Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/14

 law prove to be unjust or defective, the people must be brought to see and appreciate such injustice or inadequacy and to demand the requisite modification.

This contention can, as it seems to me, not be gainsaid. It is respectfully urged that no other method of securing wise changes in the law can be properly pursued under democratic institutions. To hold otherwise is to take issue with the wisdom of democracy itself, and with so rash a champion the writer has no spear to break. Indeed, he makes this explanation with immense unwillingness, as he feels that he should not be required to defend a truth so evident. It is like demonstrating gravely that the earth is round and that sunlight is an energy.

Yet he is advised that attention should be called to this matter, lest the thoughtless condemn upon a hearing ex-parte. Indeed, even after the punishment of la peine forte et dure is gone out these many hundred years, the good citizen will hardly hold that one guiltless who stands dumb while hidden evils assail. If men about their affairs were passing to and fro