We find many political and social reformers advocating an absolute legislative body, whose edicts, in response to the wishes, interests, or prejudices of the majority, shall at once become binding on all, no matter how unjust or oppressive these edicts may be. Those who are loudest in thus demanding the supremacy of the legislative power are equally loud in charging that our legislatures are inefficient or corrupt and in proclaiming distrust of the people's representatives in legislative bodies. In one breath we are asked to vest legislatures with power and discretion beyond the control of the courts, and in the next breath we are told that legislative bodies are not to be trusted by the people, and hence that we must have the initiative and the referendum. Other reformers would vest greater power in the executive, so as to enable him to dictate to legislatures whatever he deemed or professed to think best for the common welfare or for social progress. In the final analysis this would, of course, reduce us to a despotism pure and simple, and place Congress and the state legislatures in the condition of the Roman senate in the second century. Argue as we may from the admonitions and experience of the past, the defiant answer is that the people will select the executive and are prepared to trust him, an answer that singularly disregards the fact that they now select the legislators whom they no longer trust, and that practical reform in legislation is ready to their hand if they will only insist upon character and ability in their representatives.