Direct Legislation and the Recall
| Published date | 01 September 1912 |
| Date | 01 September 1912 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271621204300106 |
| Author | Henry Jones Ford |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
65
DIRECT
LEGISLATION
AND
THE
RECALL
1
BY
HENRY
JONES
FORD,
Professor
of
Politics,
Princeton
University.
This
subject
happens
to
be
a
burning
issue of
the
times.
So
it
may
be
well
to
say
that,
as
students
of
political
institutions,
our
attitude
cannot
be
that
of
agitators
or
propagandists
or
even
that
of
reformers.
Our
business
is
to
consider
political
phenomena
with
the
serene,
impartial
attitude
of
a
naturalist
contemplating
the
fauna
and
flora
of
a
country.
We
must
maintain
the
standpoint
of
scientific
observation.
Our
object
is
to
ascertain
the
truth;
not
to
consider
what
particular
cause
may
be
either
hindered
or
promoted.
At
the
beginning
of
our
examination
I
think
there
is
one
point
we
should
bear
in
mind,
which
is
that
we
may
not
expect
to
discover
the
causes
of
great
popular
upheavals
by
a
rationalistic
examina-
tion
of
political
projects.
People
are
not
discontented
because
they
are
theorizing;
they
are
theorizing
because
they
are
discontented.
We
must
always
look
into
social
conditions
to
find
the
sources
of
these
movements.
The
reason
is
the
servant
of
the
will.
We
employ
logic
to
defend
a
position
we
are
impelled
to
take
by
cir-
cumstances.
If
we
want
to
understand
the
causes
of
these
move-
ments
now
going
on
in
this
country
in
favor
of
new
institutional
forms,
we
must
realize
that
we
cannot
do
so
by
deductive
reasoning
starting
with
an
abstract
consideration
of
those
forms.
We
must
go
back
of
them
to
the
conditions
that
have
suggested
such
proposals.
We
have
to
do
with
a
situation
whose
unsatisfactory
character
was
recognized
by
the
fathers
themselves-by
the
framers
of
the
constitution-but
which
they
were
unable
to
reach
in
their
time.
They
were
all
opportunists-they
had
to
be.
They
made
such
an
application
of
means
to
ends
as
the
opportunities
of
their
time
afforded.
Nothing
would
have
surprised
the
fathers
more
than
the
claims
now
sometimes
made
that
the
constitution
should
be
con-
sidered
as
a
perfect
and
complete
embodiment
of
political
wisdom,
a
settled
and
unchangeable
scheme
of
governmental
authority.
It
is
a
fact-which
we
soon
discover
when
we
go
into
original
docu-
1
An
address
delivered
at
the
University
of
Pennsylvania,
March
7, 1912.
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