Vandercook, J: Complete Revolution (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Complete Revolution

HE Republic is bursting from its Eighteenth Century clothes. A sys tem designed for loosely federated states no longer serves. The Twen tieth Century brings a new dawn and a new deal. The day for patching, tinkering and compromises has gone. The time for revolution has arrived. People are not satisfied with their government. Upon one thing both great parties agree, that only under leadership of radi cals can they have chance for success. The law of progress is change, and without progress there can be no stability. When there has been a long time without change, revolution must come to set stabil ity up again. The system of government in the United States has not changed in one hundred years, although in this period there have been more changes in the manner of living and in the organi zation of society, than there were in the previous thousand years. Government has become out of plumb with the times. Change needed amounts to a revolution; not a revolution of blood, but revolution of method, such as that of 1688 in England, which peacefully established the supremacy of Parliament over the King. Today it comes to establish the su premacy of the people in their government. The first American Revolution abolished monar chy and proclaimed the equal right of every citizen in his government. The time was not ripe, however, for the complete working out of the demo cratic idea. For government by king was substi tuted government by machinery. The machine set up was with checks and balances, reserved rights and parchment restrictions. At the base were thir teen states of semi-sovereign power. At the top were Congress and an executive as nearly independ ent as they could be. Supreme above all was a bench of nine judges appointed for life, and in no way answerable to the people.

Democracy, through suspicion and inexperience, forged its own chains. They were chains neverthe less. It is fair to believe, that in a period when Europe was all ablaze with revolution, and again ablaze with reaction, these chains were necessary to hold the young republic in its course. Today, how ever, every essential of the first revolution is su preme and uncontested. The chains, which served their purpose, have now for twenty years held us back, so that the younger democracies, in Australia and Europe, have ceased to look to us for guidance.

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