It is the invention and development of representative government that has changed all that.  We chafe under the slow-moving character of our democracy—­over the time it takes to get laws enacted and the longer time to get them executed.  We may well be patient:  this slow-moving character of democracy is the other side of its greatest safe-guard.  It is because we cannot immediately express in action the popular will and opinion, but must think two, three, many times, working through chosen and responsible representatives of the people, that our democracy is not subject to the perils and criticisms of those of antiquity.

The voice of the people in the day and hour, under the impulse of sudden caprice or passion, is anything but the voice of God:  it is much more apt to be the voice of all the powers of darkness.  It is common thought, sifted through uncommon thought, that approaches as near the voice of God as we can hope to get in this world.  It is not the surface whim of public opinion, it is its greatest common denominator that approximates the truth.

It behooves us to remember this at a time when changes are coming with such swiftness.  Our life has developed so rapidly that the old political forms proved inadequate to the solution of the new problems.  As a practical people, we therefore quickly adopted or invented new forms.  Doubtless this is, in the main, right, but we should understand clearly what we are doing.

For instance, one of the great changes, recently inaugurated, is the election of national senators by popular vote.  Our forefathers planned that the national upper house should represent a double sifting of popular opinion.  We elected state legislatures; they, in turn, chose the national senators:  thus these were twice removed from the popular will.  It proved easy to corrupt state legislatures; the national senate came to represent too much the moneyed interests; and so, through an amendment to the constitution, we changed the process, and now elect our senators by direct vote of the people.  This makes them more immediately representative of the popular will, and perhaps the change was wise; but we should recognize that we have removed one more safe-guard of democracy.

A story, told for a generation, and fixed upon various British statesmen, will illustrate my meaning.  The last repetition attributed it to John Burns.  On one occasion, while he was a member of Parliament, it is said he was at a tea-party in the West End of London.  The hostess, pouring his cup of tea, anxious to make talk and show her deep interest in politics, said, “Mr. Burns, what is the use of the house of Lords anyway?” The statesman, without replying, poured his tea from the cup into the saucer.  The hostess, surprised at the breach of etiquette, waited, and then said, “but Mr. Burns, you didn’t answer my question.”  He pointed to the tea, cooling in the saucer:  that was the function, to cool the tea of legislation.  That was the function intended for our national senate.  The trouble was, the tea of legislation often became so stone cold in the process that it was fit only for the political slop-pail, and that was not what we wanted.  So we have changed it all, but one more safe-guard of democracy is gone.