limits. I could, perhaps more easily, have prepared four or five hundred
pages instead of the one hundred and twenty. I leave it rather to the
reader to supply comparison and analysis and the eloquent comment of
which, it seems to me, many of the statements of fact are worthy.
J.W.S.




THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM IN SWITZERLAND.


_Democratic versus Representative Government._

There is a radical difference between a democracy and a representative
government. In a democracy, the citizens themselves make the law and
superintend its administration; in a representative government, the
citizens empower legislators and executive officers to make the law and
to carry it out. Under a democracy, sovereignty remains uninterruptedly
with the citizens, or rather a changing majority of the citizens; under
a representative government, sovereignty is surrendered by the citizens,
for stated terms, to officials. In other words, democracy is direct rule
by the majority, while representative government is rule by a succession
of quasi-oligarchies, indirectly and remotely responsible to the
majority.

Observe, now, first, the influences that chiefly contribute to make
government in the United States what it is:--

The county, state, and federal governments are not democracies. In form,