It is quite possible to accept absolutely the standpoint of Mr. Croly's paper, and yet to dissent from its principal conclusion. The standpoint is that of the evolutionist, who regards contemporary “progressive” policies not as finalities, but as transitional phenomena in the development of popular government. The conclusion is that these policies are nevertheless bound to acquire a certain relative finality, which will make them self-obstructive of their own purpose. And the answer is that the movement momentarily expressed in these policies is deeper than they are, and that its vitality can overcome their mechanical limitations.

Mr. Croly identifies the Progressive movement with the devices of direct popular government, which he says it proposes to substitute for representative government. He takes Oregon as the type and Senator Bourne's famous rhapsody as the gospel of the movement. He analyzes the natural evolution of direct government out of the failure of delegated government. The once omnipotent representative legislatures were limited first by those who distrusted the people, through constitutional checks and judicial aggressions, and then by the Jacksonian democracy, through executive and party aggrandizement. But the very constitutional limitation was itself operated by direct vote of the people. As representative legislation degenerated, this originally restraining device became by contrast the only moveable portion of the system, and was the ordinary resort when real law making was needed. Direct legislation under the guide of constitutional amendment transformed constitutions into codes of laws, and the more detailed they became, the more impossible it was to legislate by any other method.