AMERICAN PROBLEMS by WILLIAM E.BORAH 1924

172 WILLIAM E. BORAH
changing the fundamental basis of government
—we must add to it the accumulated experience
of all the past. Many a splendid movement
for better government has become surfeited
with an excess of ecstasy and thus surfeiting
"sicken and so die."
It requires just as
much judgment, coolness, and persistency, just
as much common sense, just as shrewd and
keen a regard for the common experience and
the peculiar qualities of human nature to
achieve good legislation for the people as it
does to enact the bad. When we take an unwise
or an impractical position we have contributed
something to the victory of the opposition.
There is a vast amount of practical common
He is
sense in the ordinary American citizen.
never long in error. He loves liberty, but he
also in the end demands security and stability.
He would not long accept a proposition which
would imperil the stability and independence of
the judicial system for which his ancestors
fought for three centuries. One of the main
questions settled by the English revolution of
1688 was that the people should have the right
to appeal for protection to an independent tribunal
of justice. Prior to that time the judges
were subject to removal by the King, Under