ABSTRACT

The democracy seeks a complete control over governmental machinery and processes. It seeks to break the power of a politically entrenched plutocracy, to attain to a government by the people for the people. Control of political parties is the very beginning of political democracy. The legal regulation of parties has been made possible by one of those subtle changes in American political life, which, though they leave no mark upon constitutions, fundamentally alter the actual bases of government. That the American democracy is possessed of political capacity and resourcefulness is shown by the fact that a large proportion of our United States senators are already being elected by what is practically the direct vote of the people of their State. Even with a constitution sensitive to the popular will, even with the referendum, initiative, and all the instruments and weapons of a pure political democracy, it would not follow that legislation would be in the interest of the people.