When a representative was weeks in reaching the capital he acted on his
own responsibility in larger measure than now, when his constituency can
reach him every morning. The valley is reached every day, just as the
people in a pure democracy were reached by the ancient stentor. The people
are reserving to themselves more and more of the function of their one-
time representatives, in such measures as the referendum and initiative
intimate, and are trying to secure more accurate representation in such
systems as the direct primary and proportional representation suggest; but
these all are possible only through the aid of the wheel and of what it
has brought. If the improvement of democracy is to come through more
democracy, as some think, then the railroad is an essential agent of
political progress as well as of economic exploitation and social
homogeneity. I am not discussing this thesis but simply showing how
dependent upon this physical agent is the machinery of democracy.
Moreover, mobility is almost an essential quality of the spirit of
democracy, the free way to the farthest horizons, the open road to the
highest position and service.
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