nd not by the changing whim of popular opinion.

So with the recall, now so widely demanded in many sections of the
country. In the old days, our candidates were most obsequious and
profuse in promises to their constituents _before_ election; but once
elected, only too often they turned their backs on their constituents,
went merrily their own way, making deals and bargains, in the spirit
that "to the victor belong the spoils." Therefore we justly demanded
some control of them, after, as before, election: hence the recall.
Again the movement is right; but if the fundamentals of democracy are to
be permanent, that body of men, concerned with the interpretation of the
constitution and the fundamental law of the land, must not be subject to
the immediate whim of mob mind, and the power to recall those judges
occupied with this task would be a graver danger than advantage. They
will make mistakes, at times they will be ultra conservative and
servants of special interests, but that is one of the incidental prices
we have to pay for the permanence of free institutions. The problem is
to keep the basic principles of democracy unchanged, the forms on the
surface as fluid and adjustable as possible.

It is these three transformations--the abandonment of the old abstract
notions and the testing of democracy by its results, the expansion of
its application over the entire population, and the invention and
development of representative government--it is these three changes that
make our democracy a new order of society, new in its problems, its
menaces, its solutions.

XV

DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

All just government is a transient device to make ordered progress
possible. In the kingdom of heaven there would be no government, for if
all human beings saw the best, loved the best and willed the best, the
function of government would be at an end. Obviously there is no hope
or fear that we shall get into the kingdom of heaven soon, and the
necessity for government will exist for an indefinitely long time.
Nevertheless, government is due to the imperfection of human nature and,
as stated, its aim is ordered progress. Progress without order is
anarchy; order without progress is stagnation and death.

It must frankly be admitted, moreover, that democracy is not the
shortest road to good government nor to economic efficiency. That we
recognize this as a people is proved by the drift of our opinion and of
the changes