s to be borne in mind. One is that we shall do
well to confine our inquiry to the United States, for while the defects
we shall have to point out are common to practically all the
contemporary governments of Europe and the Americas, our own enginery is
different in certain ways, and our troubles are also different between
one example and another. After all, our immediate interest must lie with
our own national problems. The other point is that in criticising the
workings of government in America we are not necessarily criticising its
founders or the creators of its original constitutions, charters, and
other mechanisms. The Constitution of the United States, for example,
was conceived to meet one series of perfectly definite conditions that
have now been superseded by others which are radically, and even
diametrically different. The original Constitution was a most able
instrument of organic law, but just because it did fit so perfectly
conditions as they were four generations ago, it applies but
indifferently to present circumstances, and even less well than the
Founders hoped would be the case; for the reason that the amendments
which were provided for have seldom taken cognizance of these changing
conditions, and even when this was done the amendments themselves have
not been wisely drawn, while certain of them have been actually
disastrous in their nature, others frivolous, and yet more the result of
ephemeral and hysterical ebullitions of an engineered public opinion.
The same may be said of state constitutions and municipal charters,
which have suffered incessant changes, mostly unfortunate and
ill-judged, except during the last few years, when a spirit of real
wisdom and constructiveness has shown itself, though sporadically and as
yet with some timidity. The reforms, such as they are, are largely in
the line of palliatives; the deep-lying factors, those that control both
success and failure, are seldom touched upon. The necessary courage--or
perhaps temerity--is lacking. What is needed is such a clear seeing of
conditions, and such an approach, as manifested themselves in the
Constitutional Convention of the United States, for in spite of the many
compromises that were in the end necessary to placate a public opinion
not untouched by prejudice, superstition and selfishness, the great
document--and even more the records of the debates--still brilliantly
set forth both the clear-seeing and the lofty attitude that
c