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Although the colony of Plymouth began as a pure democracy under which all the men were convened to decide executive and judicial questions, the increase of population and its diffusion over a wider territory necessarily led to the transaction of official business through chosen representatives. The representative system was thus established by the Pilgrims in New England perhaps more firmly than elsewhere, and it became the cardinal principle of whatever efficiency, strength and stability our republican governments now have. This system is menaced by the enthusiasm for change and by the fads of recent years, such as the initiative, the referendum, the recall and direct primaries. In these political nostrums has been revived the crude notion that the masses, inexperienced as they are in the difficult and complex problems of government, are instinctively better qualified to guide than the educated few who are trained, instructed and competent, and who, acting as the representatives of all, are bound in good conscience and sound policy to consider and protect the rights of the minority, of the individual, of the humble and weak, against the arbitrary will or selfish interest or prejudice of the majority.