Compared with Mills' splendid hopes for representative government (and what it "would hasten of great and fundamental reforms"), the actual thing obtained looks pallid enough.
Here in the United States every step in the swift coming of direct primaries, initiative, referendum, and recall records the disappointment of our people with legislative and legal procedure. It is a fact that effective political power has been kept from the people. It is the gist of this new protest that the broad, inclusive interests have been in no vital sense "represented." To get this representation is now a world fight. Everywhere it is seen that if democracy is to be real it must have a far broader economic basis. This is not a cry of the cranks alone. It appears among the very ablest students of politics. In the stiff volumes of Ostrogorski,[1] which won high praise from James Bryce, our own sinning against genuine representation is set down in pages cruel with veracity. In his recent study, Democracy and the Party System, a single passage from his concluding chapter shows us how he would broaden these economic foundations of our political life. He sees how the people's choice is choked and defeated in the Senate—Federal and State. He asserts that the weaker economic interests have no representation there. He then adds:
- ↑ Democracy and the organization of Political Parties, Macmillan.
