" Thus to say that by injecting more
democracy you can cure the defects of our present democracy is to
express one of those epigrams that, like many of its kind, is either not
true at all or is only partly true and is even more deceptive than if
it were wholly untrue.
Take the power of appointment in executive work. You elect officers,
choosing men of character, intelligence, and experience for a few great
offices, and then what do you do under the Federal Constitution? You
turn over to the President the appointment of great officers because he
needs intelligence, knowledge and skill to make their selections.
Consider the system of general direct primaries in the selection of
judges. There is a ticket at the primaries on which something like
twenty or thirty lawyers run for the Supreme Bench. Some of them go
around and tell the electors how they will decide on questions after
they get in. The qualifications of most of them as lawyers and as men
are not known to the people. Some of them are prominent because they
have been in the headlines of newspapers as figuring in sensational
cases.
Pages:
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99