What is Reform?

I am currently reading a book called Democratic Despotism by Raoul E. Desvernine in 1936. I found it at a used book sale here in Louisville a few weeks ago, and it has so far proven to be an excellent $2 buy. From what little I can find out, Mr. Desvernine was a lawyer for the American Liberty League, that spoke out against Roosevelt's New Deal. I thought this little exerpt was intersting, keeping in mind that this was written 60 years ago, but relevant seeing that the 'New Deal' was not what I was taught it was growing up and how it did not bring this country out of the depression.

Desvernine writes:

"It needs no argument to prove that some reform is imperative, for to deny that reform is necessary is to suggest the absurdity that perfection has already been attained, and to close one's eyes as well to many glaring examples of its need. Reform must, however, be distinguished from Revolution. Reform is the correction of abuses, the prevention of their recurrence, the adaptation of the existing State to changed conditions; it is not the discarding of the existing order and the susbstituting of a different system. It is the objective sought which supplies the rest of the social value of the effort, but we must be careful, that in our enthusiasm to attain this objective, and in our righteous indignation against abuses, we do not even unconsciously select and pursue methods which alter all our accepted concepts of government.

Nor has it yet been demonstrated by the New Dealers, or by anybody else, that our political institutions are substantially outmoded, that malpractices and abuses cannot be corrected, and that all adjustments needed to square them with progress, cannot be made within the framework of our institutions. Moreover, we need not look far to see that the ultimate fulfillment of the "reforms" which are being proposed leads to a system even more tyrannous and class-privileged than that which these Minor Prophets claim the present system to be."