urn this book on or before the est Date stamped below. heft, mutilation, and underlining of books re reasons for disciplinary action and may esult in dismissal from the University. University of Illinois Library EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT AND THE ESSENTIALS OF THE CONSTITUTION By Elihu Root I. Experiments in Government 1920 Princeton University Press Edition Printed and Distributed by National Association for Constitutional Government 716-717 Colorado Building Washington, D. C. EXPERIMENTS There are two separate processes going on among the civilized nations at the present time. One is an assault by socialism against the individualism which underlies the social system of western civilization. The other is an assault against existing institutions upon the ground that they do not adequately protect and develop the existing social order. It is of this latter process in our own country that I wish to speak, and I assume an agreement, that the right of individual liberty and the inseparable right of private property which lie at the foundation of our modern civilization ought to be maintained. The conditions of life in America have changed very much since the Constitution of the United States was adopted. In 1787 each state entering into the Federal Union had preserved the separate organic life of the original. colony. Each had its center of social and business and political life. Each was separated from the others by the barriers of slow and difficult communication. In a vast territory, without railroads or steamships or telegraph or telephone, each community lived within itself. Now, there has been a general social and industrial rearrangement. Production and commerce pay no attention to state lines. The life of the country is no longer grouped about state capitals, but about the great centers of continental production and trade. The organic growth which |