of population,
dwelling on the larger part of a continent; and if one travels North,
South, East, West, to-day, one is impressed that, in spite of
unassimilated elements, everywhere men and women are proud, first of
all, of being American citizens, and only in subordinate ways devoted to
the section or community to which they belong. This has been made
possible by the invention and development of representative government.

That is not all: it is representative government that takes the sting
out of all the older criticisms of democracy. Plato devotes one of the
saddest portions of his _Republic_ to showing how in a brief time,
democracy must inevitably fall and be replaced by tyranny. With the
democracy Plato knew this was true. It was impossible for Athens to
protect and make permanent her constitution. She might pass a law
declaring the penalty of death on any one proposing a change in the
constitution. It did no good. Let some demagogue arise, sure of the
suffrage of a majority of the citizens: he could call them into public
assembly, cause a repeal of the law, and make any change in the
constitution he desired. There was no way to prevent it.

It is the invention and development of representative government that
has changed all that. We chafe under the slow-moving character of our
democracy--over the time it takes to get laws enacted and the longer
time to get them executed. We may well be patient: this slow-moving
character of democracy is the other side of its greatest safe-guard. It
is because we cannot immediately express in action the popular will and
opinion, but must think two, three, many times, working through chosen
and responsible representatives of the people, that our democracy is not
subject to the perils and criticisms of those of antiquity.

The voice of the people in the day and hour, under the impulse of sudden
caprice or passion, is anything but the voice of God: it is much more
apt to be the voice of all the powers of darkness. It is common
thought, sifted through uncommon thought, that approaches as near the
voice of God as we can hope to get in this world. It is not the surface
whim of public opinion, it is its _greatest common denominator_ that
approximates the truth.

It behooves us to remember this at a time when changes are coming with
such swiftness. Our life has developed so rapidly that the old
political forms proved inadequate to the solution of the new problems.
As