In attempting to answer this question we need not trouble ourselves very much about the multitude of excited controversies which have arisen over new methods of extra constitutional-political organization and procedure.  Direct nominations, party enrollments, instructions to delegates, presidential preference primaries, independent nominations, all relate to forms of voluntary action outside the proper field of governmental institutions.  All these new political methods are the result of efforts of the rank and file of voluntary parties to avoid being controlled by the agents of their own party organization, and to get away from real evils in the form of undue control by organized minorities with the support of organized capital.  None of these expedients is an end in itself.  They are tentative, experimental.  They are movements not towards something definite but away from something definite.  They may be inconvenient or distasteful to some of us, but no one need be seriously disturbed by the idea that they threaten our system of government.  If they work well they will be an advantage.  If they work badly they will be abandoned and some other expedient will be tried, and the ultimate outcome will doubtless be an improvement upon the old methods.

There is another class of new methods which do relate to the structure of government and which call for more serious consideration here.  Chief in this class are: 

The Initiative; that is to say, direct legislation by vote of the people upon laws proposed by a specified number or proportion of the electors.

The Compulsory Referendum; that is to say, a requirement that under certain conditions laws that have been agreed upon by a legislative body shall be referred to a popular vote and become operative only upon receiving a majority vote.

The Recall of Officers before the expiration of the terms for which they have been elected by a vote of the electors to be had upon the demand of a specified number or proportion of them.

The Popular Review of Judicial Decisions upon constitutional questions; that is to say, a provision, under which, when a court of last resort has decided that a particular law is invalid, because in conflict with a constitutional provision, the law may nevertheless be made valid by a popular vote.

Some of these methods have been made a part of the constitutional system of a considerable number of our states.  They have been accompanied invariably by provisions for very short and easy changes of state constitutions, and, so long as they are confined to the particular states which have chosen to adopt them, they may be regarded as experiments which we may watch with interest, whatever may be our opinions as to the outcome, and with the expectation that if they do not work well they also will be abandoned.  This is especially true because, since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the states are prohibited from violating in their own