Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/14

x legal precedents pointed to his conviction, but his lawyer appealed from the law to public opinion and the result was his acquittal—"the dawn of the Revolution."

The ideal of government by public opinion has been more nearly achieved in this country than elsewhere. With all the faults that foreign critics see in our government, it is admitted that, from the beginning, we have moved steadily toward that ideal. From De Tocqueville to Bryce, the critics have found only those faults that are in themselves the result of inactive public opinion. De Tocqueville's fear that the rights of minorities would be ignored has been proved groundless. In democracy or in a government by public opinonopinion [sic], minorities are as powerful as they are right. Our greatest reforms are the work of minorities, our greatest advances the triumph of the far-seeing few. The American Revolution itself was a minority movement, and it was successful only when public opinion was aroused. Mill's doubts before the Civil War about the evil effect of slavery, as well as Bryce's just criticism of our municipal government, have all been answered as public opinion has been aroused.

To assume that government by public opinion would be perfect would be to assume that man is perfect. At times the student may be disheartened or the philosopher dismayed, but, as long as the sovereign power rests with the people and the people are civilized, there is bound to be progress, for democracy itself is as positive a sign of evolution as is religion.

Those who regard democracy with misgiving are generally those who are more interested in man's written record than in man's place in nature. The entire recorded progress constitutes but the most superficial part of man's entire development. Assuming the human race to be 240,000 years old, and accepting the most generous fig-