators, from the sensational appeals of the omnipresent newspapers, from the shock of great disasters, from the thrill of the crowd, are inherent in the very condition of proximity which is the distinguishing characteristic of cities. These conditions are as permanent as city life. If they militate against the success of democracy, their influence must be overcome by offsetting influences, or else self-government must be denied to cities. But even here we find that popular responsibility is the best corrective. Mobs arise and people act upon sudden impulses when they do not have to take the consequences. The wildest harangue of the demogogue and the most brutal suggestion of

an unscrupulous or neurotic press will fall on deaf ears when the people are sobered by the possession of power and when the way lies open to the cure of abuses by prompt and orderly methods. If the people of a great city tend to be volatile and give themselves up to fleeting pleasures, it is largely for the reason that they have leisure, and this very leisure is democracy's opportunity. This enormous energy let loose by the shortened hours of labor, the proximity of neighbors and the ease of communication, is a force that can be turned to account in government. Like the disorderly youth who organize street gangs as a means of self-expression, the people of cities are in need of something more to do. If we look soberly at the question of the applicability of Majority Rule to great cities, we see, therefore, that unless we are to give up democracy altogether in the case of city populations, we must adopt some means to remove or ameliorate the conditions that now seem to make it dangerous. If the patient's heart is too weak to stand the operation that would save his life, what can be done about it? When things have arrived at such a sorry pass, it is necessary to take some risks in the hope of effecting a cure. One thing seems certain. Majority Rule can safely be applied to cities to as great an extent as Home Rule can be safely applied, and there seems to be every reason for hope that if applied within these limits it will be a great instrument for the betterment of civic conditions and the political education of the people. If democracy can be saved at all, it can be done in this way. In cities people shift their residences frequently, but a mere change from one ward or one voting district or one

street to another does not dislocate to any considerable extent the citizen's civic interests. Cities also throng with transients and newcomers and business men who sleep in the suburbs. The instability of public policy that might result from the full participation of the newcomers and the transients in the affairs of government may properly be avoided by restrictions of the suffrage based upon periods of continuous residence. So far as the special day population is concerned, the extension of the suffrage to these men who do business in the city while they reside in the suburbs, might even tend to greater intelligence and stability in municipal policies. One of the great advantages of Majority Rule as applied to cities is that it opens the way for these needed readjustments of the suffrage.

In so far, however, as city electorates are unfit for self-government and in so far as Home Rule under Majority Rule would endanger the interests of the larger community of which the city is a part, the statewide application of the Initiative, the Referendum and the Recall opens the way for the centralization of administrative functions and the curtailment of the special powers of cities. This is suggested merely as an indication that the distrust of the self-governing capacities of urban populations either in general or in particular places and at particular times, would logically lead to the curtailment of the right of Home Rule, not to the denial of the right of Majority Rule within the sphere of permitted local self-government. On the contrary Majority Rule is a necessary means for enabling cities to make good use of the powers they have and to fit themselves for greater powers.

CHAPTER XL

THE INITIATIVE, THE REFERENDUM AND THE RECALL IN RELATION TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

SOME of the statesmen who have recently accepted Majority Rule as the program of democracy in states and cities regard it as less than a national issue. They do not think the Initiative, the Referendum and the Recall well suited for use in connection with the Federal government. Their conclusion is based upon several considerations. The nation covers an immense area and includes an enormous population. It is not homogeneous. The machinery of elections is provided and even the qualifications of the electorate are determined by forty-eight separate commonwealths in the exercise of sovereign discretion. Moreover, under the constitution one branch of the government is wholly appointive and one and part of another are chosen by indirect election. The very principle of federation establishes a relation between the general government and the several states as such, and limits the direct relationship between the government and the individual citizens. Besides this, the Federal government enjoys only enumerated powers. Unlike the state governments it cannot embark upon an unlimited policy of experiment and discovery. It is also urged that with the various state governments fully democratized there will be no danger of misrepre

sentation in Federal government. Moreover, there is a lurking reservation in the professed loyalty of some of the disciples of Majority Rule. They are quite willing to think that there is no need of extending it to Federal matters, because they are not yet quite sure that in the great issues of national life the people should easily have their way. Questions of war and peace, of interstate and foreign commerce, of money and banking, and of the ultimate guaranties of liberty and property, are regarded as too complex, possibly as too important, to be subjected to the arbitrament of the ballot.

As to the great size and population of the country taken as a whole, it is clear that these do not in themselves constitute a bar to the use of the new instruments of democracy. News that is of general interest to the country is read in San Francisco and in Boston, in Duluth and in Galveston on the same day. Many of the weekly and monthly publications circulating in Oregon are the same publications that circulate in New York. While the people in different portions of the country have to depend for the most part on different newspapers, the same thing is true of people residing in different sections of the same state. But communication is so easy and so rapid and the standardizing influence of the big news agencies is so great that the essential elements of a nation-wide discussion are practically the same everywhere. While the bias of locality and the prejudices of individual editors and publishers give the discussion different tints in different places and for different sets of readers, yet in the main the nation can make up its mind on a national issue as in