Reviews of Books Clearwater, and Mr. Justice William Renwick Riddell of Toronto. Officers were elected as follows: —President, Hon. Alton B. Parker; vice-presidents, first district, Eugene D. Hawkins; second district, James D. Bell; third district. D-Cady Herrick;
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fourth district, Francis A. Smith; fifth district, John N. Carlisle; sixth district, Henry R. Follett; seventh district, James S. Havens; eighth district, Daniel J. Kenefick; ninth district, J. Mayhew Wainwright; secretary, Frederick E. Wadhams; treasurer, Albert Hessberg.
Reviews of appearance Books of Judge Lobingier's "Popu NEW POLITICAL DEVICES The Courts, the Constitution and Parties: Studies in Constitutional History and Politics. By Andrew C. McLaughlin, Professor of History in the Univer sity of Chicago. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Pp. 299 (index). ($1.50 net.) The Democratic Mistake. Godkin Lectures of 1909. By Arthur George Sedgwick. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. ($1.60 net.) The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall. Edited by William Bennett Munro. Assistant Professor of Government in Harvard University. National Municipal League Series. D. Appleton & Co., New York and London. Pp. 365 (index). ($1.50 net.) Documents of the State-wide Initiative, Referen dum, and Recall. By Charles A. Beard and Bird E. Schultz. Macmillan Co., New York. The Initiative. Referendum, and Recall in America. By Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. ($2.25 net.) Direct Elections and Law-making by Popular Vote: The Initiative, the Referendum, the Re call, Commission Government for Cities, Prefer ential Voting. By Edwin M. Bacon and Morrill Wyman. Houghton. Mifflin Company, Boston. Majority Rule and the Judiciary: an examina tion of current proposals for constitutional change affecting the relation of courts to legislation. By William L. Ransom, of the New York bar. With an introduction by Theodore Roosevelt. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Pp. xx. 183 (index). (60 cts. net.) Government by All the People; or. The Initiative, the Referendum, and the Recall as Instruments of Democracy. By Delos F. Wilcox. Ph.D. Mac millan Co., New York. ($1.50 net.) THE foregoing titles, in addition to Nicholas Murray Butler's "Why Should we Change our Form of Govern ment," Professor Beard's "Supreme Court and the Constitution," and Mr. Dougherty's "Power of Federal Judiciary over Legislation," make up the list of the more notable books issued since the
lar Law-Making." Not one of them is of outstanding importance as a treatise on political science, but several are of value. Professor McLaughlin, for ex ample, has brought together five timely studies with the purpose primarily of stating facts, but with the actual result of offering a dispassionate discussion of some problems of the day, on which his conclusions are happily free from any partisan bias. He has thrown additional light on the origin of the power exercised by courts in declaring statutes unconsti tutional, and he makes some sensible observations on the necessity of the party system of government and of the party manager or boss. He thinks that in time we shall work out a more effi cient system of party government which will not give rise to that outcry against abuses Therewith is awhich great we dealarethat nowisfamiliar. sugges tive and that is sound in Mr. Sedgwick's contention that the cardinal mistake of popular government in this country has been the attempt to secure respon sibility in public officials by popular election at short intervals. That this is a democratic mistake is undeniable; whether it is the democratic mistake is solely a matter of emphasis and is really of secondary importance. Mr. Sedg wick's conclusions that efficient govern ment can come only with lengthening of official tenure and increase in the num-
