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The Green Bag 350 ment. That is the glory of our citizenship. That is the glory of our jurisprudence which we lawyers hold dear, dearer than tongue can tell, those principles of which Choate, Webster,

Binney, Gibson, Sergeant, Dexter, Story, Kent and Marshall are the great luminaries, whose ﬁgures stretch in majestic procession before us—dead, but still alive, ruling our spirits from their funeral urns.

instances to the demand for the popular initiative and ‘referendum, he indulges

in no pessimistic reﬂections, considering The American Commonwealth. By James Bryce. New edition, completely revised throughout. with additional chapters. V. l, The National Govern ments; The State Governments. V. 2, The Party System; Public Opinion; Illustrations and Reﬂec tions; Social Institutions. Macmillan Co., New York. V. 1, p. xv, 679+62 (appendix); v. 2, pp. vii, 933+5 (appendix)+22 (index). (84.)

it is too early to draw deductions re garding the success or failure of this movement. On the whole, the state legislatures are less open to moral cen sure than they were in 1888. And “the

forces working for good seem stronger R. Bryce's "American Common wealth" deservedly enjoys the reputation of being the best account of

our institutions in existence. Written by one of the foremost living publicists and lawyers, a writer as dispassionate as he is able, it is crowded full of skilfully generalized information and candid yet friendly criticism of the shortcomings of American democracy. In its new revised edition, brought down to date,

it more than ever before impresses the reader with its intellectually ripe and stimulating qualities. In 1888, when the ﬁrst edition ap peared, Mr. Bryce, while he described in detail the weaknesses of the American commonwealth, was led to entertain a hopeful view of the future of popular

today than they have been for the last

three generations." One must not be misled by this hope

fulness, however, to suppose that the author is not fully aware of the deﬁ

ciencies noted in the original edition. He adheres to his position that it is al most impossible to elect a great man

President, that the best men do not enter public life, and that the inﬂuence

of the bar has declined with the rise of the commercial and ﬁnancial classes. He ﬁnds us still ignoring differences of

capacity between man and man, adher ing to the Puritanical belief in original sin underlying our constitutional arrange ments, and underrating the diﬂiculties of government pacities of the and man overrating of commonthe sense. ca~

government in this country. Twenty two years later, he ﬁnds no reason for

He ﬁnds the members of legislatures,

retracting this opinion.

He sees no

gence and capacity substantially higher

deterioration in the character of Ameri can legislatures, noting what appears to be a slight improvement in some of the western states. While the distrust of legislatures is such as to lead in some

than that of the public at large. That is a serious charge, when we bear in mind the worthlessness of the opinions emanat

on the whole, not of a grade of intelli

ing from the untrained mind of the average citizen, and truly, as he says,