The Editor's Bag bilitated by a superabundance of checks and balances, for we have outlived Montesquieu's philosophy of the state. The fewer checks we have on incompe tence, the more imperative will be the popular demand for efficiency, and this consideration applies with particu lar force to proposed remedies for the unfitness of judges. THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIANA THE present constitution of Indiana provides that amendments can not be submitted to the people before they have been passed by two successive legislatures. Governor Marshall him self drafted a proposed new constitu tion to which he evidently thought that this rule would not apply. He put a great deal of labor into the proposed constitution, which was admittedly an able document, and then hurried it through the legislature, where it was adopted within two weeks with little if any debate, for submission to popular vote in 1912. The notion underlying this proce dure seems to have been that an entirely new constitution would not call for the same process of adoption as amendments to an existing one, that it was sufficient that it be proposed by the representa tives of the people for their direct action, and that the original proposal might as properly come from the legislature as from a constitutional convention. The inherent sovereignty of the people of the state is thus supposed to give them the right to adopt a new constitution without pursuing the procedure indi cated by the constitution already in force. This position undoubtedly finds able advocates,1 but nevertheless seems rather a strange one. Where the people 1 See for example, paper by J. F. Dunn, in Prockedings of American Political Science Association, 1911, p. 43.
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of a state, in their constitution, have clearly indicated the procedure to be adopted in revising, amending, or changing the document, such provisions would appear to be mandatory, rather than merely permissive, and if they apply to the amendment of the existing constitution, they would a fortiori seem to apply even more positively to the adoption of an entirely new one, be cause of the presumption that even stronger safeguards were contemplated in the event of a proposal to alter the constitution in its entirety. The decision handed down by the Indiana Supreme Court on July 5, holding a constitutional convention necessary, was in harmony with the method usually followed by the states of this country in adopting a new fundamental law, for it is unusual to delegate the functions of a constitu tional convention to the legislature. The rule of construction according to which delegations of popular power are broadly to be construed, in favor of the people, should also be considered. JUDGE DODGE'S APPOINTMENT THE Senate on July 23 confirmed the President's nomination of District Judge Frederic Dodge to be a United States Circuit Judge for the first judicial circuit. The President had been strongly inclined to let this appointment go to Chief Justice Par sons of New Hampshire. But the Mas sachusetts Bar Association had rec ommended Judge Dodge's promotion, and the indorsement of Senators Crane and Lodge, supported by the influence of Senator Root, had great weight. Judge Dodge's office was not affected by the federal judiciary act which went into effect at the beginning of this year, affecting the circuit judges. Judges Putnam, Colt, and Schofield thus con
