The Old Order Changeth: A View of American Democracy was published by Macmillan in 1910. White wrote it at the height of the Progressive Era — the moment when the movement that had begun with municipal reform in the 1890s seemed about to transform the entire American political system. The title (from Tennyson’s “Morte d’Arthur”) signals White’s conviction that America was experiencing a fundamental political revolution.
White’s argument: the old order — government by and for business interests, the rule of machine politicians allied with corporate power, the exclusion of ordinary citizens from genuine political participation — was giving way to a new democracy. The instruments of this revolution were the direct primary, the initiative and referendum, the direct election of senators, and the commission form of city government. White believed these institutional reforms would restore genuine popular sovereignty and break the power of the “invisible government” of wealth.
The book captures the progressive movement’s optimism at its peak — the conviction that institutional reform could cure corruption and restore democracy. It is both historical document (an inside account of progressive thinking at its most confident) and period piece (the reforms White championed have produced mixed results, and the “old order” has proven more resilient than progressives imagined).
Collecting The Old Order Changeth
First edition (Macmillan, New York, 1910): Cloth.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $30–$75
- Very good: $10–$30