Just how far this movement will go it is impossible to foresee. A government of the representative type, if responsive to public sentiment, would answer all the requirements of a democratic state. It would at the same time be merely carrying out in practice what has long been the generally accepted, if mistaken, view of our political system. The adoption of some effective plan of direct nomination and recall of officials would accomplish much in the way of restoring confidence in legislative bodies. To this extent it would check the tendency to place the law-making power directly in the hands of the people. Popular ratification of all important laws would be unnecessary, if our legislative bodies were really responsible to the people. Nevertheless, the popular veto is a power which the people should have the right to use whenever occasion demands. This would prevent the possibility of legislation in the interest of the minority as now often happens. The popular veto through the referendum is not, however, of itself sufficient. The people need the power to initiate legislation as well as the power to defeat it. The initiative combined with the referendum would make the majority in fact, as it now is in name only, the final authority in all matters of legislation.
It is in our state and municipal governments that democracy is likely to win its first victories. The minority, however, will make a desperate struggle to prevent the overthrow of the system which has been and still is the source of its power. The political machine supported by every privileged interest will oppose by every means in its power the efforts of the people to break down the checks upon the majority. To this end we must expect them to make large use in the near future, as they have in the past, of the extraordinary powers exercised by our courts. In fact the courts as the least responsible and most conservative of our organs of government have been the last refuge of the minority when defeated in the other branches of the government. The disposition so generally seen among the opponents of democracy to regard all measures designed to break down the checks upon the majority as unconstitutional points to the judiciary as the chief reliance of the conservative classes. Indeed, the people are beginning to see that the courts are in possession of political powers of supreme importance—that they can, and often do, defeat the will of the majority after it has successfully overcome opposition in all other branches of the government. If the will of the majority is to prevail, the courts must be deprived of the power which they now have to declare laws null and void. Popular government can not really exist so long as judges who are politically irresponsible have power to override the will of the majority. The democratic movement will either deprive the judicial branch of the government of its political powers or subject it to the same degree of popular control applied to other political organs. The extension of direct nomination and recall to the members of our state judiciary would deprive the special interests of the power to use the courts as the means of blocking the way to popular reforms. In any democratic community the final interpreter of the constitution must be the majority. With the evolution of complete popular government, then, the judicial veto must disappear, or the court must become a democratic body.
It is through our state governments that we must approach the problem of reforming the national government. Complete control of the former will open the door that leads to eventual control of the latter. Democratize the state governments, and it will be possible even to change the character of the United States Senate. With a state legislature directly nominated and subject to removal through the use of the recall, it will be possible to deprive that body of any real power in the selection of United States senators. Under these conditions the legislature would merely ratify the candidate receiving a majority of the popular vote just as the electoral college has come to ratify the popular choice of the President. In this way direct nomination and direct election of United States senators could be made really effective while at the same time preserving the form but not the substance of election by the state legislatures.[196]
This would make possible that much needed separation of state and municipal from national politics. Candidates for the state legislature are now nominated and elected largely with reference to the influence of that body upon the composition of the United States Senate. This has a tendency to, and in fact does, make state legislation in no small degree a by-product of senatorial elections. By divesting the legislature of this function, it would cease to be, as it is now, one of the organs of the Federal government, and in assuming its proper role of a local legislative body, it would become in fact what it has hardly been even in theory—a body mainly interested in formulating and carrying out purely local policies. Experience has shown beyond question that its function as an electoral college for the choice of United States senators is incompatible with the satisfactory exercise of local legislative functions. The latter will be sacrificed in the interest of the former. This of itself is no small evil. For if there is any advantage in our Federal form of government, it is in the opportunity thus provided for the faithful expression of local public opinion in local legislation. But in addition to this subordination of state to national politics, which might be justified under existing conditions on the ground that local measures and local interests should be sacrificed whenever by so doing it would contribute to the success of the larger and more important matters of national policy, it has become a prolific source of corruption.
It is not a mere accident that the United States Senate is to-day the stronghold of railway and other corporate interests. Possessing as it does more extended powers than the House of Representatives, it is for that very reason the body in which every privileged interest will make the greatest effort to obtain representation. Moreover, the indirect method of election is one that readily lends itself to purposes of corruption. It is a notorious fact that it is much easier to buy the representatives of the people than to buy the people themselves. Money expended in influencing elections always has in view certain benefits direct or indirect which those who contribute the funds for that purpose expect to receive. Such funds invariably come in the main from special interests which expect to get back from the people more than the amount of their political investments. If they had to deal with the people directly, the latter would demand an equivalent for any concession granted, since it would not be to their advantage to enrich special interests at their own expense. But where the concession can be granted by a small body such as a state legislature, the latter may find that it is to its advantage to co-operate with a selfish and unscrupulous class in furthering purely private interests at the expense of the public. The opportunity for the successful employment of corrupt means is greatly augmented, too, through the confusion of state and national issues under the present system. Many measures may be sacrificed by the party in control of the state legislature under the plea that it is necessary in order to advance the general interests of the party by the election of a United States senator. This possibility of evading responsibility for the nonfulfillment of its duty as a local legislative body would disappear as soon as it is deprived of the part which it now plays in the choice of United States senators.
CHAPTER XIV
EFFECT OF THE TRANSITION FROM MINORITY TO MAJORITY RULE UPON MORALITY
In tracing the influence which the growth of democracy has had upon morality, we should be careful to look below the surface of present-day affairs. The deeper and more enduring social movements and tendencies are not always obvious to the superficial observer. For this reason much that has been written in recent years concerning our alleged decline in public morality is far from convincing. Facts tending to show the prevalence of fraud and corruption in politics and business are not in themselves sufficient to warrant any sweeping conclusions as to present tendencies. Paradoxical as it may seem, an increase in crime and other surface manifestations of immorality, is no proof of a decline, but may as a matter of fact be merely a transient effect of substantial and permanent advance toward higher standards of morality.
Before making any comparison between the morality of two different periods, we should first find out whether, in passing from the one period to the other, there has been any change in the accepted ideas of right and wrong. Now, if such is the case, it is manifestly an important factor in the problem—one that should not be ignored; and yet this is just what many writers are doing who imagine that they are proving by statistics a decline in morality. Their error consists in overlooking the one fact of paramount importance, viz., that the accepted standard of morality has itself been raised. We are not judging conduct to-day according to the ideas of civic duty in vogue a century, or even a generation ago. We are insisting upon higher standards of conduct both in politics and in business. Our ideas of right and wrong in their manifold applications to social life have been profoundly changed, and in many respects for the better. We are trying to realize a new conception of justice. Many things which a century ago were sanctioned by law, or at least not forbidden, are no longer tolerated. Moreover, enlightened public opinion now condemns many things which have not yet been brought under the ban of the law.