Now, returning to the original principles upon which we profess to stand,
have the people of the United States not the right to see to it that every
seat in the Senate represents the unbought United States of America? Does the
direct election of Senators touch anything except the private control of
seats in the Senate? We remember another thing: that we have not been without
our suspicions concerning some of the legislatures which elect Senators. Some
of the suspicions which we entertained in New Jersey about them turned out to
be founded upon very solid facts indeed. Until two years ago New Jersey had
not in half a generation been represented in the United States Senate by the
men who would have been chosen if the process of selecting them had been free
and based upon the popular will.

We are not to deceive ourselves by putting our heads into the sand and
saying, "Everything is all right." Mr. Gladstone declared that the American
Constitution was the most perfect instrument ever devised by the brain of
man. We have been praised all over the world for our singular genius for
setting up successful institutions, but a very thoughtful Englishman, and a
very witty one, said a very instructive thing about that: he said that to
show that the American Constitution had worked well was no proof that it is
an excellent constitution, because Americans could run any constitution,-a
compliment which we laid like sweet unction to our soul; and yet a criticism
which ought to set us thinking.

While it is true that when American forces are awake they can conduct
American processes without serious departure from the ideals of the
Constitution, it is nevertheless true that we have had many shameful
instances of practices which we can absolutely remove by the direct election
of Senators by the people themselves. And therefore I, for one, will not
allow any man who knows his history to say to me that I am acting
inconsistently with either the spirit or the essential form of the American
government in advocating the direct election of United States Senators.

Take another matter. Take the matter of the initiative and referendum, and
the recall. There are communities, there are states in the Union, in which I
am quite ready to admit that it is perhaps premature, that perhaps it will
never be necessary, to discuss these measures. But I want to call your
attention to the fact that they have been adopted to the general satisfaction
in a number of states where the electorate had become convinced that they did
not have representative government.

Why do you suppose that in the United States, the place in all the world
where the people were invited to control their own government, we should set
up such an agitation as that for the initiative and referendum and the
recall. When did this thing begin? I have been receiving circulars and
documents from little societies of men all over the United States with regard
to these matters, for the last twenty-five years. But the circulars for a
long time kindled no fire. Men felt that they had representative government
and they were content. But about ten or fifteen years ago the fire began to
burn,-and it has been sweeping over wider and wider areas of the country,
because of the growing consciousness that something intervenes between the
people and the government, and that there must be some arm direct enough and
strong enough to thrust aside the something that comes in the way.