in 1904, 13,524,349; in 1908, 14,887,133; or about 35 per cent not voting. This is certainly not a good showing of interest. Public opinion should arouse people to take more interest in selecting the men who are to make and administer the laws that affect their daily lives in many directions.
One result of this indifference and neglect is that there is a class described generally as “politicians,” who make the laws—and make too many of them. That is their business, and the more elaborate the governmental machinery and the more laws to be made and unmade, the better for the “politician” and his friends, who are living at the expense of the rest of us because we are too busy to express our real views about matters of grave importance.
The disposition to try to adjust everything by passing laws is nowhere more strikingly shown than in the number of laws introduced into Congress. While the largest number of proposed enactments submitted to any American Congress, during the ten-year period end-
