Page:The Wisconsin idea (IA cu31924032449252).pdf/201

 There is no infallible kind of government. Commissions do not depend merely upon the men but also upon the checks and spurs which sustain the integrity of the whole system. If it is a scheme although seemingly contrary to our ideas of democracy, which really carries out absolutely and surely the will of the people, it is an aid to democracy. How in this complex, economic life are we ever going to use any other machinery? We have tried to fix tariff rates by congress and we have found that with the little time and knowledge possessed by each member, with the juggling of interests throughout the country, it seems an impossibility. If rates are being fixed in the chaos and hurry of the legislative session, is it any wonder that the courts have to interpret and many times destroy the results of this guess work? Is it any wonder that the business man is afraid of a legislative session when every bolt or screw in his machinery may be regulated by impractical laws or matters of actuarial skill be determined in a few moments in a legislative committee, or the price of gas or some other thing equally scientific, regulated in an equally crude manner?

Such a system cannot survive and it is merely a question of what system shall supplant it. That we will have to use a commission system of some sort is shown by the ordinary business arrangements of life. If a city owned a municipal baseball team, imagine