The cost of government not in creased. Represen tative government not destroyed. plan whereby the direct vote can be taken without an assembly of the people, it is possible to go back to the original American system of actual popular sovereignty. From the standpoint of principle, no government is American unless it is a government by and for the people; and no government can be a government by and for the people where the will of a small body of so-called representatives can override or disregard the will of the people. Q. Has it made frequent elections necessary, thus greatly increasing the cost? A. Instead of making elections more frequent and thus increasing taxation, the experience of the Swiss is the reverse. It is not worth while for politicians to attempt to squander the people's resources or for private interests to bribe them to do so when the people have it in their power upon petition of a small minority, to submit any measure passed by a legislature to a direct vote of the people and veto it if a majority so votes. This removes from the legislators the temptation to corruption. The Governor of South Dakota, a year or two after the constitutional Direct-Legislation amendment went into effect, said: "Since this Referendum law went into effect we have had no charter-mongers or railway speculators, no wild-cat schemes submitted to our legislature. Formerly our time was occupied by speculative schemes of one kind or another, but since the Referendum has been made a part of the constitution these people do not press their schemes, and hence there is no necessity for having recourse to the Referendum." Q. Does it take from the people's representatives any just rights that belong to them, or in any way limit their legitimate exercise of power? A. The Referendum takes from the people's representatives no power that justly belongs to them. The legislators are the agents and servants of the people, not their masters. No true representative has a right or a desire to do anything his principal does not wish to have done, or to refuse to do anything his principal desires to have done. The Referendum merely prevents the representatives from becoming mis-representatives by doing, through igno rance or dereliction, what the people do not want, or neglecting to do what the people do want. A legislative body may depart from the people's will because it does not know what the people's will is, or because the pressure of private or personal interest, contrary to the public interest, overcomes the legislators' allegiance to the people's will. In either case the Referendum is the remedy and the only complete remedy; the only means whereby real government by the people may be made continuous and effective. Q. Does it destroy "all the safeguards of debate and discussion, of deliberate action, of amendment or compromise"? A. No. The advantages of the present legislative system, — its compactness, experience, power of work, etc., are retained with the Referendum, but the evils of the present system, its haste, complexity, corruption and violations of the will of the people, are eliminated. Under the Referendum the city or state has its body of legal experts, trained advisers, and experienced legislators, of course, and they continue to do most of the law-making, but their power to do wrong or stop progress, their power to do as they please in spite of the people is removed. The state that adopts the Referendum has the service of its legislators, without being subject to their mastery. If the representatives act as the people wish, their action is not disturbed. If they act against the people's wish, the people have a prompt and effective veto by which they can stop a departure from their will before any damage is done. This is a much-needed safeguard of popular institutions. The Referendum raises the legislators to their old position of councillors or advisers to the people and places them above suspicion, because they cannot sell out. It also gives them an independence they do not now have. Q. Why is it imperatively demanded to-day? to control A. The Referendum is imperatively demanded because there Referendum has arisen in our midst in recent years a powerful plutocracy com- bosses and posed of the great public-service magnates, the trust chieftains and corporations. other princes of privilege who have succeeded in placing in posi Definition of the initiative. Initiative will not increase legislation. tions of leadership political bosses that are susceptible to the influence of corrupt wealth. These men direct the political machine whose manipulators are liberally supplied with the ill-gotten wealth furnished by privileged interests for future favors and for protection against legislation that might be enacted in the interests of the people. Through this unholy alliance of corporate wealth with political bosses and money-controlled machines, incorruptible legislators and officials are driven into retirement and their places filled with creatures beholden to corporate wealth and monopoly interests. Against these evils the Referendum is a powerful weapon. It brings the government back to the people, destroying corruption and the mastership of the many by the few. Q. What is the popular Initiative? A. The popular Initiative is the right of a certain percentage of the voters, usually five to ten per cent., to propose a law, ordinance, or constitutional amendment for action by the legislature or decision at the polls or both. Under what is considered by many as the proper form, the measure which is petitioned by the requisite number of voters goes to the proper legislative body which may adopt or reject it, amend it, pass a substitute, or refrain from any action in reference to it. If the legislative body does not enact the measure as petitioned for, or if it takes adverse action in any form, the said measure together with the amendment, substitute or other action of the legislative body goes to the electorate for final decision at the polls. Q. Would the Initiative result in the demand for a number of unnecessary or foolish laws? A. Experience in Switzerland and in our Western States proves that legislation under the Initiative is on the whole wise and conservative. Any one who will take the trouble year after year to read the statutes passed by our legislatures will find it difficult to imagine how any system likely to be adopted in a free country could possibly produce more foolish or vicious laws than the system of law-making by final vote of a few men, largely under the influence of private and special interests, now in operation in this country. In the long run the judgment of a free people is likely to be superior to the judgment of any small legislative body. When men follow their errors or private interests they diverge. A few men may go together in allegiance to some error or private interest, but when the people as a whole unite it must be by a cancellation of their errors and private interests. In large communities as a rule it is only on the basis of truth and right that the people can get together in controlling numbers. Moreover, the inertia of mankind and the effort and cost necessary to secure the requisite percentage of signatures to the petition render the Initiative essentially conservative. People will not ask for the passage of a law unless they are convinced that it is needed. This has been proved to be the case wherever the Initiative has been employed. But the possession of this right, together with the Referendum, has practically led to the disappearance of corrupt lobbies and other sinister influences that have long offered great temptations to the people's representatives and in many instances have rendered impossible the enactment of needed legislation while forcing to a successful issue laws that were not desired by the people and were inimical to their interests. Q. What classes favor the Initiative? A. Those who desire real popular sovereignty; those who desire that the legislators elected by the people shall be representatives, and not misrepresentatives; those who desire to terminate the private monopoly of law-making; those who desire to kill the corporation lobby and abolish boss rule and machine government; those who desire to bring better men into politics, to simplify elections, to lessen the power of partnership, to stop class legislation, to elevate the press and educate the people, to open the door of progress to all wise measures of reform, to establish a reasonable safety valve for discontent and to take the next great step in the improvement of representative government in harmony with the whole trend of modern political history throughout the civilized world and with the fundamental demands of democracy. The initia tive is funda mentally democratic. The system is revolutionary. Political liberty and representa tive government. 170. Arguments against the Initiative and Referendum * The case against the initiative and referendum is thus forcibly stated by Senator Lodge in a speech directed against the Public Opinion Bill printed above: As a matter of fact, no more fundamental and far-reaching measure has been presented to the legislature of Massachusetts within my recollection. It was not a mere change in legal practice nor an alteration of long-established laws, nor even a constitutional change which was proposed. The bill involves all these and much more, for if carried out logically to its full extent, it would mean nothing less than a complete revolution in the fabric of our Government and in the fundamental principles upon which that Government rests. This may seem an extreme statement, but I think it is susceptible of absolute demonstration, because this bill, if it should become law, would undermine and ultimately break down the representative principle in our political and governmental system. To make my meaning perfectly clear it will be necessary to consider briefly and historically the principles upon which all government rests and the instruments by which it is carried on. Our division of the departments of government into executive, legislative, and judicial, with which we are entirely familiar, and which the Constitution of the United States made coördinate and independent, is not a modern classification, but represents in whole or in part the recognized and essential foundations of all government. ... Wherever you look into the history of the last four hundred years you will find that the rise and the power of the representative body are coincident with freedom, and that the rise of despotism is coincident with the breakdown of whatever representative bodies there may have been. The history of the representative principle in modern times is the history of political freedom, and this representative principle is the great contribution of the Englishspeaking people and of the period since the Renaissance to the |