But even the
Greeks ran into difficulties, and if you will read Lord Acton, possibly
the greatest historical authority on the subject, you will find that
pure democracy, as it is called, resulted in disaster. We now have a
much more complicated government and more democracy will not supply its
needs.
The representative system, much abused as it is, is the system that has
rescued us from plutocracy. Its laws are the laws that have done the
work. Congress has adopted laws that have taken hold of the
corporations, and Congress is the most perfect model of representative
government. Why did Congress act? Because the people were aroused. You
must have the people aroused in order to make any system effective, and
when this is the case under the representative system, there is no
difficulty about its working.
The general primary is, of course, a good thing for certain leading
offices, but if you resort to it for selecting judges or subordinate
officials whose qualifications the public cannot be supposed to know,
the result will be anything but good.
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