Page:Back to the Republic.djvu/22

 and included in them much that should properly have been statutory material. In their constitutions they provided for the election of officials other than the executive and members of the legislative bodies. More and more we drifted away from the moorings of the Constitution toward the whirlpools of a democracy.

Demagogues and propagandists, blinded with egomania, kept up a constant campaign of agitation in the various States for the initiative, referendum, recall, boards, commissions, city managers, socialistic doctrines and anarchistic heresies, until we may truthfully say that for some years we have been passing through an age such as Alexander Hamilton had in mind when he said: "There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth, and in populous communities especially the clamor of interested and factious men is often mistaken for patriotism."

In his popular work, "The American Commonwealth," written about thirty years ago, when boards and commissions were not so prevalent and we were still adhering more strictly to the standard form of government, Mr. Bryce wrote as the opening sentence in Chapter I: "What do you think of our institutions?' is the question addressed to the European traveler in the United