Such are the circumstances which a priori make the continuance of our extra-legal government, in the face of popular disapproval, probable. The fact that it has and does now so continue is becoming every day more apparent. Suppose, for instance, at any time in the last ten years the direct issue could have been presented to the electorate whether they preferred government by an extra-legal oligarchy of politocrats, subject only indirectly and very slightly at any single election to the electorate, or a legal government, subject directly to the will of the electorate. Can there be any doubt that the great majority would vote the extra-legal government out of power and abolish politocracy as they would abolish absolute monarchy or a self-perpetuating oligarchy? If any demonstration of the temper of the electorate on such an issue be needed, we have it in the steady popularity of all measures which have been put forward aimed at the so-called political bosses and government by them. Twenty-five years ago it was apparent to the electorate that the ward boss in some districts of our larger cities maintained himself in part at least upon corrupt voting. Hence the Australian ballot. Then it was observed that political machines supported their workers by salaries from the public pay-rolls. Hence the civil service acts. Then the extra-legal government’s control over nominations seemed to be the true source of its power. Hence the direct primary. It was also observed that the extra-legal government had a grip on the state and municipal legislatures and the state and local executive offices and the judges. Hence the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. It was observed that the origin of the extra-legal government and the great source of its power came from the complexity of our municipal governments, their cumbersome administrative machinery, and the number of offices submitted to the electorate. Hence the movement for the consolidation of municipal governments and their control by a commission. It has been observed that the governor often expressed in a satisfactory manner the desires of a majority of the electorate, but that he had no power to initiate legislation. Hence the two recent proposals that the governor’s bills be given the right of way upon the legislative calendar so that they could be brought to a vote and not quietly strangled by the crowding of the legislative docket and the action of committees; and that the governor be allowed to submit for approval by the electorate generally any bill presented to the legislature and not passed by it.[5] The judges, especially those of the Supreme Court, were observed to be declaring laws, in favor of which there was great popular sentiment, unconstitutional. The courts were then at once placed by the electorate in the same camp with the extra-legal government--quite unjustly perhaps--and the demand arose for the recall of judges, or the recall of judicial decisions