The late Professor William A. Dunning is reported to have said of the recent political theories which attempt to replace the conception of state sovereignty by some pluralistic grouping of social forces, that they were “radically unintelligible.” It is hard for political theorists who have been accustomed to regard the conception of sovereignty as a foundation stone and a sort of “rock of ages” for their faith to be told (as one is every day, more or less) that the anti-intellectualistic type of a sociological basis is the only valid one for juristic structure. For that, according to the old rationalistic conceptions of analytical jurisprudence, is indeed to base sovereignty upon shifting sands and to deprive law of any special significance of its own by equating it with social reactions of the most indeterminate character. But the anti-intellectualistic trend of modern political theory indignantly denies this charge. The assumption, it counters, that any legal center of reference can be final in its authority or in its right to command is an outworn Hegelianism, discredited by practice and theory alike. Law is too much a thing of fictions to be taken seriously in its claims, when it pretends to be giving an accurate description of facts in the abstract terms of a pretended right on the part of the state to be the sole author of enforceable commands and the only rightful claimant of men's ultimate loyalty.

Sectionalism is a fundamental and persistent factor in American politics. In the shaping of congressional legislation and even in the formation of the platforms of our national parties, the influence of conflicting sectional interests is of prime importance. The precise nature of such sectional conflicts and the alignment of the various sections upon the leading policies of the time are clearly revealed by an analysis of the votes and debates in Congress on outstanding issues of national importance. Such votes, mapped by congressional districts, show that again and again party lines are broken by the force of sectional interest and that both Republicans and Democrats divide into sectional wings.

A study of the period from the early 1870's to 1890 shows that sectionalism at that time was in large measure the product of the interaction of two movements in our national development,—the rapid expansion of Western settlement, particularly in the trans-Mississippi Middle West (the West North Central states) and the Mountain region, and the marked intensification of industrialism in the older sections of the country, especially in the North Atlantic states. Sectional alliances are flexible and shift with changing economic conditions. The East North Central states, for example, which at the beginning of the period usually vote in alliance with the West North Central and South, by the later eighties are found often on the side of the North Atlantic, a change which may be due to the fact that in the interval they had undergone a marked industrial development which gave them economic interests in common with the older sections. The areas of strongest radical voting move farther West with the shift in the centres of production of grain and livestock; that is, the nucleus of revolt in the Western wing of the Republican party especially is in the newer agricultural regions.

The significance of Populism is being increasingly recognized. In this day of independent voting, and of the “farm bloc,” it is unnecessary to stimulate interest in this phase of American political, economic, and agricultural history. Although its term of life was short and turbid, its relation to other movements and questions gives it importance beyond that which it would otherwise enjoy.

Many have endeavored to explain its rise. To some it represented an outpouring of the dangerous elements of the frontier combined with the beginnings of socialistic and anarchistic tendencies in the cities. An English observer characterized the supporters of Bryan in 1896 as the “forces of political and social revolution.” A western editorial writer wrote that ninety per cent of the leaders of the Populist Party were “destitute of personal or political integrity” and classed them as “vagabonds, slanderers, and demagogues.”

Fifteen years ago the principle of majority elections became applicable to all phases of public life in Sweden; and along with the movement for democratization there developed the idea of proportional representation. This principle was urged especially by Conservatives, who feared that if elections to Andra Kammaren (the Lower House) should be based upon universal suffrage with the retention of the majority system, the Conservative party would be completely annihilated.

The recent presidential elections in Germany aroused world-wide interest in spite of the strictly limited constitutional powers of the president. For the first time the German voters were privileged to select the chief executive of the state. The question whether they would turn to some one in sympathy with the pre-war regime or would select an adherent of the Weimar republican constitution was one the answer to which might have important bearings on European politics. Moreover, the personalities of the candidates, especially in the second election, were such as to add to the interest which both Germany's friends and foes felt in the outcome.

Both Serbs and Croats have deserved more conciliatory and understanding leadership than they have received since the war. History had treated them very differently, and once they were united in a Jugoslav national state every resource of statesmanship should have been exercised to ease over their psychological and material dissimilarities. Writers have made much of the religious gap between Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs, and of the former's use of the Latin alphabet and the latter's of the Cryillic. The fact remains that they are of the same race, speak the same language, and for generations dreamed of union and worked for it.