A further question arises with reference to Initiative measures as to what power the courts shall have over them. It is sometimes alleged that the Initiative logically leads to the subversion of judicial authority, and especially to that particular authority characteristic of the American judiciary, namely, the right to declare legislative enactments null and void when, in the opinion of the court, they contravene the provisions of the constitution or charter. Indeed, there is at the present time a great outcry against the exercise of this power by the courts which, it is alleged, they have clearly usurped. It would seem that with the Initiative firmly established in the political practice of the country, there would be at hand an adequate means for checking judicial usurpation and correcting judicial errors in law-making. There may be said to be even more necessity under the Initiative than under the representative system pure and simple for an expert body of interpreters to harmonize law and maintain fundamental distinctions of procedure. At any rate, there is no conclusive reason inherent in the Initiative for stripping the courts of this power. It is said that the power would be useless for the reason that the people could turn around and change the constitution at the next election, thus overcoming the obstacles interposed by the courts. But it is likewise true that under our present system the legislature one of whose acts is voided by judicial decree may repass the measure in another form or submit to the people a constitutional amendment to subvert the foundation of the court's reasoning.

Another matter of great interest and importance

is the question of resubmission, repeal or amendment of measures which have been enacted by vote of the people. In order that unnecessary turmoil may be. avoided, a limit may well be placed on the frequency with which the same proposition may be submitted. This is especially desirable where a measure has been approved and enacted into law, or where it has been rejected by an overwhelming majority. In the first case the act should be given a fair trial before it is resubmitted, while in the other case the people should not be bothered to keep voting down a measure that is desired by only a small minority. These limitations, if carefully worked out, will not handicap the Initiative. In regard to the amendment or repeal of Initiative measures by the legislative assembly, it is readily seen that if the legislature and the electorate are named in the constitution as coördinate authorities for the enactment of laws, a measure adopted by the people may be immediately repealed by the other legislative authority. This would certainly bring about an anomalous situation. Yet it is much to be desired that the revision or amendment of legislation in the light of experience should be reasonably easy. The legislative assembly is the body to which we should naturally look for the drafting of such amendatory measures. It may well be that amendments to Initiative laws, even if not proposed by petition, should always be submitted to popular vote. It would certainly be unseemly and undemocratic to leave the way open for a conflict between the people and their own representatives in the legislative assembly. In other words, democracy insists that the representative body should

act as the helper and guide of the people, not as the people's ruler. The office of leader and adviser of the people in a democracy is highly honorable and calculated to bring out the best that is in men. It is not admissible in a democracy that the electors should be reduced to the position of merely nominal sovereignty occupied by the British king, who is compelled to take the advice of his own ministers because they are in fact responsible to Demos, whose personality and interests are quite distinct from those of the monarch. In a democracy, the representative assembly would occupy a position with reference to the electorate more nearly like that occupied by the Cabinet towards the President of the United States. Practically, their powers would be more considerable because the people would not be present in person to preside over and guide their deliberations, but nevertheless if the machinery for expressing the people's will were in good working order at all times, there would be in the speaker's chair an invisible presence constantly controlling the procedure of the assembly and causing its members never to forget that they are transacting public, not private business. Under the Initiative the speaker would be no mere colorless parliamentarian like the presiding officer of the House of Commons and no reactionary leader of a minority clique such as sometimes occupies the chair in our House of Representatives, but none other than Demos himself.

In this chapter I have tried to explain the significance of the Initiative in its main outlines without overmuch argument about its merits. It is desirable that this instrument of democracy should be understood before

we go into the detailed discussion of its advantages and its drawbacks. The details in some respects are all-important. I have tried to define the Initiative not as those who wish it to fail would have it, but according to the ideals of those who desire it to succeed, who see in it a promising instrument which they and all men may use to stimulate and direct social progress, and make politics worth while.

CHAPTER III

FIRST OBJECTION TO THE INITIATIVE-THAT IT WOULD DESTROY CONSTITUTIONAL STABILITY

Ir was asserted by the opponents of the Liberal Party in Great Britain during its recent struggle to tame the Lords that its "desperate abuse of power" had thrown the British constitution "into the melting pot." Indeed, this idea of the melting pot, into which progressive democracy is constantly throwing constitutions, written and unwritten, and all the hoary institutions with which long-established ideas are identified, is a favorite figure of the conservative imagination, a frequently used "scare head" of reactionary eloquence, both spoken and written. It is an extreme and excited manifestation of the chronic opposition to change exhibited at all times and in all places by the human party that is, on the whole, well satisfied with things as they are and long have been. It is a sort of shibboleth of the standpatters the world over and time without end-lo, the melting pot, the melting pot!

Yet the mere statement that a particular objection to a specific change springs from habits of conservatism is not a sufficient answer to it. For the debate between reaction and progress is never ended. It is part of the process of life. It goes on not only in every nation