rendum, and recall. The
agitation has a curious sterility: the people are exhorted to control
their own government, but they are given very little advice as to what
they are to do with it when they control it. Of course, the leaders who
spend so much time demanding these mechanical changes undoubtedly see
them as a safeguard against corrupt politicians and what Roosevelt calls
"their respectable allies and figureheads, who have ruled and legislated
and decided as if in some way the vested rights of privilege had a first
mortgage on the whole United States." But look at the _way_ these
innovations are presented and I think the feeling is unavoidable that the
control of government is emphasized as an end in itself. Now an
observation of this kind is immediately open to dispute: it is not a
clear-cut distinction but a rather subtle matter of stress--an impression
rather than a definite conviction.

Yet when you look at the career of Judge Lindsey in Denver the impression
is sharpened by contrast. What gave his exposure of corruption a peculiar
vitality was that it rested on a very positive human ideal: the happiness
of children in a big city. Lindsey's attack on vice and financial jobbery
was perhaps the most convincing piece of muckraking ever done in this
country for the very reason that it sprang from a concern about real
human beings instead of abstractions about democracy or righteousness.
From the point of view of the political hack, Judge Lindsey made a most
distressing use of the red herring. He brought the happiness of childhood
into political discussion, and this opened up a new source of political
power. By touching something deeply instinctive in millions of people,
Judge Lindsey animated dull proposals with human interest. The
pettifogging objections to some social plan had very little chance of
survival owing to the dynamic power of the reformers. It was an excellent
example of the creative results that come from centering a political
problem on human nature.

If you move only from legality to legality, you halt and hesitate, each
step is a monstrous task. If the reformer is a pure opportunist, and lays
out only "the next step," that step will be very difficult. But if he
aims at some real human end, at the genuine concerns of men, women, and
children, if he can make the democracy see and feel that end, the little
mechanical devices of suffrage and primaries and tariffs will be dealt
with as a craftsman deal