courts to pass on questions of partisan and political views must eventually direct the attention of the public more and more to this unusual power of the courts, and that the courts will not be able to escape popular criticism. The wide attention that this question must attract in the immediate future is the excuse for the publication of this volume. W. B. B. COLLEGE OF INDUSTRIAL ARTS, Judicial Interpretation of Political Theory WE INTRODUCTION WE are told by Professor Ellwood in a recent book' that "Highly dynamic societies control social activities by what is known as public opinion. Public opinion is not found to any extent in savage and barbarous societies, because social tradition takes its place. By public opinion we mean a more or less rational collective judgment formed by the action and reaction of many individual opinions upon one another." Under our system governmental policies crystallize out of public opinion, and the 'collective judgment" resulting therefrom finds expression in our party system of politics. The social judgment which is the product of the collective opinion of a party has, in more recent times, found expression in a party platform. The aim of party activity has been in every case to give these social judgments the force of law, for this is 1 Sociology in its Psychological Aspects (1912), p. 334. the only way by which their real merits or demerits can be shown. In the course of our political history the number of these social judgments has been numerous, the economic, political, and social changes of each decade tending to multiply them, and the parties themselves have created issues in order to give more distinct emphasis to certain beliefs deemed of paramount importance. But of the great number that have become of sufficient consequence to secure party recognition, few have been of fundamental and permanent significance. Some, however, have involved great principles of government and their relation to our organic law has been a matter of fundamental importance. Among these may be named the judicial theory of constitutional construction, the nature of the Federal Union, the policy of expansion (Imperialism v. Expansion), the theory of a national bank, the theory of legal tender, the protective tariff, internal improvements, and the income tax. About these great questions political debate has raged and learned and profound judicial opinions have been rendered by the most powerful judicial tribunal on the earth. No student of our political history can fail to discern the important function the Supreme Court has performed in giving its stamp of approval to the social judgments of parties, or in pointing out the fallacies therein. And the uniformly high integrity of the members of the Court throughout |