in keeping with democratic institutions. The right of the people to impose such a limited veto upon their representatives and upon the impulses of a temporary majority is as much a part of their prerogatives as anything else. Moreover, the willingness of the people of any country to adopt a written constitution and to invest in the courts the function of seeing that it is not overridden by the caprice of the moment is one of the surest signs of their capacity to govern themselves. The fact that the judicial veto does not exist in England and other important nations does not prove that it can be safely dispensed with here. Any institution that is so closely interwoven with the warp and woof of a political system as is the power of judicial veto can not be safely thrown overboard at a moment's notice. There is probably no charge that can justly be brought against the courts that can not be met by remedies that leave them the power of a suspensory veto, such as enlightened criticism, an elevation in the character of the bench, and setting the courts free from the letter of the law that killeth and from too abject an adherence to judicial precedent. Especially should impracticable methods of amending our organic law be avoided. The case of our highest court is particularly hopeful. In the words of James Bryce:
The Supreme Court feels the touch of public opinion. Opinion is stronger in America than anywhere else in the world, and the judges are only men. To yield a little may be prudent, for the tree that can not bend to the blast may be broken. There is, moreover, this ground at least for presuming public opinion to be right, that through it the progressive judgment of the world is expressed. Of course, whenever the law is clear, because the words of the constitution are plain or the cases interpreting them decisive on the point raised, the court must look solely to those words and cases, and can not permit any other considerations to affect its mind. But when the terms of the constitution admit of more than one construction, and when previous decisions have left the true construction so far open that the point in question may be deemed new, is a court to be blamed if it prefers the construction which the bulk of the people deem suited to the needs of the time?[1]
The moment progressives offend good sense, they may expect to be deserted by large numbers of their devotees. Take the movement for the free coinage of silver. There is no doubt that the country acted wisely when it rejected "free silver." But it is equally true that the silver propaganda set back the cause of social and industrial reform for nearly ten years. It accentuated and prolonged the hard times following the panic of 1893 until the country was so intent upon the recovery of prosperity that it was almost indifferent to anything else. Many individuals took advantage of the lack of public vigilance to grab franchises, to enact an excessively high protective tariff, and to organize industrial combinations on a scale that ended in startling the financial world, unsettling business, and in reawakening the sense of public duty in the mass of self-seeking individuals.
- ↑ "The American Commonwealth," edition of 1910, Vol. 1, p. 274.
