ABSTRACT
Direct popular government may be fairly exposed to the kind of criticism which has been levelled against it by conservative publicists. The advent of direct government was the necessary consummation of the process. The adoption of the machinery of direct government is a legitimate expression of the change. The Law was not serving the people any better than their legislatures and executives were supposed to serve them. The foundation upon which government by Law rested was not the rock of faith, but the sands of apprehension. The aspiration towards genuinely popular government has been struggling for expression throughout the political history of American states. Some form of essentially representative government was at that time apparently the only dependable kind of liberal political organization. The alterations which progressive democracy may or should make in state political organization become, consequently, a matter of immediately profitable political discussion.
