You will of course understand that, both in the case of the initiative and referendum and in that of the recall, the very existence of these powers, the very possibilities which they imply, are half,—­indeed, much more than half,—­the battle.  They rarely need to be actually exercised.  The fact that the people may initiate keeps the members of the legislature awake to the necessity of initiating themselves; the fact that the people have the right to demand the submission of a legislative measure to popular vote renders the members of the legislature wary of bills that would not pass the people; the very possibility of being recalled puts the official on his best behavior.

It is another matter when we come to the judiciary.  I myself have never been in favor of the recall of judges.  Not because some judges have not deserved to be recalled.  That isn’t the point.  The point is that the recall of judges is treating the symptom instead of the disease.  The disease lies deeper, and sometimes it is very virulent and very dangerous.  There have been courts in the United States which were controlled by private interests.  There have been supreme courts in our states before which plain men could not get justice.  There have been corrupt judges; there have been controlled judges; there have been judges who acted as other men’s servants and not as the servants of the public.  Ah, there are some shameful chapters in the story!  The judicial process is the ultimate safeguard of the things that we must hold stable in this country.  But suppose that that safeguard is corrupted; suppose that it does not guard my interests and yours, but guards merely the interests of a very small group of individuals; and, whenever your interest clashes with theirs, yours will have to give way, though you represent ninety per cent. of the citizens, and they only ten per cent.  Then where is your safeguard?

The just thought of the people must control the judiciary, as it controls every other instrument of government.  But there are ways and ways of controlling it.  If,—­mark you, I say if,—­at one time the Southern Pacific Railroad owned the supreme court of the State of California, would you remedy that situation by recalling the judges of the court?  What good would that do, so long as the Southern Pacific Railroad could substitute others for them?  You would not be cutting deep enough.  Where you want to go is to the process by which those judges were selected.  And when you get there, you will reach the moral of the whole of this discussion, because the moral of it all is that the people of the United States have suspected, until their suspicions have been justified by all sorts of substantial and unanswerable evidence, that, in place after place, at turning-points in the history of this country, we have been controlled by private understandings and not by the public interest; and that influences which were improper, if not corrupt, have determined everything from the making of laws to the administration of justice.  The disease lies in the region where these men get their nominations; and if you can recover for the people the selecting of judges, you will not have to trouble about their recall.  Selection is of more radical consequence than election.