Jf>fW 
 
63d Congress \ 
 2d Session I 
 
 SENATE 
 
 f Document 
 \ No. 360 
 
 DIRECT LEGISLATION 
 
 JF 488 
 .P3 
 Copy 1 
 
 ARTICLE 
 
 RELATIVE TO POPULAR 
 
 GOVERNMENT THROUGH INITIATIVE, 
 
 REFERENDUM, AND RECALL 
 
 By 
 
 PROF. FRANK E. PARSONS 
 
 REVISED AND EDITED, 1912, BY 
 
 MILTON T U'REN 
 
 OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAR; 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE DIRECT 
 
 LEGISLATION LEAGUE OF 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 % 
 
 PRESENTED BY MR. OWEN 
 JANUARY 13, 1914.— Ordered to be printed 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 1914 
 
Pa 
 
 d; of d, 
 
 fEB 2C» 1914 
 
 >( . - 
 
\ 
 
 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 In early days the legislative function was exercised by the whole 
 body of enfranchised citizens assembled for the purpose. The laws 
 of the Commonwealth were made by the voters directly, in substan- 
 tially the same way that the laws of a New England town are made 
 to-day. But after a time the body of freemen became too large to 
 meet in this way and a system of lawmaking by delegates was 
 adopted. Towns and districts elected men to represent them in 
 legislative council, and government by representatives took the place 
 of government by the people except in respect to the local affairs of 
 towns that possess the town-meeting system. 
 
 The change from legislation by the people to legislation by final 
 vote of a body of representatives chosen for a specified term was a 
 transformation fraught with the most momentous consequences. 
 Under the former system the people had complete control of legis- 
 lation. No laws were passed that the people did not want and all 
 laws were passed that the people did want. But under the delegate 
 or representative-final- vote system this is not true. The representa- 
 tives can and do make and put in force many laws the people do not 
 desire and they neglect or refuse to make some laws the people do 
 desire. The people can not command or veto their action during 
 their term of office. The representatives are the real masters of the 
 situation for the time being. \ Between elections the sovereign power 
 of controlling legislation is not in the hands of the people, but in the 
 hands of a small body of men called representatives.' It appears, 
 therefore, that the change from legislation by the voters in person to 
 legislation by delegates was a change from a real democracy to an 
 elective aristocracy, from a continuous and effective popular sover- 
 eignty to an intermittent, spasmodic, and largely ineffective popular 
 sovereignty; from a government of the people, by the people, and 
 for the people to a government of the people, by a few for — the 
 people? Yes, sometimes, but too often for the legislators, and the 
 lobbies, bosses, rings, monopolies, and party leaders who control 
 them. It was a change in which self-government was fettered and 
 the soul of liberty was lost. 
 
 What, then, shall be done ? Shall we give up the representative 
 principle? Clearly not. Division of labor and expert service are as 
 essential in lawmaking as in any other business. It is not repre- 
 sentation, but misrepresentation that is wrong — not the representa- 
 tive system per se, but the unguarded and imperfect form of it in 
 use at present. What we want is not a body of legislators beyond 
 the reach of the people for one, two, four, or six years, as the case may 
 be, but a body of legislators subject at all times to the people's direc- 
 tion and control. It is good to have powerful horses to draw your 
 
 S 
 
4 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 load, but it is well to have bit and rein and whip if they are frisky or 
 likely to shy or balk. It is good to choose strong men to manage 
 municipal and State affairs, but it is well too to provide the means to 
 hold them in check or make them move at the people's will. 
 
 The problem is to keep the advantages of the representative 
 system — its compactness, legal wisdom, experience, power of work, 
 etc., and eliminate its evils, haste, complexity, corruption, error, over 
 legislation and under legislation — departure from the people's will 
 by omission or commission. 
 
 The solution lies in a representative system guarded by constitu- 
 tional provisions for popular initiative, adoption, veto, and recall. 
 Elect your councilmen and legislators and let them pass laws exactly 
 as they do now, except that no act but such as may be necessary 
 for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety 
 shall go into effect until 30 days after its passage in case of a city 
 ordinance or 90 days in case of a State law. If within the said time 
 a certain percentage of the voters of a city or State (say 5 or 10 per 
 cent) sign a petition asking that the law or ordinance be submitted 
 to the people at the polls, let it be so submitted at the next regular 
 election, or at a special election if 15 or 20 per cent of the voters so 
 
 Eetition. If the majority of those voting on the measure favor it, it 
 ecomes a law; if the majority are against it, it is vetoed by the 
 people. 
 
 Let it be further provided that if the council or legislature neglect 
 or refuse to take any such action by ordinance, law, contract, franchise, 
 etc., as the people desire, the matter may be brought forward for 
 prompt decision by a petition signed by a reasonable percentage 
 (say, 5 or 10 per cent) of the voters of the city or State. \The petition 
 may simply state the general purpose and scope of the desired measure, 
 leaving the council or legislature to frame a bill to be submitted to the 
 voters; or it may embody a bill or ordinance, whereupon the petition, 
 with the bill or ordinance, will go to the council or legislature, which 
 may adopt it, reject it, pass an amendment or substitute, or do 
 nothing — in any case the proposed measure (together with the action 
 of the council or legislature upon it, if any) will go to the polls for 
 final decision at the next election, or earlier, if a sufficient number 
 (say 15 or 20 per cent) of the voters so petition. Or the petition 
 may require that the proposed law be placed directly before the 
 people, without reference to the legislative body, for their adoption 
 or rejection. 
 
 These methods of law making by the people are called direct legis- 
 lation, which includes two main processes known as the initiative 
 and the referendum. 
 
 The referendum may be obligatory or optional, general or partial, 
 executive, legislative, judicial, or petitionai. Under the general 
 obligatory referendum all laws except emergency measures (acts 
 necessary for the immediate preservation of the public health, peace, 
 or safety) must be submitted to the people; no petition is needed; 
 the submission is as much a part of the process of law making as the 
 submission to the mayor or governor. The cantons of Berne and 
 Zurich, in Switzerland, have had this system in operation for 30 years 
 with admirable results. Under the partial obligatory referendum 
 all laws of a certain class must be submitted to the people. For 
 example, constitutional amendments must be submitted to the 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 voters in every one of our States except Delaware, an<(\in Missouri, 
 California, Washington, Minnesota, and Louisiana freehold charters 
 must go to the polls. The purchase or erection of waterworks, gas 
 and electric, plants, telephones and street railways, the issue of bonds 
 for roads, schools, and other municipal movements of large impor- 
 tance are usually guarded by the obligatory referendum 
 
 The optional referendum provides for a vote of the people on any 
 measure in reference to which such vote is demanded by petition of a 
 reasonable percentage of the voters, or by some officer or body in 
 whom such discretion is vested. 
 
 The executive referendum is where the mayor or governor or Presi- 
 dent has a right to refer a measure to the voters for decision. 
 
 The legislative referendum is where one house, or a given percent- \ 
 age (say 25 per cent) of one or of both houses may refer a measure 
 to the people for decision, or where a measure upon which the houses 
 disagree must be referred to the voters. 
 
 The judicial referendum is where a law that lias been declared 
 unconstitutional must be submitted to the people for the final 
 decision under a fixed rule to that effect, or may be so submitted by 
 the court, or by a specified number of the judges. 1 
 
 The petional referendum is where the submission is called for by 
 petition of the voters. A petition signed by the required number 
 of voters is imperative, not a mere request, but a compelling mandate. 
 It is the pctitional form of the optional referendum, or the system 
 in which the option lies with the people, that is usually meant when 
 the word "referendum" is used without explanation. 
 
 It will be seen that executive, legislative, or judicial referenda may 
 be either obligatory or optional, general or special, and that the 
 petitional method can be used to repeal an old law or veto a new one, 
 or confirm a law declared unconstitutional, or call for an election 
 to remove a legislative or executive officer or a judge from office. 
 
 The effective vote at the polls may be fixed at a majority of those 
 voting, or of those entitled to vote, or a three-fifths, two-thirds, or 
 three-fourths vote may be required. 
 
 The word " referendum" is often used in the sense of the right of the 
 people to have enactments submitted to them, and it is also used to 
 designate a statute or constitutional amendment securing this right. 
 The word "initiative" is used in a similar manner. The context will 
 usually show which sense is intended. 
 
 The initiative is the proposal of a law by the people. 
 
 The referendum is the submission of a law to the people at the polls 
 for approval or rejection. 
 
 By these means the people can start or stop legislation at will. 
 By initiative petition they can bring a measure forward for discus- 
 sion and decision. They can rep3al an old law or amend it, or enact 
 a new one, and progress is no longer barred by the interests or inertia 
 of the legislators or councilmen, nor by the weight and wealth of 
 corporate monopoly. Moreover, the people can prevent bad legisla- 
 tion as well as secure good legislation. If the legislature passes a law 
 the people dislike they can call for a referendum and veto the measure 
 at the polls before it goes into effect, whereas at present the law goes 
 
 1 The judicial referendum or "recall of decisions" bas been advocated by ex-I resident Roose'v elt. S>>a 
 his Carnegie Hall Speech, New York City, Mar. 20, 1912, S. Do-. No. 473, 62d Con;,'. 
 
6 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 into effect whether the people like it or not, and they have_ to wait 
 till they can elect a new legislature to repeal the obnoxious act 
 (after the damage is largely done, perhaps), and if the said act is a 
 franchise, very likely it can not be revoked at all when once allowed 
 to take effect — a franchise grant to a private company being a con- 
 tract within the protection of the Federal Constitution, as established 
 by the United States Supreme Court in the famous Dartmouth 
 College case. This fact makes it particularly necessary that franchise 
 grants (especially if unqualified by a reservation of the right to revoke 
 at will) should be submitted to the people. 
 
 Does not the direct-legislation amendment to the representative 
 system solve the problem? Does not the guarded representative 
 system retain the benefits and eliminate the evils of the unguarded 
 representative system ? The city or State will have its body of legal 
 experts, trained advisors, and experienced legislators as at present. 
 They will continue to do most of the law making as they do now, 
 but their power to do wrong or stop progress, their power to do as 
 they please in spite of the people, will be gone. The city and State 
 will have the service of its legislators without being subject to their 
 mastery. If the delegates act as the people wish, their action will 
 not be disturbed. If they act against the people's wish, the people 
 will have a prompt and effective veto by which they can stop a 
 departure from their will before any damage is done. _ If the delegates 
 do not act, the people can put the machinery in motion and bring the 
 matter to decision. When the delegates truly represent the people 
 their action will stand; when they fail to represent the people their 
 decision will be subject to prompt revision. Under the unguarded 
 representative system their acts that do not represent the people's 
 will stand as firm during their term of office as the acts that do repre- 
 sent the popular will. Is this right? Is it right that the people's 
 delegates should be able to impose their will upon the people for one, 
 two, four, or six years ? Is it right that the acts of political agents, 
 contrary to the people's will, should stand in spite of the people ? 
 Is such a delegate system really worthy to be called a "representative 
 system?" Is a system properly termed representative which may 
 misrepresent as much as or more than it represents, and in which there 
 is no adequate means of determining whether its action is representa- 
 tive or not ? Is not the right to a referendum, the right of the people 
 to prevent the delegates from misrepresenting them, absolutely 
 necessary to entitle the delegate system to the name "representative V 
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 There is a confused impression in the minds of many that the choos- 
 ing of rulers is the substance of freedom and self-government; that a 
 people who elect their lawmakers are really making the laws. But 
 it is not so. The selection of a governor is not governing, any more 
 than the selection of a captain is commanding, or the choice of an 
 organist or pianist is playing. The choice of a legislature is not self- 
 government any more than the selection of a jailer or the choice of a 
 jail is freedom. 
 
 An apprentice may be allowed to choose the master to whom he is 
 to be bound for years, and a lunatic or minor who is deemed incapable 
 of governing his own affairs may, nevertheless, have the privilege of 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 7 
 
 selecting the guardian who is to govern him. A people may elect 
 their rulers and yet live under an absolute despotism. This was true 
 in old Rome when the king was elected by the whole body of citizens. 
 It is true now of the Western Fulahs in Africa and the Kamtscadales 
 in Asia, who elect their chiefs, but after election must obey the head- 
 man's orders. It is true in many of the cities of America, where the 
 people go to the polls year after year in the fond delusion that they 
 nave a voice in the administration of public affairs, whereas, in reality, 
 a ring of rascals holds the city in its grasp, and whichever nominee 
 the citizens may vote for the ring will rule the same as before, enact- 
 ing its private purposes into law, pouring the public moneys into its 
 purse, filling appointments with its creatures to perpetuate its power, 
 and controlling the city for its plunder, regardless of the interests or 
 the wishes of the people. It is true in the Nation and the States as 
 well as in the cities. The rule of a congress or legislature that does 
 the will of a railroad or syndicate of gamblers in opposition to public 
 opinion and the good of the Commonwealth is a despotism as truly 
 as ever the rule of a Tarquin or a Caesar was. Napoleon himself, 
 the archdespot of modern times, was elected to his imperial power. 
 
 The duration of a government or lease of power has nothing to do 
 with its character as free or despotic. A control that lasts but a 
 single year may be as far from freedom as one that endures for a life- 
 time; and a people electing their rulers each year to govern accord- 
 ing to their own sweet will may be no better off than a nation which 
 elects a sovereign to wear the crown for life. The essence of despot- 
 ism is the control of others for the benefit of the controller, regardless 
 of the welfare of the controlled. The Tweed administration was a 
 despotism, although elected to power. So was the gas legislation of 
 the Philadelphia councils leasing the city works to a powerful and 
 corrupt ring, in spite of the well-known and vigorously manifested 
 opposition of the great mass of the people. So was the action of the 
 black Congress that gave away the people's franchises and money 
 and lands to the schemers who projected the Pacific roads. Men of 
 America, do you govern the country ? Is it your will that is done in 
 Senate Chamber and council hall or is it the will of the Oil Trust, 
 Sugar Trust, Whisky Trust, the railways, and the bankers? He is 
 the sovereign whose will is in control. You are not sovereign, for 
 many things you wish to have done remain undone, and many things 
 are done that you do not wish to have done. Politicians call you 
 sovereigns in their campaign speeches. But it is not true. You 
 have the privilege of choosing which of two or three sets of sovereigns 
 you will have to rule over you, but you are not sovereigns yourselves. 
 The men you elect are your masters during their term of office. You 
 come to them, not as sovereigns to their servants, but as subjects, 
 with humble petitions, which you are not surprised to see them reject 
 or ignore. They give away your property and you are helpless; they 
 pass laws without your approval and against your interest and you 
 can not prevent their taking effect; they refuse to take action on 
 your most pressing needs, and you are powerless until the expiration 
 of their deeds of sovereignty gives you an opportunity to choose a 
 new lot of masters to rule you for another term. This is not a govern- 
 ment by the people, but a government by an aristocracy of office- 
 holders elected by the people. You call your rulers "representa- 
 tives;" and to some extent they are such. Honesty and coincidence 
 
8 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 of interest do lead them to carry out your will to some extent, but 
 they are free to legislate for their own private interests or the interests 
 of those who furnish inducements for action in their behalf and the 
 people can not prevent it. Representatives have their uses. You 
 need the aid of specialists in legislation, but you do not need to part 
 with your rightful control of your own affairs when you seek their 
 aid and council any more than you need to part with it in dealing 
 with a tailor, a doctor, or an architect. 
 
 It is well to employ an architect when you are going to build, but 
 you would never think of giving him power to draw up his plans and 
 put them into execution without submitting them to you for approval; 
 much less would you give him a right to refuse to alter his plans in 
 accordance with your request, or to decide how much of your money 
 should be spent without recourse to you for assent, or to expend your 
 funds for a structure which you strongly disapproved and against 
 which you loudly protested. You would avail yourself of the archi- 
 tect's skill inthe drawing of plans, but you would feel free to tell him 
 what sort of a house you desired, and would expect him to act upon 
 your directions and suggestions, and to submit his plans to you for 
 approval or rejection before beginning to build on your land and on 
 your credit or with your cash. In this case you would continue to 
 control your affairs while availing yourself of the architect's widsom 
 and skill. In the first case the control of your affairs would be in 
 the architect, not in you. 
 
 It is the same with legislation. Doubtless it is well to seek the aid 
 and counsel of men well versed in law and skilled in the phrasing of 
 statutes, but it is not necessary to give these men the power to ignore 
 our petitions, nor the right to put the laws they plan in execution 
 without allowing us time and opportunity to express our disapproval 
 and rejection if we wish to do so. There are cases of extreme urgency, 
 in which the architect or the legislative agent must be permitted to 
 act without waiting to consult his principal. Fire, flood, or other 
 unforeseen event may make it imperative that the builder should 
 act on his own judgment, without an instant's delay. Likewise an 
 unforeseen event endangering the public safety may make it needful 
 for our legislators to act at once. But as a rule there is time for con- 
 sultation and it ought to be required. If you do not require it, if 
 you allow your "representatives" to put their plans into execution 
 without an opportunity on your part to reject them or modify them, 
 you practically place the control of your affairs in the said repre- 
 sentatives for the term of their election, and self-government on 
 your part ceases during the said term. 
 
 We do not want a government by the people without representa- 
 tives, nor a government by representatives without the people; but 
 a government by the people with the aid and advice of representatives, 
 or what is essentially the same thing, a government by representa- 
 tives acting as the people's agents, subject at all times to the orders 
 and instructions of the people, and to total revocation of authority 
 at their will. The first is impossible in a complex society; the second 
 is an abandonment of the principle of self-government; the third 
 combines the good qualities of the representative system with a real 
 sovereignty in the people; it secures the economies and values of 
 representation without sacrificing justice, liberty, and self-government. 
 It uses the legislator, like the architect, to draw up the best plans his 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 9 
 
 knowledge permits; it gives him a right, like the architect's in cases 
 of extreme emergency, to act upon his own unaided judgment, but 
 requires him at all other times to submit his ideas to his principal 
 before putting them in practice, and holds him at all times subject 
 to the orders anil suggestions of his principal. Such is clearly the 
 ideal management of political affairs as well as of business affairs. 
 Indeed, politics is itself nothing but business; the people's business 
 it ought to be, and under their control. We have already seen how 
 this intimate and continuous control of their representatives by the 
 people can be secured in place of the present subjection of the people 
 to their representatives during successive periods. It is a simple 
 matter of extending the use of the referendum. 
 
 DIRECT LEGISLATION IN USE IN AMERICA. 
 
 It is already a fundamental fact in American government and a 
 settled principle in our legislative system. 
 
 The suggested improvement of our representative system to make 
 it harmonize with the law of self-government does not require the 
 adoption of any new principle or method. Both the initiative and 
 the referendum have been in constant use in America ever since the 
 Mayflower crossed the sea. All that is needed is an extension of 
 established principles and methods to cases quite as much within 
 their reason, purpose, and power as those to which they are now 
 applied. 
 
 In many New England towns we have the ideal of democracy in 
 respect to local affairs. They are controlled by the people directly. 
 Any 10 men, by petition to the selectmen, may secure the insertion of 
 an item in the warrant for a town meeting, and so bring the matter 
 before the town. Anyone may make a motion or enter the discussion, 
 and all may vote. The town-meeting plan is the initiative and 
 referendum applied to town business. 
 
 Direct legislation is also used by all our States except Delaware in 
 making and amending their constitutions, from which it would seem 
 that our citizens are already convinced that it is the best possible 
 plan of legislation, since it is the one they adopt in respect to their 
 highest and most important law. 
 
 At first, as we have said, there was no other sort of government. 
 For nearly 20 years after the founding of Plymouth Colony, in what 
 is now Massachusetts, the lawmaking was done in primary assembly 
 of the freemen every quarter, and when the colony grew so large that 
 it was difficult for the people to meet in this way four times a year, it 
 was provided that every town should elect two delegates to join with 
 the bench in enacting all such ordinances as should be judged good 
 and wholesome, and that the whole body of citizens should meet once 
 a year to have a general oversight of the doings of the delegates, 
 repeal any of their acts that were deemed prejudicial to the whole, 
 and pass such new measures as might be needful in the judgment of 
 the people. 1 That was the referendum almost as it is advocated 
 to-day. It lasted from 1638 till 1658, and in a modified form till 
 1686, but it was lost to state affairs when the colony was united with 
 others and the population became too large to meet even once a year. 
 
 1 See Direct Legislation Record, 1S98, p. 33, and " Representation and Suffrage in Massachusetts, 1620- 
 1691," by Prof. George H. Haynes. 
 
10 DIEECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 No one in Massachusetts seems to have thought of the method of 
 polling the whole citizenship on specific measures * for the reason 
 may be that in those primitive, unsophisticated times the delegates 
 really acted very nearly as the people wished them to. The popula- 
 tion was comparatively homogeneous in interest, the disturbing influ- 
 ence of powerful class and monopoly interests was unknown, and the 
 modern politician had not been born. 
 
 Still the people did preserve direct legislation in town affairs and 
 in the making of the fundamental law, fondly dreaming that this 
 would be sufficient to prevent any possible deflection of wily repre- 
 sentatives. It has not done that, but it has proved itself the most 
 perfect of all legislation. No lawmaking in the world has been so 
 smooth, so wise, so effective, so free from taint or suspicion of class 
 interest or corruption as the making of Amercian constitutions and 
 the legislation of New England town meetings. Compare the honest, 
 public-spirited, effective, progressive, and economical government of a 
 Maine or Massachusetts town with the dishonest, selfish, narrow, in- 
 effective, nonprogressive, and extravagant governments of our ring- 
 ruled cities and you will get some idea of the natural tendencies of 
 the two systems — leaving the lawmaking power with the people or 
 giving it to a limited number of men to play with as they please for a 
 specified time. No other part of the country can be compared to 
 New England in the completeness of its local improvements, yet no- 
 where is. the debt so small as in New England towns; nowhere else 
 are the voters so well informed; nowhere else is such ample provision 
 made for the education of children. 8 
 
 Thomas Jefferson referred to the town meeting as "the wisest in- 
 vention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self- 
 government and for its preservation." Prof. John Fiske says that 
 "Government by town meeting is the form of government most effec- 
 tively under watch and control. Everything is done in the full day- 
 light of publicity. The town meeting is the best political training 
 school in existence. It is the most perfect exhibition of what Presi- 
 dent Lincoln called ' government of the people, by the people, and for 
 the people."' Prof. Bryce says, "The town meeting has been the 
 most perfect school of self-government in any modern country. 
 * * * It has been not only the source but the school of de- 
 mocracy." 
 
 The use of the referendum in the United States is not confined to 
 town affairs and constitution making. Anyone who will go through 
 the laws of the various States, marking all provisions for submitting 
 to popular vote franchises, licenses, contracts, bond issues, charters, 
 and all sorts of laws and ordinances, will discover a vast number of 
 referendal clauses and will begin to realize how important a place in 
 our law is already occupied by direct legislation in State and city 
 affairs. 
 
 i In other places the thought occurred and was acted upon. In the seventeenth century the fundamental 
 law of Rhode Island required that all laws passed by the general assembly should be referred to the people, 
 and this was done until the law was superseded by a royal charter. In reference to the early constitution 
 of Pennsylvania, Noah Webster says, "I can not help remarking on the singular jealousy of the constitu- 
 tion of Pennsylvania, which requires that a bill shall be published for the consideration of the people before 
 it is enacted into a law, except in extraordinary cases," and remarks that this reduces the legislature to an 
 advisory body. In Virginia, Jefferson drafted a provision that all laws, after passing the legislature, should 
 be voted on by the people, and advocated it as a part of the State constitution, but it was defeated for fear 
 it might touch slavery. This was the referendum in its highest form — the obligatory. 
 
 2 See "Town and village government," by H. L. Nelson, Harper's Monthly, vol. 83, p. Ill, June, 1891, 
 contrasting the effects of the New England town meetings with the effects of the village government in 
 States not possessing the town meeting. 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 11 
 
 In the single State of Iowa a moderate search, by no means exhaust- 
 ive, has revealed 30 provisions for the popular initiative and 20 pro- 
 visions for the referendum, most of them obligatory; and such 
 provisions are not more prevalent in Iowa than in many other States. 
 
 The points I wish to emphasize here are: First, that our laws are 
 
 {)ermeated by the principle of direct legislation; second, that in a 
 arge body of cases the obligatory method is in use; third, that in a 
 considerable number of other cases the option rests with the people; 
 fourth, that in another large body of cases the option is expressly 
 given to the executive or legislative authorities; and fifth, that in all 
 other cases, according to the law of most of our States, 1 the refer- 
 endum may be used at the discretion of the legislative authorities — - 
 the legislature or council may submit any question to the voters, so 
 that really the only change we ask for is the placing of the option in 
 the hands of the people instead of leaving it entirely with the legis- 
 lators. If it rests with the councilmen to decide whether a franchise, 
 lease, or other matter shall be submitted to the voters, they will be 
 ready enough to submit enactments with which they have tried to 
 act honestly and in respect to which they really desire to follow the 
 people's will; but when there is a steal on foot and the councils are 
 conscious of dishonest purpose they will refuse to submit the matter 
 to the voters. 
 
 To leave the whole option with the legislators is to put the refer- 
 endum beyond the reach of the people just when they need it most. 
 As though my architect could submit his plans to me before building 
 if he chose, or go ahead and build with my funds without consulting 
 me, no matter how much I protested, if it suited his purpose to use 
 his discretion that way. When he was acting honestly for my inter- 
 est he would consult me, for he would have nothing to fear from such 
 consultation; but if he were trying to put up a job on me he would 
 exercise his option to act without conferring with me, because such a 
 conference would greatly endanger the success of his job. 
 
 The large experience of our cities and States with the true refer- 
 endum appears to establish some very important generalizations. 
 
 1. As a rule, much greater discrimination is used in voting on meas- 
 ures than in voting on men. 
 
 2. The referenda! voting is largely independent of party ties or the 
 vote on men. Measure alter measure is voted down by the same 
 citizens who sustain the party and reelect the legislature that proposes 
 these measures. If it were not for the referendum — if the citizens 
 had simply compound platforms to vote for, with candidates and 
 party politics to obscure and overwhelm the inanimate issue, the 
 people could not have expressed their will on the said measures — they 
 would have been obliged to indorse measures they did not want in 
 order to elect the men they did want. 
 
 3. Laws passed by legislatures and councils are frequently rejected 
 by the people. " Representation" does not represent; or, more pre- 
 cisely, unguarded representation frequently misrepresents. Legisla- 
 tion by final vote of the people's delegates can not be relied upon to 
 
 1 Delaware seems to take a position ag linst any implied authority in the Legislature to submit questions 
 to the people. Rice v. Foster, 4 How. (Del.), 479. The vast weight of authority, however, is the other 
 way. See People v. Reynolds, 5 Gilm. (111.), 1; Ewing v. Hoblitzelle, 85 Mo., 64; 'and the citations in the 
 article by C. S. Lobinger, Esq., on "Constitutional Law" in American and English Cyclopedia of Law, 
 p. 1022 of Vol. VI (2d ed.t,and in Dr. E. P. Oberholtzer's "Referendum in America," published at Penn. 
 University. 
 
12 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 represent the people's will, but, on the contrary, may be relied upon to 
 fail in such representation in a large proportion of cases, even when 
 the delegates are acting honestly, with the aim of carrying out the 
 wishes of the people. 
 
 4. The action of the referendum is conservative. Changes not 
 supported by strong reasons are voted down. 
 
 5. Complex measures and those not clearly understood are apt to 
 be defeated. 
 
 6. Anything that involves a job or political trick, or is suspected of 
 being tainted with corruption or injustice, is voted down on general 
 principles. 
 
 7. There is an automatic self-disfranchisement of the unfit. The 
 more intelligent and public-spirited citizens take the trouble to under- 
 stand the measures presented for decision and vote upon them. The 
 ignorant voter and the bigoted partisan who constitute the curse of 
 the ballot, sustaining corrupt machines and bosses and every political 
 iniquity, are the very ones who ordinarily care least about a refer- 
 endum vote. There are no offices or jobs to be won by it; no party 
 success to be scored by it; what's the use of voting on it? Lack of 
 interest, carelessness or lack of knowledge, and a fear that they might 
 vote in the dark against their interest eliminates their vote, to the 
 great purification and elevation of the ballot. Referenda on the 
 liquor and gambling questions are, of course, exceptions. The 
 political slums do vote in such cases, but the civic enthusiasm and 
 educational energy of the better citizens, in prospect of a clear-cut 
 vote on such an issue, generally lifts the ballot almost or quite as 
 much as the omission of the slum vote in ordinary cases. 
 
 8. It is clear that direct legislation is not only hi entire accord 
 with American feeling and history, but is deeply embedded in our 
 institutions. Both the principle and the practice of the referendum 
 are familiar to our people, and its methods are not only in constant 
 use in our system of lawmaking, but have a monopoly of a considera- 
 ble space at each end of the scale of legislation that is under discus- 
 sion and are open to engagements at the option of the legislative au- 
 thorities at all intermediate points. 
 
 Direct legislation is the sole method used at the top of the scale in 
 making and amending State constitutions; and at the bottom of the 
 scale in many States in the legislation of towns and school districts. 
 In the intervening spaces, city, county and State legislation, the ini- 
 tiative or referendum, or both, may be put in practice whenever and 
 wherever the legislators and councilmen so desire. The only differ- 
 ence is that at the ends of the scale the referendum is either compul- 
 sory or else the option rests with the people, whereas in general as to 
 intermediate areas the referendum is not compulsory, and the option 
 is not with the people, but with the legislators. Now it is an un- 
 doubted fact that looking at the matter in a broad way, the legisla- 
 tion at the two ends of the scale we are considering is vastly superior 
 to the legislation in the intervening fields. Our constitution and the 
 acts of our town and school district meetings are on the whole just, 
 public-spirited, clear, concise, the pride of our jurists, historians, and 
 philosophers — incomparably the best legislation we have; while our 
 statutes and the acts of our city councils are voluminous, complex, 
 ambiguous, tainted with corruption, and saturated with the spirit of 
 private interest — a by-word ail over the civilized world, so that gov- 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 13 
 
 ernmsnt builders in Australia urge upon their people the necessity of 
 avoiding a reproduction of the American system; a disgrace to our 
 civilization, a menace to our institutions. It would require a Swift 
 or a Carlylc to find words to describe the botch work with which our 
 statute books are annually disfigured, the inefficiency, confusion, and 
 corruption that have flowed from the abuse of the representative 
 principle. 
 
 In the field where the referendum is compulsory or at the option 
 of the people there is little or no trouble; but in the field where this 
 is not true there are legislative evils, the remedy for which is univer- 
 sally regarded as one of the greatest problems of the age. Is it not 
 clear common sense to try in the middle areas the method that works 
 well at both ends ? Is it not worth while at least to try the experi- 
 ment of using the successful method in place of the unsuccessful one, 
 especially as the only change required is the very simple and obviously 
 just and proper one of transferring the referendal option from the 
 people's delegates to the people themselves, so that city and State 
 enactments may be brought within the rule that applies to town affairs 
 and constitutional provisions, sweeping the whole extent of State and 
 local legislation within the control of the beneficent principle of 
 actual, continuous, and effective popular sovereignty? In almost 
 every State we have a solid stone road at each end of the legislative 
 highway, with a treacherous bog in the middle. Shall we not build 
 the stone road through the bog, so we shall have, from end to end, a 
 safe and solid roadway? 
 
 There can be no doubt about the answer that is due to these ques- 
 tions. The referendum has shown itself the best of all the legisla- 
 tive methods known to us, and it is the part of wisdom to extend its 
 field of usefulness, and apply it to correct the abuses resulting from 
 less efficient methods. If a farmer should find that a method in use 
 in two of his fields produced far better results, with less expense, 
 than the methods he used on the rest of his farm, he would be foolish 
 if he did not extend the use of that better method to all the fields he 
 possessed to which the said method was reasonably applicable. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DIRECT-LEGISLATION MOVEMENT A PART OF A WORLD MOVEMENT 
 TOWARD LIBERTY, PEACE, AND DEMOCRACY. 
 
 A little more than a hundred years ago every nation in the civilized 
 world was under an absolute aristocracy. There were some gleams 
 of freedom in England — she had her Magna Charta and Bill of Rights 
 and her House of Commons, but the suffrage was exceedingly limited 
 and the distribution of representation outrageously unjust, the ma- 
 jority of seats in the house being controlled by a few nobles and men of 
 wealth. Only in local affairs did the principles of self-government 
 find anything like adequate expression. 
 
 Transplanted in America local self-government and the fundamen- 
 tals of the Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights grew into the ideal of 
 complete self-government. England trod upon this ideal and it 
 took up arms and drove the monarchy out of the colonies. 
 
 Voltaire and Rousseau stirred the mind and heart of Europe. 
 English thought, transformed and glorified in the flames of our Rev- 
 olution, was taken to France by Franklin, Paine, and Lafayette, and 
 
14 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 by the French soldiers returning from America. France took fire and 
 the French Revolution burned up the Bourbon throne. 
 
 Napoleon's armies shook every throne on the continent, overturned 
 the most of them, put plebeian's in imperial places, annihilated the 
 " divine right of kings," and scattered the seeds of democratic thought 
 all over Europe. The soldiers of the allies returned from France 
 talking of freedom and popular government. The printing press fed 
 the new thought, and the students in the universities were full of 
 English, American, and French ideas of liberty. The French Revo- 
 lution was smothered, but only for a moment. It burst out again 
 and again, not only in France, but in Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain, 
 and other countries. Kings and emperors granted constitutions to 
 appease the people. England reformed her representative system, 
 greatly extended the suffrage, passed splendid secret-ballot and civil- 
 service laws, and took effective measures against corrupt practices 
 in elections. America built a republic, with government by the 
 people in town affairs and constitution making, and for the rest a 
 mixture of government by delegates with government by the people. 
 And Switzerland evolved a republic based on the idea of government 
 by the people with the aid of representatives. 
 
 A century full of tremendous movement in the direction of democ- 
 racy — 1775 all absolute monarchy or aristocracy; 1875 not an abso- 
 lute government in America or Europe, except in Russia and Turkey; 
 all the rest on the high ground of constitutional government, with rep- 
 resentative houses and wide suffrage, or still further up the slope 
 where kings and nobles entirely vanish, with a few almost at the 
 top, where the people's will is sovereign all the time. From abso- 
 lute king to sovereign people — from one to all — that is the funda- 
 mental movement of the age, and do you think it will stop part way ? 
 Will forces that the kings and emperors and aristocracies of Europe 
 have not been able to resist be held in check by a few politicians 
 and plutocrats? Not if the people continue to think. Not if- the 
 press and the school can be kept from the schemers' control. If the 
 movement toward democracy does not stop — if the evolution of 
 equality in government does not cease — direct legislation must come. 
 It has come in Switzerland and to a large extent in America, is used 
 to some extent in England and France, is vigorously demanded in 
 New Zealand and Australia, and is bound to come here and in every 
 other country where the trend to democracy is strong, because there 
 is no other way in which the rule of the few can be entirely supplanted 
 by the rule of the many. 
 
 The diffusion of power is the mightiest idea that is molding the 
 world to-day, except the principles of love, justice, and brotherhood, 
 from which it is a corollary. Direct legislation has an inevitable 
 part to play in the progress toward diffusion of power, and is there- 
 fore sanctioned and necessitated by the principles from which the 
 ideal of diffusion is derived. 
 
 Direct legislation, aiding diffusion, will help the cause of peace as 
 well as the cause of liberty and democracy. Since the dark ages 
 very few wars have been brought about by the common people. 
 The reason the world is still drenched with blood every few years is 
 that the men who decide on war are not, as a rule, the ones who do 
 the fighting or suffer the losses of the conflict. If the men who voted 
 war had to stop the bullets and pay the taxes, arbitration would 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 15 
 
 soon replace battle. If conciliatory proposals could Le suggested by 
 initiative of the people, as well us by the President and Congress; if 
 
 international commissioners carefully discussed and adjusted differ- 
 ences, subject to a referendum, cither compulsory or on petition of the 
 common people in each disputing country, instead of being subject 
 to approval or rejection by a hot-headed Congress, that sees in war 
 perhaps a chance for glory, profit, conquest, or political capital; if 
 an appeal from the Government to the people were possible in every 
 case of war, except where immediate action in self-defense were 
 necessary— in short, if the final decision lay with the people on both 
 sides of the line, wars would be few and far between. If the good 
 Czar wants to bring about the disarmament of Europe, he can not 
 do better than work for the initiative and referendum. So long as 
 he works with the governments, he is dealing with men whose power 
 and pride and interests of every sort are largely bound up with the 
 military; but give full power to the common people and war would 
 become a lost art in the civilized world. 
 
 THE PRACTICAL DETAILS. 
 
 Now that the principles of direct legislation are being adopted into 
 the constitutions of the several States, too much importance can not 
 be placed upon the practical details. The opponents of direct legis- 
 lation, having failed in their opposition to the principle, are seeking to 
 destroy or to make difficult the operation. 
 
 The most effective course pursued is to insist upon a prohibitive 
 percentage. Failing in that, they advocate the plan of spreading the 
 percentage over a certain designated territory. That is to say, they 
 would require that the percentage come from a certain number of 
 counties. The advocates of these restrictions term them "safe- 
 guards and limitations." If the proponents of popular government 
 are not careful, these safeguards and limitations will make it so diffi- 
 cult to use the instruments of direct legislation that they will defeat 
 the whole scheme of popular government. It is much better not to 
 have direct legislation at all unless it can be secured in a workable 
 form. We are just beginning to realize that the "checks and bal- 
 ances" of the Constitution have defeated the exercise of what little 
 power was vested in the people by that instrument. Let us not now 
 repeat the mistakes of the fathers. No real believer in democracy can 
 distrust the fullest exercise of power by the people. That mistakes 
 will be made by the people is conceded, but such mistakes will be 
 those of the people themselves, and, having the power of self-govern- 
 ment, they will profit by their mistakes. 
 
 The real substantial power to be gained is that of the initiative 
 upon constitutional amendments. Many of the opponents of direct 
 legislation, when defeated, have consented to granting the power to 
 the people of the initiative upon statutes. This is not sufficient. If 
 one thing only can be gained, insist upon the right of the people to 
 initiate and adopt constitutional amendments independent of the 
 legislature. With this power in their hands, the people can secure, 
 through their own action, all other reforms. 
 
 The following analysis may serve to suggest some of the leading 
 points that should be covered by a direct legislation amendment or 
 statute. Provisions amounting to a new method of amending the 
 
16 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 constitution or involving any changes therein would, of course, be 
 invalid in a mere statute — the legislature can not change the consti- 
 tution; such provisions could only be effective in a constitutional 
 amendment, and if incorporated in a statute might render it void in 
 toto. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF DIRECT LEGISLATION LAW OR AMENDMENT. 
 
 The percentages refer to the vote at the last preceding election. 
 
 Initiative. — Five per cent of the voters of a city (or State) may propose an ordinance 
 (or law) or amendment to the charter (or constitution) by imperative petition (con- 
 taining the proposed measure) filed with the city clerk (or secretary of state). 
 
 Said official shall publish such proposal at once and submit it to the people at the 
 next city (or State) election occurring 20 (or 40) clays after the said filing, unless it is 
 adopted by the councils (or legislature) 50 (or 130) days before said election, in which 
 case it shall be subject to the referendum. 
 
 A special election may be ordered by a 15 per cent petition, or at the discretion of 
 councils (or legislature) or of the mayor (or governor). 
 
 Referendum. — All measures proposed by the people, and all enactments of councils 
 (or legislatures), except urgency measures, shall be subject to the referendum. 
 
 Five per cent of the voters of a city (or State) may demand a referendum. 1 
 
 The mayor (or governor) or one-third of either council (or house) may order a 
 referendum. 
 
 Urgency measures are those necessary for public health, peace, or safety, passed by a 
 two-thirds or three-fourths vote of councils (or legislature). 
 
 Other enactments shall be in abeyance for 30 (or 90) days after passage by councils 
 (or legislature) and publication. If within that time a referendum petition is filed 
 with the city clerk (or secretary of state), the said official shall submit such measure 
 to the people for final decision at the next city (or State) election, as above. 
 
 A special election may be ordered as above. (See Initiative.) 
 
 If no referendum petition is filed within said time, the measure takes effect under 
 the same conditions" as at present. 
 
 Franchise and monopoly grants and contracts with monopolies and every law 
 granting a vested right must be submitted to the people. 
 
 A measure rejected by the people can not be again proposed the same year by less 
 than 20 per cent of the voters, nor reenacted in councils (or legislature) except by a 
 two-thirds vote, and in such case must go to the polls, whether there is a referendum 
 petition or not. 
 
 A measure once approved by the people can not be altered or repealed without a 
 referendum. 
 
 When a law is declared unconstitutional, the governor or the legislature may, and 
 on a 15 per cent petition shall submit the law to the people, and if approved by them 
 it shall, thereafter be law, notwithstanding said decision. (This amounts to a new 
 means of amending the constitution.) 
 
 How far the referendum or reference to the people should be made 
 obligatory is a very important question. The direct citizen vote is 
 already obligatory in respect to constitutional amendments and the 
 affairs of towns under the New England system ; and in a number of 
 States a citizen vote is necessary to certain franchise grants, public 
 purchases, bond issues, etc. In several of the Swiss Cantons the law 
 exempts urgency measures, leaves transactions that do not go beyond 
 established routine to take effect if not objected to, and in all other 
 cases requires the submission of each and every legislative act to the 
 people as a matter of course and without any referendum petition. 
 
 1 Five per cent is by some considered too large when applied to populous cities or States, as 5 per cent of 
 a very large voting population- would place too great a difficulty in the way. It is proposed that a definite 
 number be fixed, as 3,000 for a city or 10,000 for a State, or 5 per cent when such definite numbers would 
 exceed 5 per cent. The following "is a good wording: "Three thousand voters, or a number equal to 5 per 
 cent of the total of votes cast at the last preceding election, if such percentage is less than 3,000." Or incase 
 of a State: "Ten thousand voters or a number equal to 5 per cent of the total votes cast at the last preceding 
 election, if such percentage yields a number less than 10,000.'-' This option would require 5 per cent, unless 
 such 5 per cent would amount to more than 3,000 in case of a city, or 10,000 in case of a State. Whichever 
 was least in any case, the 5 per cent or the fixed number would govern that case. Five per cent of a small 
 voting population would be easy to secure; in a large voting population the above-mentioned option would 
 .be desirable. 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 17 
 
 Matters of routine may be defined as including appropriations, 
 purchases, contracts, and other acts that are substantially the same 
 as in the preceding year. It might be well to put routine measures 
 with urgency measures as exempt even from the optional referendum, 
 leaving them subject to control through the initiative. But, how- 
 ever that may be, they ought clearly to be exempt from the obliga- 
 tory referendum. 
 
 It seems probable that ultimately the obligatory referendum will 
 be found the better form for several reasons: 
 
 1. It saves the trouble and expense of a double appeal to the 
 people, once on the petition and once on the ballot. It has been 
 found in wSwitzerland that the optional referendum sometimes re- 
 mains useless because the voters, wishing to invoke its aid, can not 
 afford to bear the cost , so the law to which they are opposed remain 3 
 unchallenged and goes into effect without a verdict of the people. 
 
 2. The obligatory referendum does not play informer — does not 
 require the disclosure of opinions, but affords the voters all the pro- 
 tection of the secret ballot. The optional referendum puts the peti- 
 tion signers on record and makes their opinions known, therefore it 
 does not close the door so completely as the obligatory referendum 
 to improper legislation that is supported by powerful employers and 
 corporations against whose influence employees and others dare not 
 act openly for fear of discharge, or loss of business, blacklist, boy- 
 cott, etc. 
 
 It is often the case that citizens who oppose an unjust enactment 
 and would vote against it at the polls, are, nevertheless, afraid to 
 record an adverse opinion by open petition; and others, though not 
 exactly afraid to avow themselves, yet deem it wisest for business 
 or social reasons to keep their ideas to themselves. 
 
 3. The mere inertia of the people permits some things to pass that 
 are objectionable but not sufficiently so to awaken an energetic pro- 
 test, so that designing legislators are encouraged to act on the pos- 
 sibility that bad laws adroitly worded may go through unnoted by 
 the people, or at least escape the requisite petition till the 30 or 90 
 days are up. The optional plan leaves a somewhat wider way to 
 improper laws than the other, and holds out a slight hope to cor- 
 ruption; an exceedingly small one, of course, for the chance of suc- 
 cess is a desperate one for an evil law with the referendum in either 
 form, but hope enough perhaps to invite the attempt sometimes 
 when it would not be thought of under the obligatory system by 
 which the chance of success is reduced almost to absolute zero. 
 
 In all probability, however, notwithstanding the ultimate advan- 
 tages of the obligatory plan, it will be best to begin with the optional 
 referendum (except as to street franchises and all laws granting 
 vested rights), the reasons being: (1) That during the transition from 
 present methods to direct legislation there would be a volume of busi- 
 ness that might prove burdensome under the obligatory system, and 
 (2) that the optional form provides an intermediate step, permits a 
 more gradual change to the new system, and allows the people time to 
 become more accustomed to the use of direct legislation before the}' 
 enter upon the full privileges and responsibilities of the obligatory 
 referendum. 
 
 S. Doc. 360, 63-2 2 
 
18 DIRECT LEGISLATION". 
 
 Either the optional or the obligatory referendum, together with 
 the initiative, will make our legislative system consistent throughout, 
 and bring all parts of it into harmony with the fundamental princi- 
 ples of liberty, self-government, democracy, and popular sovereignty, 
 which it claims to regard as the essential principles of true govern- 
 ment, and to which it professes an earnest desire to conform. The 
 right to propose or initiate a city or state measure is like the right 
 of a citizen m town meeting to make a motion upon any matter of 
 business to be acted upon by the meeting, and the right of 10 citizens 
 to have any subject they choose inserted in the warrant for action 
 by the town ; the right to demand a vote at the polls on a given law 
 corresponds to the right of a citizen in town meeting to call for the 
 ayes or noes, and the obligatory referendum corresponds to the 
 rule which requires the plans and proposals of town officers and com- 
 mittees and all motions made at town meetings to be put to a vote 
 of all the citizens who care to express themselves, whether a vote is 
 asked for or not. 
 
 It must be remembered that the referendum, in its strict sense, is 
 merely preventive, whereas the initiative and referendum together 
 give the people the means of construction as well as the means of 
 prevention. 
 
 The word " referendum, " however, is frequently used as synony- 
 mous with "direct legislation," including both the proposal of laws 
 by the voters and the reference of laws to them. 
 
 REASONS FOR THE REFERENDUM. 
 THE DOORWAY OF REFORM. 
 
 1. It is the key to progress. It will open the door to all other- 
 reforms. It is not the people who defeat reform. The people want 
 honest government, civil-service reform, and just taxation. They 
 vote overwhelmingly against monopoly rule, and for public owner- 
 ship of street franchises and public utilities almost every time they 
 have the opportunity. It is the power of money and corporate in- 
 fluence and official interest that checkmates progress. Miles of 
 petitions have gone in to Congress for a postal telegraph. By the 
 million our people have expressed the wish for such an institution, 
 and Hon. John Wanamaker says in his very able argument on the 
 subject that the Western Union is the only visible opponent of the 
 movement. 
 
 Hundreds of instances might be named in which councils, legis- 
 latures, and Congresses have persistently defeated the well-known 
 will of the people. It is not sufficient now to educate the people to a 
 new idea, or even to elect representatives on the promise to carry it 
 into execution; you have also to fight the power of money and cor- 
 ruption in the legislature that will steal away or put to sleep the 
 ardor of your legislators. 
 
 How important it is that progress should rest with the people free 
 of hindrance from their rulers is clearly brought out in this fine passage 
 from the great historian, Buckle: 
 
 No great political improvement, no great reform, either legislative or executive, 
 has ever been originated in any country by its rulers. The first suggesters of such 
 steps have invariably been bold and able thinkers, who discern the abuse and de- 
 nounce it and point out how it is to be remedied. But long after this is done, even 
 the most enlightened governments continue to uphold the abuse and reject the remedy. 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 19 
 
 Wendell Phillips said: 
 
 No reform, moral or intellectual, ever came from the upper classes of society. 
 Each and all came from the protest of the martyr and the victim. The emancipation 
 of the working people must be achieved by the working people themselves. 
 
 The referendum is the key that will unlock the door to every on- 
 ward movement. It will give us new reforms as fast as the people 
 want them, without the necessity of waiting till the millionaires and 
 politicians are ready for the curtain to go up. In this great fact lies 
 the tremendous and immediate importance of the referendum r 
 although it is by no means the only irresistible reason for favoring 
 the movement. 
 
 Direct legislation will give the people the power of voluntary 
 movement; it will bring the public mind into connection with the 
 motor muscles of the body politic; it will gear the power of public 
 sentiment directly and effectively to the machinery of legislation, 
 with no slipping belts, switched-off currents, or broken circuits. 
 
 At present the pocket nerve and the corporation ganglion are fre- 
 quently able to paralyze the progressive muscles and the civic con- 
 science and control the body politic, and the party ganglia compel 
 it to remain inactive, or else go to enormous labor and perform a 
 large number of actions that are against its wish in order to accom- 
 plish a few things it desires — as though a man were obliged to lift a 
 50 or 100 pound spoon to his lips with each sip of soup and endure 
 the pricks of several pins and needles or sit down on a tack with each 
 mouthful of bread or fragment of beef, the bill of fare being written 
 with those conditions, to be accepted or rejected as a whole, like the 
 conglomerate platforms of our parties. 
 
 The separation of measures accompanying direct legislation is 
 another tiling that makes it par excellence the friend of progress. 
 Each reform will receive as a rule the full support of all who believe 
 in it without suffering from the alienation and subtraction of the votes 
 of citizens who favor it but oppose some other measure with which 
 it may be linked in the platform, or object to the party in whose 
 platform the reform is suggested, or dislike the candidate whose name 
 is tied to the movement and whose election is the only means of 
 securing its success. 
 
 PURE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 2. Direct legislation will tend to the purification of politics and the 
 elevation of government. It is not the people who put up jobs on 
 themselves, but corrupt influences in our legislative bodies; the 
 referendum will kill the corrupt lobby and close the doors against 
 fraudulent legislation. It will no longer pay to buy a franchise 
 from the aldermen, because the aldermen can not settle the matter; 
 the people have the final decision, and they are so many that it might 
 cost more to buy their votes for the franchise than the privilege is 
 worth. It is comparatively easy for a wealthy briber to put his bids 
 high enough to overcome the conscience or other resistance of a dozen 
 councilmen. It is quite a different matter to overcome the con- 
 sciences or other resistance of 10,000 or 100,000 citizens. Legis- 
 lative bribery derives its power from the concentration of tempta- 
 tion resulting from the power of a few legislators to take final action. 
 
 It will not do to leave the referendum option with the legislators. 
 They submit questions that are immaterial to them or in respect to 
 
20 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 which they wish to act honestly; but they never submit a franchise 
 steal to the people. When they are acting from honest motives, they 
 often find the referendum very helpful in coming to a wise and just 
 conclusion ; but when they are acting from corrupt and selfish motives 
 they have no use for the referendum. 
 
 The reader will remember that in examining the facts relating to 
 the use of the referendum in the United States we found that the peo- 
 ple have voted down all propositions that were suspected of being 
 accessory to any job, and the strenuous opposition of the corrup- 
 tionists to the extension of the referendum shows that they appre- 
 ciate its power for purity. They know very well that corporation 
 frauds could not go on, and that valuable gas, electric light, and 
 street-railway franchises could no longer be given to lobbying corpo- 
 rations if we had the referendum. 
 
 A legislator may be subjected to successful pressure by street rail- 
 ways, gas and electric light companies, the railroads, the oil trust, or 
 the coal combine, but the citizens are too numerous, too much inter- 
 ested in their own pocketbooks, and too wide awake to their own 
 welfare to be wheedled or bribed or threatened into giving away 
 their property or endowing big corporations with privileges and 
 powers to be used to the disadvantage and oppression of the donors. 
 As Prof. Brj^ce says: "The legislators can be 'got at'; the people 
 can not." 
 
 Prof. Bemis tells of a corporation voting $100,000 to buy the Chi- 
 cago council as calmly as it would vote to buy a new building, and 
 says that, according to a reliable attorney, such a proceeding was an 
 ordinary thing. Under the referendum such proceedings would not 
 take place, because they would be of no use. The referendum des- 
 troys the power of legislators to legislate for personal ends. 
 
 The referendum will be the death of the lobby. It will be imprac- 
 ticable to lobby the people because of their number. And it will be 
 useless to lobby the legislators, for they can not deliver the goods. 
 
 No doubt persuasion will still be used with legislators as the first 
 and easiest method of initiating legislation, but the lack of finality in 
 the action of legislative bodies will take away its commercial value, 
 and the lobby or "third house" as it exists to-day will dissolve. 
 Log-rolling and minority obstruction will also lose their power, and 
 dishonest men will be much less likely to buy legislative positions and 
 other offices, because they can not make them pay. 
 
 Blackmailing will be destroyed as well as the corrupting power of 
 the lobby. The referendum works both ways; it keeps the corpora- 
 tions from using the legislature for their private gain, and it also keeps 
 the legislators from blackmailing the corporations by introducing 
 bills injurious to them, so that they will offer large sums to have the 
 bills quashed — a shameful practice prevailing to a large extent in 
 some of our legislative bodies. 
 
 The unguarded representative system or delegation of uncontrolled 
 law-making power to a small body of legislators has utterly failed to 
 check class legislation or the growth of monopoly and corruption. 
 On the contrary, these evils have increased in city and State where 
 the delegate system has control, whereas in town affairs and consti- 
 tution making, and city business so far as referred to and controlled 
 by the people, the said evils are comparatively unknown. This con- 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 21 
 
 trast vividly illustrates the power for purity that direct legislation 
 possesses. 
 
 As we shall see below, the force of partisanship will diminish by the 
 referendum. Party success will no longer mean power to mold the 
 laws of a city or State for one or more years. And the intensity of 
 party feeling will diminish as the value of the prize to be won is les- 
 sened. The weakening of partisanship will react on the executive 
 department, and the spoils system will have less hold on the Gov- 
 ernment even before civil-service regulations are thoroughly formed 
 and enforced. 
 
 As we have seen, the obligatory referendum would be most effective 
 in checking corruption; but even the optional referendum will make 
 corrupt legislation a» dangerous and unprofitable thing. The mere 
 fact that the right of appeal to the people exists within the reach of 
 a reasonable percentage of voters will purify legislation at its source. 
 
 3. Demagoguery and the influence of employers over the votes of 
 their employees will be diminished factors in elections. When the 
 question is voting an office to A or to B, one as good as the other for 
 all the voter knows, a $2 bill or the wish of his employer may seem 
 to the voter to be worth more than the problematical difference 
 between the two candidates, for whatever their platforms and prom- 
 ises there is little possibility of telling what they will do when elected. 
 But when the question comes directly home to the self-interest of the 
 voter on a bill to give away public property, or franchisee, or make 
 an extravagant contract, etc., the voter will use the protection of the 
 secret ballot and record his opinion, regardless of .$2 bills or the 
 wishes of employers. 
 
 Even the ignorant voter will be rescued by the referendum to some 
 extent. The demagogue and politician will lose a large part of their 
 power to prejudice and confuse when the issue is a single clear-cut 
 question of money, property, or public policy, instead of the present 
 entanglement of measures and men tossed together in a confused heap 
 for the express purpose, one might think, of affording demagogues 
 their golden opportunity to prejudice men against the whole "heap" 
 by centering attention upon some objectionable feature of it and 
 ignoring the good features or lying about them, or to prejudice men 
 in favor of the whole by reversing the process of deception. 
 
 4. The power of rings and bosses will be greatly reduced by the 
 referendum; directly so far as concerns the large portion of their 
 power, which depends on controlling legislation; indirectly so far as 
 concerns their administrative power. Nothing will do more than 
 the referendum for the cause of civil-service reform, and the awaken- 
 ing of a strong interest in politics and the ballot on the part of our 
 best people, and these things will quicklv abolish the boss and the 
 ling- 
 
 5. Partisanship will sink into comparative insignificance in the 
 government of the country. At present about all the guide the aver- 
 age voter has is the party to which he belongs. He knows little or 
 nothing of the candidates on either side. There are only a few things 
 much talked of in the campaign, so far as his party papers and speak- 
 ers bring him information, and he thinks his party is right on these 
 things, or he votes with it because his father did or his employer, and 
 because there is no particular reason appealing to his interests to pre- 
 vent him from doing so. But when specific measures are submitted 
 
22 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 separately to the people in the precise form in which they are to take 
 effect, voting will assume a denniteness heretofore unknown, and the 
 citizens will vote on each measure as they believe their interests re- 
 quire, and will not be likely to rob themselves or disregard what they 
 believe to be for their benefit, merely to please a party machine. 
 Experience with the referendum plan in town affairs — voting on city 
 franchises and making constitutions — abundantly proves that the 
 voters do not keep to party lines when it comes to opening streets, 
 building schoolhouses, making appropriations, and acting on any. 
 matters of business, the drift of which is clearly brought home to 
 them. Not only will the interest of the voter lead him away from 
 partisanship, but the outside pressure tending to make him a partisan 
 will be much less, since the larger part of the motives for that pressure, 
 the legislative and administrative spoils to be gained by party success, 
 will disappear; the first as a direct consequence of the referendum, the 
 second as an indirect consequence through the favored growth of civil- 
 service reform. 
 
 SIMPLIFICATION. 
 
 6. The referendum will simplify as well as purify elections. It is 
 much easier to vote upon measures than men. A man is a cyclopedia 
 of measures bound in mystery; even his character is a puzzle, for the 
 main business of opposing politicians is to fling mud at each other's 
 candidates until it is impossible to tell how much is mud and how much 
 is man, or some other animal. 
 
 After throwing all the mud they can dig up or manufacture, the next 
 duty of the politicians is to pile up a lot of high-sounding words into 
 sentences that will come as near as possible to covering any conceiv- 
 able thing that a council, legislature, or congress may do, and call it a 
 platform, to remind us of its likeness to the board contraption at the 
 business end of a summer convention, used for the speakers to stand 
 on during the rumpus and afterward cut up for kindling. 
 
 Instead of a tangled mass of ignorance and vituperation, the 
 referendum will bring to the voters a series of clear-cut measures, 
 each to be decided on its own individual merits. Shall we have pro- 
 portional representation? Shall women vote on the same terms as 
 men ? Shall street-car companies be required to put effective fenders 
 and vestibules on the trolley cars? Shall towns and cities have the 
 right to build or buy, own and operate municipal gas and electric 
 light works if they wish ? Shall they own and operate street railways ? 
 Shall they make their own charters? These are questions easily 
 understood and capable of decision without the perplexing admixture 
 of personal considerations or inquiries as to whether a Democratic 
 candidate for office did not behave with becoming modesty in early 
 life, or loves liquor too well, or whether the tariff ought to be higher, 
 or silver freer, or whether the hard times or the good times came in 
 under Republican or Democratic administration. 
 
 That the referendum would disentangle issues is one of its most 
 weighty claims to our attention. At present we have to put up with 
 the splinters in the bread, the hairs hi the butter, and the salt in the 
 ice cream or go without our food. The party cooks stand smiling and 
 bowing before you, urging then bills of fare on which you can plainly 
 read such questions as these: "Will you eat a hash of chicken and 
 dog meat, or will you have beef and rat tail in croquettes?" "Will 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 23 
 
 you drink coffee steeped in vinegar or chocolate flavored with gall?" 
 The party tailors fix up three or four suits for you to choose from. 
 "Will you wear black clothes with yellow stripes and a very tight 
 belt, or a gray suit with bright-green shirt ancl corn-creating shoes; 
 or a silk hat, red overalls, and a green necktie?" 
 
 7. The referendum will simplify and dignify the law. A law that 
 is to be submitted to the people with any great hope of its adoption 
 must be reduced to its lowest terms, and we shall stand a chance 
 of avoiding in future the piling up of massive tomes of useless enact- 
 ments which the legislature itself knows little or nothing about a 
 month or two after their passage, even if understood at the time, 
 and which became law to buttress some private interest or to fill up 
 the time of our legislators, who, being elected to make the State's 
 laws, seem to measure the fulfillment of their duty by the number of 
 bills they enact. David Dudley Field estimated in 1871 that if the 
 enacting of local laws were left to the communities to which they 
 apply the work of the New York Legislature would be reduced 95 
 per cent. Eltweed Pomeroy says that in 1892 alone New Jersey 
 passed 600 laws, many a one of which was longer than the whole 
 Justinian Code that governed the Roman world for centuries. These 
 New Jersey laws also have been examined and nearly the whole of 
 them found to be (1) local or special laws, or (2) laws that fall under 
 a principle already established, so that they are mere senseless repe- 
 titions, or (3) acts in private or corporate interests that ought never 
 to have been passed by any body, local or State. In later years the 
 legislature seemed to get tired sooner than in 1890, and at one session 
 passed only about 400 laws, but they have kept up their reputation 
 lor useless enactments pretty well, although some good laws were 
 passed. 
 
 Under the referendum the yearly output of New Jersey's law 
 factory would probably be reduced from 400 or 600 to 20 or 30. 
 Such at least is the result indicated by the experience of Switzer- 
 land/ and such is the reason of the case upon an analysis of the laws 
 now enacted. The principles of the common law, with a few simple 
 modifications, are entirely sufficient for any State. There would be 
 more justice and less litigation by far if courts were left free to apply 
 broad principles instead of being compelled to give attention to the 
 rigid language of narrow-minded, short-sighted legislators, and if 
 men were able to carry the law in their consciences instead of requir- 
 ing a two-horse team to convey it and a line of lawyers and judges 
 from the justice court to the Supreme Court of the United States to 
 explain it to them, and then be in danger that they will turn round next 
 day and declare it is the other way. It is one of the most ridiculous 
 things in modern civilization that every man is presumed to know 
 the law, while everybody knows that nobody knows it, not even the 
 judges of the Supreme Court. It is impossible to keep track of one- 
 thousandth part of the statutes of State and Nation. The legislators 
 do not know much about them by the time the ink is dry except, 
 perhaps, the bills they drew themselves, and I have known legislators 
 
 1 For the last 20 years the Cantons of Berne and Zurich, where they have the obligatory referendum, 
 have passed an average of four or five laws a year, and these laws are short, simple, and easily understood. 
 In a recent Swiss national legislative session, of the usual activity, 65 measures were introduced and 24 
 passed. The New York Legislature about the same time passed 700 laws, and the measures introduced 
 into Congress reached the enormous total of 24,000. It is said that Switzerland has less than one-seventh 
 as many lawyers as we have in proportion to population. 
 
24 DIEECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 who did not know much about their own bills even while advocating 
 them. But if some poor fellow in blissful ignorance happens to run 
 up against some words in a musty volume in the law library, and 
 his enemy's lawyer happens to find those words, the poor innocent 
 has to suffer for not sitting up nights to learn the statutes. The 
 fact is that our legislatures spend most of their time in establishing 
 stumblingblocks in the paths of justice and the people, and the 
 referendum will not be long in use before the great mass of statute 
 law will be replaced by a few simple provisions impartial to all, in 
 thorough accord with justice, and easy to learn. 
 
 Local legislation should be performed by counties and munici- 
 palities under general State laws, and private legislation should not 
 be tolerated at all. Numerous bills that are now rushed through, 
 very often without discussion or understanding by the legislators, 
 would never be introduced under the referendum, the certainty of a 
 popular veto making them hopeless. I have even known lawyers to 
 secure the introduction of a bill to change the law applicable to a 
 case they had in hand so it would work in their favor. Such action 
 is an invasion of the judicial field by the legislative power. 
 
 The Nation is deluged with laws, 13,000 new ones altogether in a 
 single year sometimes, and the people know nothing of most of them 
 till they see them in the newspapers, when it is a good while too late 
 to stop them, and indeed not 1 per cent of the people have time or 
 interest or eyesight to go through the wilderness of nonpareil non- 
 sense and the muss of technicalities called laws. 
 
 Direct legislation will stop a large part of the present lawmaking, 
 turn over another large part to municipalities, and simplify what 
 remains to the infinite relief of the people and the great lightening 
 of the burden now resting upon our legislatures. 
 
 RESPECT FOR LAW. 
 
 8. The referendum will aid the enforcement of the law, for the 
 people will grow up with it. It will be law because the people want 
 it, and they will stand behind it and see that it is carried into effect. 
 Nothing is of more importance to a nation than a deep reverence for 
 law; but reverence dies when legislation is dragged in the mire, and 
 when the people regard the law-making bodies with dread and disgust. 
 
 ELEVATING POLITICS AND ATTRACTING GOOD MEN TO PUBLIC LIFE. 
 
 9. The referendum will elevate politics as a profession and bring 
 the best men again into political life. Government is intrinsically the 
 noblest of all professions, for it includes and controls all others, as the 
 captain of a ship holds the destiny of all on board. But when power 
 is prostituted to evil ends it becomes despicable. The people no 
 longer regard .membership in a city council or a legislature as a badge 
 of honor, but rather as a mark of suspicion. He is most probably in 
 league with the powers of darkness or he would not have been elected. 
 Honest men have little weight in the councils of many of our cities; 
 they find the atmosphere uncongenial, and retire in disgust, or if they 
 persist in their duty they are soon hounded out by the ring, which 
 finds them inconvenient. Many of our wisest and purest men look 
 on politics as too dirty to touch. They will not descend to the mean- 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION". 25 
 
 ncss and cunning usually necessary to secure office, nor subject them- 
 selves to the cruel suspicions and slanders that often accompany 
 public life. Mud slinging and the winning power of chicanery too 
 often discourage the wise and good and leave the field to the most 
 callous and unscrupulous. 
 
 With the referendum all this will change. Attention will be di- 
 rected from men to measures. The power for evil of our office holders 
 will shrink to a small fraction of its present bulk. Bad men will be 
 discouraged from entering or continuing in politics because they will 
 no longer be able to accomplish their evil purposes. With these 
 changes the suspicions and mud flinging now so prevalent will decrease, 
 because their causes will subside. As discussion of specific measures 
 takes the place of partisan abuse, men of probity and wisdom will feel 
 their influence with the people increase, and will delight to exercise 
 their powers of mind and conscience in the direction of public affairs 
 when they can do so without stain or ignominy. The increasing 
 weight of goodness and the returning purity 01 political life will 
 induce our best men once more to take a leading part in it and stand 
 for office in council, legislature, and Congress as they used to do in 
 the patriotic days of the Revolution. 
 
 10. The referendum will help to bring out a full vote of the better 
 and more intelligent citizens, while it would tend, as a rule, to elimi- 
 nate the votes of the less intelligent — the very reverse of the effects 
 which the present system tends to produce. While speaking of the 
 use of the referendum in the United States we called attention to a 
 number of facts showing the general tendency of the referendum to 
 cause an automatic disfranchisement of the unintelligent, so that we 
 will confine ourselves here to the other branch of the proposition 
 before us. 
 
 In the first place the interest will generally be more distinct in a 
 vote on the grant of a franchise, civil-service reform, appropriations 
 for roads, schools, etc., than on a vote whether A or B shall be 
 councilman or mayor. And in the second place, the effectiveness of 
 the vote will be greater. The influence of these facts in securing a 
 full vote has been very noticeable when Boston, New York, and other 
 cities have submitted questions to the direct vote of the people. In 
 presidential and gubernatorial elections, when a heavy vote is polled, 
 it is often largely due to the enthusiasm created by some great issue 
 involved in that election ; when no such issue is at stake the mere vote 
 for candidates is usually much smaller. In the ordinary process of 
 making laws people think that one of two machines will do the work 
 anyway, it makes little difference which, and interference is useless. 
 It will make no odds whether they go to the polls or not. They can 
 not accomplish anything except by using the methods of the machine 
 and sinking to the level of unscrupulous, conscienceless war. Mr. 
 Arrowsmith says: 
 
 A few years ago the New Jersey Legislature submitted to the citizens of Orange the 
 acceptance or rejection of a measure providing for the election of a new officer, presi- 
 dent of council, at a salary of $1 ,000 per annum . Now. out of a citizenship of upward 
 of 5,000 almost altogether opposed to it, only a small percentage of the voters expressed 
 themselves upon the question. I did not vote upon it, and Bay neighbors exhibited 
 a similar indifference. Why? Simply because we Orange folks knew that our wishes 
 would be set at naught, and the politicians would come to Trenton and carry their 
 point with or without our consent. 
 
26 DIKECT LEGISLATION". 
 
 Such a reference was not a referendum, because the vote of the 
 people was not intended to be final. It was a sham; the people 
 knew it lacked effectiveness, and although they were interested hi 
 the question, they stayed at home. The real referendum is final 
 and effective, and encourages the people to go to the polls for the 
 same reason that it encourages the best men to enter political life. 
 It is full of strength, hope, and progress. Let the people once feel 
 that they are really sovereign and they will vote and look after their 
 own interests, and instead of 40 to 60 per cent stay-at-homes among 
 the "better classes," who leave the field to the machines, we shall 
 have a reasonably satisfactory expression of the people's will. Ask 
 a man if he wants a tenderloin steak or a bit of leather for his dinner 
 and if he knows he will get leather anyway he may keep his mouth 
 shut; but if he knows that what he says will settle the question, he 
 will express himself vigorously. 
 
 HELP THE PAPERS TO TELL THE TRUTH AND USE DIGNIFIED ENGLISH. 
 
 1 1 . The elevation of the press is one of the effects of the referendum, 
 and one which alone is sufficient to make it an incalculable boon. One 
 of the most noticeable and important of all the many changes pro- 
 duced in Switzerland by the adoption of direct legislation is the sub- 
 stitution of fair debate for noisy vituperation in the columns of the 
 daily papers. It will do a similar work in America, and the Lord 
 knows that we sorely need such a change. As measures are put in the 
 place of men, sober discussion will take the place of the traffic in abuse. 
 The tendency to manufacture facts and deluge the country with 
 sophistries will not so readily yield, but even in this respect there is 
 sure to be a great improvement. When the people come to direct 
 their own affairs they will demand the truth; they will want the 
 actual facts, so that they may judge correctly in respect to their 
 business, just as a board of directors of a private corporation wants 
 the facts, and regards deception of themselves as one of the most 
 unpardonable sins. 
 
 THE PEOPLE'S UNIVERSITY. 
 
 12. Direct legislation will have a profound educational effect. 
 Wendell Phillips said long ago that the discussions accompanying 
 presidential elections give the people a tremendous intellectual lift 
 every four years. With the referendum, the progress will be con- 
 tinuous instead of spasmodic, with intervals wide enough for the 
 pupils to forget nearly all that they learn at each lesson, as at present. 
 
 Nowhere on the face of the globe do you find as high an average of 
 keen intelligence as among the men of a New England town trained 
 from boyhood in the town meeting. Continual voting on measures sup- 
 plies an invaluable discipline in place of the retrograde influences often 
 involved in personal elections. Every citizen's sphere of thought and 
 responsibility will be enlarged by the referendum, and growth will be 
 the result. Besides being a university in itself, the referendum will 
 make the public welfare depend so directly and obviously on the 
 morality and intelligence of the people, and not on the sagacity and 
 probity of a few individuals, that patriots, statesmen, and business 
 men will combine to develop to the utmost every means of educating 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION". 27 
 
 the masses, and a great impetus will be given to popular education, 
 with a corresponding improvement in the results. 
 
 It is interesting to note that, according to Mulhall, Switzerland is the 
 best schooled country in the world. The percentage of children 
 attending school is far above that in any other country in Europe or 
 any State in America. The per capita expenditure for education is 
 correspondingly high, and the diffusion of knowledge is remarkable. 
 The referendum educates the people directly and creates a powerful 
 sentiment in favor of the thorough education of the children. 
 
 DEVELOPS MORALS AND MANHOOD. 
 
 13. The emotional development of the people, as well as their intel- 
 lectual growth, will follow from the referendum. The consciousness 
 of added power and responsibility will give the voters a new dignity 
 and a nobler manhood. They will feel like judges in the court of 
 final appeal. Not mere selectors of somebody to boss them but 
 rulers themselves. Not mere nominators of a sovereign but sover- 
 eigns. Such changes in spiritual attitude and environment always 
 work most powerfully upon the moral and emotional development of 
 the individual and the race. The patriotic, law-abiding, law-enforc- 
 ing sentiments of the people will be specially intensified by the refer- 
 endum, because they will know that the country is theirs not merely 
 in name but in fact; not merely to live in and use as some one else 
 bids them but to mold and control for themselves. 
 
 A STEADYING INFLUENCE — THE SOCIAL FLYWHEEL. 
 
 14. The referendum favors stability by developing patriotism and 
 education, securing greater simplicity and better enforcement of law, 
 driving bad men out of politics and bringing good men in, supplying 
 a safety valve for populav discontent, and requiring a more careful 
 consideration of legislation. Long use of the referendum has shown 
 that it is conservative. This clearly appears from the facts already 
 stated concerning its use in this country, and its record in Switzerland 
 for 30 years shows that two-thirds of the measures submitted to the 
 people were rejected by them. If the votes of the legislators had 
 been final, many of the rejected measures would have been law and 
 some of the best measures adopted by the people would not have been 
 passed by the legislators. An open door to popular decision gives 
 discontent a peaceful vent — prevents its accumulation and draws it 
 away from destructive methods of escape. The present system 
 affords it no reasonable means of exerting its power, and allows it to 
 accumulate indefinitely. The importance of this matter can hardly 
 be overestimated. Anglo-Saxon manhood, confined beneath the 
 pressure of accumulating injustice, is the most dangerous explosive 
 known to history. Macaulay predicted that it would destroy 
 America — industrial oppression of hopeless masses leading to revolu- 
 tion; but Macaulay did not know about the referendum that is going 
 to relieve the pressure, we hope, before the explosion comes. 
 
 The referendum reduces to a minimum the danger of broken peace. 
 Nothing can oppose so strong a bulwark against an appeal to passion 
 a& the knowledge that the people made the law and can change it 
 when they please — the knowledge that there is no selfish power, deaf 
 to reason and impervious to sympathy, imprisoning progress in the 
 
28 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 dungeons of iniquity, whence only force can hope for speedy release, 
 but that deliberate and careful discussion before the great, honest, 
 justice-loving people will remedy every wrong. Such knowledge will 
 remove the causes that have produced the growth of anarchy. It is 
 smothering discontent in hopelessness that breeds poison. Every 
 anarchist I ever heard express himself had much of truth in what he 
 said. It was his hopelessness of obtaining the justice he sought by 
 peaceful means that made him advocate fire and bomb. An anarchist 
 generally is a man who feels intensely the pressure of wrong condi- 
 tions, and whose nature has more of recklessness than hope. Give 
 us the referendum and the path will be so plain that anarchy will 
 soon go out of business. There is no such thing in Switzerland. It 
 is foreign to real democracy, for there the obstruction to your wishes 
 is the people, and you can't get rid of them with a bomb. 
 
 It is sometimes objected by those who oppose direct legislation 
 that the initiative will give all sorts of cranks a chance to bring their 
 ideas to the front. But that is really one of the advantages of the 
 institution. It enables discontent to find out just how big it is, 
 gives it form and precision, sifts out the kernel of truth and justice 
 at the heart of it, lifts it into the fresh air of public discussion before 
 it has a chance to ferment and explode. Even the worst cranks 
 would probably be diverted from violence to peaceful petitions and 
 efforts to educate the public to their ideas. The petitions would 
 cause no trouble, not even the effort of a veto, until they rose to 
 20,000 in Massachusetts and 70,000 in New York, and if there were 
 20,000 citizens in the Bay State who were united in the opinion that 
 a certain change should be made in the law of the State, surely the 
 matter would be worthy the careful attention of the people. 
 
 Under the referendum the street car men of our cities would not 
 give up their work for the privations and turmoil of a strike, nor 
 would they suffer in hopeless silence, but they would state their 
 grievances at the head of a petition for the referendum on municipal 
 ownership of the roads, and get their friends to circulate it, and then 
 vote the secret ballot for the transformation that would give them a 
 voice in the government of the industry in which they are engaged. 
 
 Under the referendum the unemployed would not parade the 
 streets of our cities in angry, hopeless mobs, but they would set the 
 wheels of the law in motion to give them complete justice instead 
 of the patchwork of hated charity. 
 
 Not only will revolutionary and disruptive forces become compar- 
 atively harmless under the referendum, and progressive forces work 
 more smoothly and steadily, but even the unavoidable difficulties 
 and errors incident to the government of large bodies of men will be 
 more serenely and calmly dealt with. People are not so apt to find 
 fault with what they do themselves as with what is done by others. 
 Take a man who is scolding about something and prove to him that 
 it is his own doing, and he becomes quiet and moderate. Watch a 
 mechanic trying to use a defective piece of machinery made by some- 
 one for whom he is not responsible, and see how blue the air will be 
 with deprecation or something worse; but let him endeavor to use 
 an imperfect machine made by himself, and see how good-natured 
 and tolerant he is, and how patiently he seeks to remedy the defect. 
 So censure and ridicule without measure are heaped upon the acts of 
 councils, legislatures, and Congresses, but note the atmosphere of 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 29 
 
 quiet acquiescence when the people have spoken, even though the 
 interests involved are of the most tremendous moment and the pre- 
 ceding struggle was most intense. 
 
 ECONOMY. 
 
 15. Large economies will result from direct legislation through the 
 stopping of jobs, extravagant contracts, corrupt legislation of all 
 sorts, cutting down the power of bosses and rings, simplifying the 
 law, reducing litigation, and diminishing even the expenses of legiti- 
 mate government. 
 
 When the people really make the laws, they will arrange things for 
 their interests. They will banish unnecessary offices, reduce the 
 salaries of lofty officials, abolish jobbery and extravagance, get rid 
 of the iniquitous spoils system, cut down the power of corporate 
 wealth, rescind all forfeited franchises, and take control of misbehav- 
 ing monopolies. Economy, justice, and purity will go hand in hand. 
 Ring rule and class legislation will die, and politicians will lose their 
 power, because they can no longer command rewards for their sup- 
 porters, no jobs, no fat contracts, no rich franchises. The cost of 
 taking the referendum vote will be very slight; not so much as the 
 saving on many a single contract; not a half of the saving on the one 
 item of printing the laws; not a tenth of the value of many a franchise 
 it will keep from being stolen. 
 
 IDENTIFICATION OF POWER WITH PUBLIC INTEREST. 
 
 16. The referendum will identify power with the public interest. 
 One of the prime sources of evil in our government to-day is the 
 possession of vast political power by private interests. History 
 shows that the law is in the main the expression of the interest of the 
 lawmaker. If the law is to be in the people's interest, it must be 
 their act; the enacting and approving power must be in the people. 
 Power is used in the interest of its possessor. If the power of govern- 
 ment is to be used in the interest of the people, they must have con- 
 tinuous and effective control of the government. 
 
 Government should be so arranged that interest and power will 
 coincide with justice and the public good. This can only be the case 
 when the real control is in the whole body of citizens of full age and 
 discretion and good character, for the interest of a part is not identical 
 with the interest of the whole, and so far as power is possessed by a 
 part its exercise may deviate from justice and the public good. 
 
 THE WORKINGMAN'S ISSUE. 
 
 17. The referendum will give labor its true weight. Labor's 
 interest in the referendum is measureless; it is par excellence the 
 workingman's issue. The present delegate system places labor at 
 tremendous disadvantage as compared with capital. Nearly all the 
 delegates are wealthy or sympathize with the wealthy, or are under 
 their influence. Labor can not expect a great deal from legislators; 
 and the weapon it has largely relied upon, the organized strike, is 
 being abolished by injunction. Not without reason, for it is certainly 
 against the public interest to allow a big corporation and its employees 
 to settle their disagreements by private war in the heart of a great 
 
30 DIRECT LEGISLATION". 
 
 city, to the vast disturbance of business and perhaps the destruction 
 of life and property — just as much against the public interest as it 
 would be to allow two individuals to settle a dispute by conflict in 
 the public streets. Nevertheless, labor is coming to be in a very 
 tight place without the strike and without effective representation 
 in the halls of legislation. What is the remedy? Courts of com- 
 pulsory arbitration would do some good, but the fundamental consti- 
 tutional cure is direct legislation. 
 
 Labor unions recognize quite generally the importance of direct 
 legislation to them. As early as 1891, 10 of the largest national and 
 international trades-unions (with a membership close to 200,000) 
 were using direct legislation. The same year Grand Master Workman 
 Powderly recommended the adoption of the referendum in political 
 government. From 1892 direct legislation was the only political 
 demand of the American Federation of Labor until 1894, when others 
 were added. It has been repeatedly and emphatically indorsed by 
 this powerful organization, and its president, Samuel Gompers, is a 
 firm believer in the movement. 
 
 THE PEOPLE'S ISSUE. 
 
 18. Not the producing classes alone, but every other class in the 
 community will be benefited by the referendum. It must be clear 
 by this time that all who wish justice and good government will be 
 benefited by direct legislation, and it is equally true that even the 
 bosses and tricksters will receive a priceless boon by the removal of 
 the temptations that help to make them evil men, and the establish- 
 ment of conditions tending to lift them to a nobler plane of life. 
 Under the referendum those who desire political power must become 
 true-hearted orators and public-spirited philosophers instead of 
 accomplished wire pullers. 
 
 The referendum is in no true sense either a class measure or a party 
 measure. A single case may serve to bring the matter strongly to 
 mind. In Nebraska, in 1896, the Republicans submitted 12 amend- 
 ments to the people and were defeated by the Populists at the polls, 
 but the amendments received majorities ranging from 54 to 70 per 
 cent of the votes cast, while the Populist majorities on the 11 State 
 officers elected and on the presidential electors ranged from a plural- 
 ity of 50 per cent to a majority of 54 per cent. 
 
 A COROLLARY FROM ESTABLISHED LEGAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 SIMPLY AN APPLICATION OF THE LAW OF AGENCY. 
 
 19. Direct legislation is simply an application of the fundamental 
 principles of agency recognized in every court of justice in the civil- 
 ized world, viz, that an agent must hold himself at all times subject 
 to the command and approval of his principal. If you employ an 
 agent to manage your business he expects to do as you say in all 
 things. He will advise you, but if you are not convinced he must 
 do your way and not his, and if he is not willing to do your way, he 
 resigns, or you discharge him. He may plan, but you have the 
 power of instant veto, and you do not have to wait till the end of 
 the year. If you did, you might find your property mortgaged or 
 sold or given away beyond recall. 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 31 
 
 Men often speak of their theories as though theywei e facts. Because 
 of our theories of what government ought to be and is intended to 
 be, we have fallen into the habit of calling our representatives and 
 misrepresentatives the "agents" of the people; but it is not true. 
 An agent may be instructed by his principal at any time, and he is 
 bound to obey; he must submit his plans in respect to the principal's 
 business to the principal whenever requested to do so, and the princi- 
 pal may reject them or amend them if they do not suit him ; the agent's 
 power may be revoked whenever he misconducts himself, and in every 
 respect he is subject to the will of the principal; an instrument to 
 carry it into execution, and not a person to set up his will in opposi- 
 tion to the principal's and override or disregard the principal's 
 wishes in his own affairs — that sort of a person is a master, not an 
 agent. 
 
 To one who understands the nature of agency, and knows that an 
 agent is simply an instrument in the hand of the principal to execute 
 his purposes, it sounds very odd to call city councilmen and State 
 legislators "agents." They ought to be, but they are not. They 
 have some of the symptoms, but in other respects they are found to 
 be a very different sort of animal. Queer agents who can sell or give 
 away my property against my wish and protest; queer agents who 
 can refuse to manage my business in the way I tell them to, and who 
 may violate my orders and disregard my instructions, and still be 
 safe from discharge till the term for which I employed them to act 
 for me has expired. You engage an architect to draw plans for your 
 house, but you expect to have the plans submitted to you before 
 your money is spent in building. Legislators are not agents, but 
 masters; and the people do not, for the most part, govern themselves, 
 but merely select the persons who are to govern them. These legis- 
 lative masters have many interests in common with the rest of the 
 people, and not infrequently wish to be reelected; so they act to a 
 considerable extent as real agents would. But they are not real 
 agents, for they arc not bound to act for the principal's interest or 
 according to his instructions, and every now and then, when their 
 interests are strongly opposed to the people's and they think they can 
 act in such a way as not to arouse public indignation, or they have a 
 political machine at their backs assuring reelection whatever they do, 
 or the interest involved seems more important to them than the 
 chance of reelection — then they give away franchises, lease city gas 
 works, make bad contracts, pass laws for their private benefit, and 
 act in public affairs in many a way they would never dream of acting 
 if the business hi their charge had been intrusted to them by an indi- 
 vidual or company employing them as agents subject to the princi- 
 pal's supervision, instruction, veto, and discharge according to the 
 universally recognized principles of the law of agency. A man who 
 can give away my property against my protest and without redress, 
 and can make laws that I have to obey for a year or two years or 
 four years, till he goes out of office, is nob my agent, but my master 
 for the term. 
 
 Our legislators and officials will never be really the people's agents, 
 the people's will will never be the actually and continuously govern- 
 ing will, until the people claim the principal's rights of instruction 
 and veto, revocation, and discharge. 
 
32 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 EXPERIENCE. 
 
 20. Experience speaks strongly for the referendum, not only from 
 its successful use in the United States, but also from its use in England 
 and Canada, and most eloquently of all from the splendid results of 
 its complete adoption in Switzerland. 
 
 In Canada the referendum is often used to ascertain public opinion 
 on important measures and has done some excellent work in the 
 same way as in our States and cities when used voluntarily by the 
 legislatures or councils. 
 
 In England the referendum principle is very effectively applied. 
 Every "appeal to the people" after each dissolution of Parliament is 
 practically a referendum. Parties go to the people, not with vague 
 generalities muddled in a heap of promises which the promisors never 
 dream anyone would be so discourteous as to ask them to fulfill, 
 but with a distinct course of legislation clearly marked out, a definite 
 and practical measure reduced to the very terms it is proposed to 
 enact into law, an actual bill which the people sit in judgment upon, 
 hear the advocates for and against, and reject or approve as they 
 see fit. England is slow in some things, but the mother can teach 
 the daughter a few good lessons if the young lady will only listen 
 with her nose at par or lower. When the English make up their 
 minds and elect a new Parliament to carry out a reform, the mem- 
 bers meet at once and put the will of the people into action. The old 
 Parliament is dead, and the new one begins to move as soon as the 
 victory at the polls is assured. But with us it takes six months or a 
 year for the new Congress to get hold of the reins, and meanwhile the 
 old boys, whom the people have repudiated, continue to drive to 
 destruction or anywhere else they please. 
 
 It is to Switzerland, however, that we must turn for the fullest 
 development of the referendum. Prof. Louis Waurin, of the Uni- 
 versity of Geneva, says: 1 
 
 In the middle of this century the aristocratic regime in Switzerland was suceeded 
 by that of representative democracy. The pure representative system, however, was 
 not destined to last long. The people soon became aware that in the latter regime 
 the country was overridden by political "coteries," prone to sacrifice the general 
 good to party or personal interests, and thus was brought about the development of 
 direct democracy. Then appeared two institutions: The referendum and the right of 
 popular initiative to which has of late been added, as a necessary complement, pro- 
 portional representation. 
 
 The evolution and effects of direct legislation in Switzerland are so 
 important that a knowledge of its history there seems almost essential 
 to anything like a thorough understanding of our subject. The 
 following resume 2 will give the reader the principal points: 
 
 Fifty years ago Switzerland was more under the heels of class rule than we are to-day; 
 political turmoil, rioting, civil war, monopoly, aristocracy, and oppression — that was 
 the history of a large portion of the Swiss until within a few decades. To-day the 
 country is the freest and most peaceful in the world. What has wrought the change? 
 Simply union and the referendum— union for strength, the referendum for justice. 
 Union to stop war and riot — the referendum to overcome monopoly, aristocracy, and 
 oppression. A solid confederation of the 22 Cantons or States, with a good constitu- 
 tion, was founded in 1848. Peace followed, but the railroads, politicians, aristocrats, 
 and monopolists continued to plunder the people. In 1858 a heavy subsidy was 
 
 1 Progressive Review, London, July, 1897. 
 
 2 A condensation for the most part from the writings of Mr. Sullivan, Mr. McCrackan, Karl Burkli, Sir 
 Francis Adams, and Hon. Boyd Winchester, ex-United States minister to Switzerland. 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 33 
 
 granted a railroad by the Legislature of Neuchatel. This opened the eyes of the 
 Switzers to the "beauties" of the representative system. They began to cast about 
 for a remedy. Some of the ablest citizens had for years been calling attention to the 
 value of the referendum (which was practiced in a few of the small forest Cantons), 
 urging the extension of the method to other States and to the Union. The people saw 
 that it was of no use to put faith in parties struggling for public office or to continue 
 trying to guess which candidates mignt withstand the corruptions of power, and so 
 they decided to trust themselves. In L863 and a few years following, six of the leading 
 Cantons adopted the initiative and referendum, and to-day direct legislation is prac- 
 ticed in all of Switzerland's cities, most of its communes, in 21 out of the 22 Cantons, 
 and in the Federal Government. Fourteen of the Cantons have the obligatory referen- 
 dum and seven the optional. The confederation adopted the referendum in 1874. 
 The initiative is in use in 17 Cantons, and the federation adopted it in 1891. The 
 referendum clause of the Federal constitution reads as follows: 
 
 "Federal laws as well as Federal resolutions which are binding upon all, and which 
 are not of such a nature that they must be dispatched immediately, shall be laid before 
 the people for acceptance or rejection when this is demanded by 30,000 Swiss voters 
 or by 8 Cantons." 
 
 The amendment of 1891 provides for the initiative "when 50,000 voters demand the 
 enactment, abolition, or alteration of special articles of the constitution." As con- 
 stitutional lines are very loosely drawn in Switzerland, the people will be able to 
 initiate almost any measure they choose. Let us look at the results. Mr. W. D.Me- 
 Crackan and Mr. J. W. Sullivan have made exhaustive studies of Swiss affairs, and to 
 them I owe most of the facts I give about the referendum there. Mr. Sullivan has the 
 story of direct legislation in writing from Herr Carl Burkli, of Zurich, known as the 
 ' ' Father of the referendum, ' ' who says: ' ' The mass s of the citizens of Switzerland found 
 it necessary to revolt against their plutocracy and the corrupt politicians who were 
 exploiting the country through the representative system. * * * The plutocratic 
 Government and the Grand Council of Zurich, which had connived with the private 
 banks and railroads, were pulled down in one great voting swoop. The people had 
 grown tired of being beheaded by the officeholders after every election. And poli- 
 ticians and privileged classes have ever since been going down before these instru- 
 ments in the hands of the people." 
 
 The referendum lias been carried most nearly to perfection in Berne, the great canton 
 of half a million people, and in Zurich, with its IMO.OOO inhabitants. The legislature 
 of Zurich consists of a single house of 300 members. It meets two or three times a year 
 for a two-weeks' session. It can not grant a privilege to a corporation, nor create an 
 office, nor grant a contract. Every enactment, and every appropriation above the 
 ordinary limited sums for purposes specified in the constitution, must go to the polls. 
 And the consequences — let me quote Mr. Sullivan verbatim, so that there may be no 
 mistake: "The Zurich Legislature knows nothing of bribery. It never sees a lobbyist. 
 There are no vestiges remaining of the public extravagance, the confusion of laws, the 
 partisan feeling, the personal campaigns, characteristic of representative Governments. 
 
 * * * When men of Zurich, now but middle-aged, were young, its legislature prac- 
 ticed vices similar to those of American legislatures; the cantons supported ma3iy 
 idling functionaries, and the citizens were ordinarily but voting machines, registering 
 the will of the political bosses. * * * To-day there is not a sinecure public office 
 in Zurich; the popular vote has cut down the number of officials to the minimum, and 
 their pay also. * * * There are no officials with high salaries. * * * There is 
 no one-man power in Switzerland. * * * No machine politician lives by spoils. 
 
 * * * fpj ie referendum has proved destructive to class law and class privilege." 
 In other words, Switzerland has rid the body politic of its vermin — it has taken politics 
 out of the slums and civilized it. Direct legislation has destroyed the power of legis- 
 lators to legislate for personal ends, and so has punctured the heart of evil in legislation. 
 
 One of the most valuable results has been the effect on the press. The papers no 
 longer deal in spite, prejudice, sensationalism, and slander, but aim at quiet discussion 
 and solid argument. Says Mr. Sullivan: "The advance of the Swiss press in power, 
 in dignity, in public helpfulness since the day of direct legislation in that country has 
 been one of the most remarkable facts connected with the reform." I wonder if it 
 really could give our papers dignity and helpfulness and a slight respect for the truth. 
 Mighty Magician, we pray for thy speedy arrival. 
 
 The progressive power of the referendum has been wonderful. It has enabled the 
 Swiss to settle quickly and easily many of the serious problems over which Americans 
 have long been puzzling their heads, and in respect to which they seem little nearer a 
 solution to-day than, they were 10 or 15 years ago. We have spoken of the elevation of 
 the press, the overthrow of monopoly, the purification of politics and the economies 
 
 S. Doc. 360. 63-2 3 
 
34 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 resulting therefrom, and from the absence of senates, unnecessary offices, high salaries, 
 and complex laws; but that is not all. Through the referendum Switzerland has 
 secured public ownership of the liquor business, the manufacture of distilled liquors 
 being now a national monopoly, has adopted state-life insurance, a national paper cur- 
 rency, a greatly improved factory act, a uniform marriage and divorce law more liberal 
 and .sensible than any of ours, established local option in capital punishment, declared 
 that vaccination shall not be compulsory, that religion shall not be entirely swept out 
 of the schools, and that her people are not yet ready to recognize governmentally the 
 right to employment when linked with a demand for "an official status between 
 laborers and employers, with democratic organization of the work in factories and 
 workshops. ' ' [And the Swiss are right. It would not be just for the public to attempt 
 such a reorganization until the public or the workers by purchase, or the growth of 
 cooperation, have come to own the shops. Democratic organization before that would 
 be confiscation.] All this since 1875, and still we have not spoken of the two most 
 important movements of the referendum period, viz, improved taxation and the 
 nationalization of the means of communication — both the results of direct legislation. 
 
 Tax reform has proceeded in two directions: First, the reduction of the aggregate of 
 taxation, rendered possible by the simplicity, purity, and economy of direct govern- 
 ment; and second, the change of the incidence of taxation from poverty to wealth. 
 The latter is one of the wisest and most significant movements of modern times, and is 
 making its claims felt in all advanced countries. In Switzerland it has been carried 
 far toward perfection. 
 
 Direct and nontransferable taxes have been substituted for indirect and transferable 
 taxes, and the direct taxes have been made progressive. 
 
 Indirect taxes, or those on commodities imported, mazmfactured, sold, etc., are 
 transferable from the person first paying them to the consumer, who has also to pay the 
 said person interest and profits on the capital he used to settle the tax in the first 
 instance, so that the rich importer or manufacturer may actually make money out of 
 the tax system instead of really contributing anything out of his own pocket to the 
 support of the Government; while the people who consume the commodities taxed, 
 not only have to pay all the taxes, but the dealers' profits on them besides. The Gov- 
 ernment treasury, after all, only receives $2 out of every three the people pay on account 
 of the tax system. If the taxes are mostly on articles of ordinary use, the great body of 
 the poorer people bear the bulk of taxation , and a certain class of the wealthy have no 
 burden, but a profit instead. This trick of indirect taxation is what the French states- 
 man Turgot called "plucking the goose without making it cackle." But the Swiss 
 geese have found out the trick, and have turned it into direct progressive taxation, or 
 the trick of plucking the goose where the feathers are thickest and where it will hurt 
 the least. In several of the more radical cantons the rich and well-to-do pay nearly 
 all the taxes. In Zurich 50 years ago all taxes were indirect; now $32 out of every $34, 
 or over seven-eighths of the whole, are raised by direct and progressive taxation on 
 incomes, inheritances, and real estate. 
 
 In the case of incomes, the largest pay at a rate five times as heavy as the moderate 
 ones. In the case of property, the largest fortunes pay at a rate twice as great as 
 the smallest. In the case of inheritances, the tax has increased more than six fold 
 in the last 30 years. The larger the amount of property and the more distant the 
 relative the heavier the rate. 
 
 The poorest laborer pays about 2 per cent of his wages in taxes, being 15 to 30 per 
 cent better off than before the present system was adopted; the well-paid clerk pays 
 5 per cent of his salary, being 10 to 20 per cent better off; the business man worth 
 $50,000 or more pays 10 per cent of his profits, and rests about where he was; while 
 the large capitalist, worth half a million or more, pays 25 per cent of his income, 
 and so gives back to the public a part of the excess that he receives above what he 
 earns. These laws have done a great deal to aid the diffusion of wealth and check 
 the too rapid growth of overlarge fortunes, and the results are seen in the fact that, 
 while Switzerland was until recently very poor, the exchanges of wealth per capita 
 there are greater to-day thai) in any other country of the continent. "It is an extraor- 
 dinarv fact," says Mr. Sullivan, generalizing from Mulhall's statistics, "that the 
 3,000,000 Swiss consume as much wealth as the 15,000,000 Italians." That is, one 
 Swiss, on the average, eats, drinks, wears, travels, and reads five times as much as 
 his Italian neighbor. 
 
 Not less important is the second great movement above mentioned — the tendency 
 of the Government toward the full control of monopolies, shown in the nationaliza- 
 tion of the liquor business, a portion of the forests, life insurance, and the means of 
 communication and transportation. 
 
 As a result of direct legislation, Switzerland has adopted national ownership of 
 railways, and has the best system of Federal post office, telegraph, telephone, and 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 35 
 
 express sendee in existence. If you receive money by postal order the carrier puts 
 the cash in your hands. The mail is delivered everywhere. If you want the express, 
 yon send the order by the carrier. At any post office you may subscribe for any 
 S»viss publication or for any of the several thousands of the world's leading period- 
 icals. Letter postage in Switzerland is 1 cent, local; general, 'J cents; book, 1 cent 
 a half pound: newspaper average two-fifths of a cent; express matter at correspond- 
 ing rates. With the cheapest postage in the world the profits of the system are large, 
 
 I ansa the Swiss post office docs not have to pay the railroads monopoly prices for 
 
 transportation. 
 
 In respect to the public telephone, the American consul at St. Grail reported offi- 
 ciary May . r ), ]8!)li: "The Swiss telephone service is hotter and the rates lower than 
 anywhere else in the world." 
 
 i\s to the national ownership of railroads in Switzerland, I refer the reader to the 
 circular issued by the National League for Promoting the Public Ownership of Monop- 
 olies, and printed in Chapter I of this hook, at the close of the section on "Public 
 sentiment." 
 
 The wonderful success of the Swiss referendum is fully attested by the lion. Boyd 
 Winchester, our former minister to Switzerland; Sir Francis 0. Adams, the English 
 minister there; Prof. Vincent, of Johns Hopkins University; Mr. McCrackan, Mr. 
 Sullivan, Prof. Moses, Prof. Dicey, etc. Kev. Lyman Abbott's paper, The Out- 
 look, speaking of the strong words of approval eminent observers have bestowed 
 upon the referendum, says: "Apparently there is no conflict in the testimony." The 
 only exception I know of is Mr. A. B. Hart, who seems to have found some of the 
 people in Switzerland who have lost power and privilege through the referendum 
 and were therefore inclined to grow! about the new institution. Mr. Hart eonfe* 3 is 
 that he went to Switzerland prejudiced against the referendum, and it is not surprising 
 that he should have found the society of ousted politicians and monopolists so con- 
 genial that he neglected to form other acquaintances, and filled his letter to the Post 
 with assertions that the initiative "suggests bad measures" (but the legislature never 
 does; no, it will not even suggest such things); that the referendum sometimes "kills 
 good measures" (but of course the legislature never does); that the "Swiss voters 
 do not all come out" (like the Americans do); and that "the referendum has dis- 
 appointed its friends in Switzerland." This "powerful" argument, quoted in sub- 
 stance from one so well prepared by foregone conclusions to make it, would almost 
 lead one to believe that the famous ambassadors, professors, and authors previously 
 mentioned had formed a conspiracy to deceive the world about the referendum 
 were it not that Mr. Hart, on cross-examination, as it were, corroborates their testi- 
 mony by saying: "Switzerland is an atoll in the surging ocean of European politics. 
 Here the increasing strain which has come upon the representative institutions of 
 other countries is hardly felt. Here the legislature is free from party organization, 
 the business of the country is well and promptly done, the people are content with 
 their representatives. * * * The process of invoking and voting on a referendum 
 is simple and easily worked. * * * The system undoubtedly leads to public 
 discussion; newspapers criticize; addresses and counter-addresses are issued; can- 
 tonal councils publicly advise voters, and of late the Federal assembly sends out 
 manifestoes about pending initiatives." How does this talk about doing the business 
 promptly and well and about the people's contentment agree with what Mr. Hart 
 said about "disappointment of the friends of the referendum"? As to this, one 
 of the leading friends of the referendum wrote to Mr. Sullivan that it was "deeply 
 rooted in the hearts of the whole people. All parties who formerly opposed the 
 referendum, even the most reactionary and aristocratic, have declared officially their 
 adherence to the initiative and referendum as a thoroughly good institution." No 
 one objects to it now but a few individuals who stood in the path of progress and got 
 hurt by the wheels of justice and who comfort themselves with ungracious talk. 
 
 There were objections in plentiful measure during the early advocacy of the wide 
 extension of the referendum, but experience has shown them all to be fallacious. 
 Here are some samples: "It would do well enough in the little commune or the primi- 
 tive forest canton but never would work in the grand Canton of Berne, much less in 
 Federal affairs; that was visionary in the extreme. It was an impracticable thing 
 anyway, and would keep the people voting from morning till night. Demagogues 
 would rule the people and pernicious tyrannical laws would be passed. The people 
 were inexperienced, short-sighted, capricious, passionate, and the referendum would 
 prove the source of great expense and a flood of hasty, injudicious, partisan legislation." 
 
 As to expense, we have seen that taxes are lower than ever before, and the Govern- 
 ment more economical. Jobbery and extravagance are unknown, for the people who 
 pay hold the strings of the purse, and politics, since there is no money in it now, has 
 ceased to be a trade. 
 
36 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 Instead of partisan laws, it has been proved that people vote on the merits of the 
 measures submitted, the fate of one proposition having no effect on that of another 
 put out by the same organization, and partisanship is reduced to its lowest ebb, as 
 even Mr. Hart admits. 
 
 Instead of causing a flood of hasty legislation, the referendum has proved a drag 
 on the making of laws. In the 20 years from 1874 to 1894 the Swiss Federal Con- 
 gress passed 175 laws, 19 of which were called to the polls by a petition for the refer- 
 endum. Eight amendments to the constitution were also passed and two more sug- 
 gested by the initiative. So that the people voted in 20 years on 29 questions, 10 of 
 which were constitutional amendments, which go to the people in our States now. 
 Sixteen of the laws and amendments were disapproved by the voters and 13 approved. 
 Every one of the questions received remarkably lengthy consideration, and most 
 deliberate and dispassionate discussion, the like of which is as yet unknown in Amer- 
 ica. Passing less than a law a year is not much of a "flood" of legislation from the 
 referendum, is it? Neither does the suggestion of one law in each two years by the 
 Federal initiative seem much like a deluge. In 20 years the legislature of Soleure 
 passed 66 laws; all went to the people, the referendum being obligatory; 51 were adopted 
 at the polls and 15 rejected — less law-making, you see, on the face of the returns, 
 than if there had been no referendum. In 20 years the legislature of Berne passed 68 
 laws; 50 were approved at the polls and 18 rejected. Berne has half a million people, 
 New Jersey a million and a half. Berne, with the referendum, averages two and a half 
 laws a year, and New Jersey 450. So that per million of inhabitants 300 laws are 
 enacted in the United States to Switzerland's 5, or 60 to 1. It turns out, therefore, 
 that the deluge is not with the referendum but without it. The obligatory referen- 
 dum makes the entire citizenship a deliberative body in perpetual session. It estab- 
 lishes principles and avoids the flood of special legislation that sweeps away all sense 
 of virtue from our statute books. The mass of complex, useless and evil laws that 
 breeds lawyers, courts, and police, are in Switzerland not passed at all, with a great 
 reduction in the cost of litigation and police. 
 
 Mr. McCrackan says: "The referendum is above all things fatal to anything like 
 extravagance in the management of public funds; it discerns instantly and kills re- 
 morselessly all manner of jobs. " And again: "Nowhere in the world are Government 
 places occupied by men so well fitted for the work to be performed. " 
 
 Boyd Winchester says in his ' ' Swiss Republic : " 
 
 "One in visiting the chambers of the assembly is much impressed with the smooth 
 and quiet dispatch of business. The members are not seated with reference to their 
 political affiliations. There is no filibustering, no vexatious points of order, no drastic 
 rules of cloture to ruffle the decorum of the proceedings. Interruptions are few, and 
 angry personal bickerings never occur. * * * Leaves to print, or a written speech 
 memorized and passionately declaimed are unknown. There are none of those ex- 
 traneous and soliciting conditions to invite to 'buncombe' speeches. The debates 
 are more in the nature of au informal consultation of business men about common 
 interests. They talk and vote, and there is an end to it. This easy, colloquial dis- 
 position of affairs by no means implies any slip-shod indifference or superficial method 
 of legislation. There is no legislative body where important questions are treated in 
 a more fundamental and critical manner. 
 
 "The members of the assembly practically enjoy life tenure. Reelection, alike in 
 the whole confederation and in the single canton, is the rule. Death and voluntary 
 retirement account for 19 out of the 21 new members at the last general election. 
 There are members who have served continuously since the organization of the assem- 
 bly, in 1848. To some extent this remarkable retention of members of the assembly 
 may be ascribed to the fact that the people feel that they are masters through the 
 power of rejecting all measures which are put to a popular vote. 
 
 "The members of the Federal council can be and are continually reelected, not- 
 withstanding sharp antagonisms among themselves, and it may be between them and 
 a majority in the assembly. They also continue to discharge their administrative 
 duties, whether the measures submitted by them are or are not sanctioned by the 
 voters. The Swiss distinguish between men and measures. They retain valued 
 servants in their employment, even though they reject their advice. * * * 
 This sure tenure of service makes those chosen look upon it as the business of 
 their lives. Without this permanence, such men as now fill it could not b6 induced 
 to do so." 
 
 Read also the following from Sir Francis Adams: 
 
 "The Swiss voter is quite ready to vote again and again for the same candidates. 
 He probably looks upon them as good men of business, with long experience of par- 
 liamentary and Federal affairs, and he knows very well that if measures are passed 
 of which for some reason or other he does not approve, he and his fellows can combine 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 37 
 
 to reject them at the referendum. * * * There have been hitherto only two 
 instances of a member willing to serve not being reelected. * * * 
 
 "The debates are carried on with much decorum. There is seldom a noisy sitting, 
 even when the 'most important subjects are discussed. Interruptions are few, and 
 scenes such as unhappily have of late been painfully Erequenl in our I louse of Com- 
 mons do not exist. The sittings strike the spectator as being those of men of business, 
 though the members are by no means devoid of eloquence. 
 
 And this from Karl Burkli, a prominent citizen of Zurich, Switzerland: 
 
 "The smooth working of our Federal, cantonal, and municipal referendum is, as 
 a matter of fact, a truth generally acknowledged throughout Switzerland. The ini- 
 tiative and referendum are now deeply rooted Ln the hearts of the Swiss people. * * * 
 Proportional representation is going ahead in half a dozen Cantons (Berne, Basle, 
 Zurich, Lucerne, St. Gall) just now, and six Cantons (Tessin, Neuchatel, Ceneva, 
 Zug, Soleure, Fribourg) and the Federal city of Beme have already proportional 
 representation. 
 
 "Our city or municipal referendum goes likewise very well. So the town citizens 
 of Berne voted this year (April), per referendum, for instituting proportional repre- 
 sentation, and last year the town citizens of Zurich (now the largest city in Switzer- 
 land, about 130,000 to 150,000 inhabitants) voted for the appropriation and manage- 
 ment by the city of the tramways (street-car lines). 
 
 "All these divers votings -Federal, cantonal, municipal— went on without riot, 
 Corruption, disturbance, or hindrance whatever, although with great agitation. So 
 all is well with us, and you may authoritatively say that there is no agitation for its 
 repeal or difficulty in its working, whether in federation or in the Cantons or in the 
 cities, as Zurich, Geneva, Bash', Berne, though these cities are full of foreign ele- 
 ments. Our Swiss political trinity — initiative, referendum, and proportional repre- 
 sentation — is not only good and holy for hardworking Switzerland, but would be even 
 better, I think, too, for the grand country in North America." 
 
 Mr. A. A. Brown, speaking of what the Swiss have done with direct legislation says: 
 "They have defeated monopolies, improved the method of taxation, reduced the 
 rate, avoided national scandals growing out of extravagance; they have husbanded 
 the public domain for the benefit of their own citizenship; they have destroyed parti- 
 sanship and established a government of the people; they have quieted disturbing 
 political elements, disarmed the politician, enthroned the people; by vote of the 
 people they have assumed authority over railroads, express companies, telegraphs, 
 and telephones, reducing freight rates, express charges and tolls more than 78 per 
 cent below the cost for like service under private control." (Arena, vol. 22, p. 98.) 
 
 With such a record how can we fail to favor the referendum ? 
 Switzerland has solved her problem by making an intelligent selec- 
 tion of the best among many local forms and extending its applica- 
 tion. Is there not good reason to believe that we can solve many 
 of our problems in the same way ? 
 
 21. Authority of the highest character favors the extension of the 
 referendum in America. 
 
 22. The drift of public sentiment sets strongly toward the refer- 
 endum. 
 
 23. The trend of events, the progress of civilization, the evolution 
 of democracy, and the whole movement of modern history is in the 
 direction of more perfect control of the government by the people, 
 a path which leads straight to the fuller use of direct legislation. 
 
 24. The fundamental principles of religion and ethics, the law of 
 love, the Golden Rule, and the brotherhood of man necessitates the 
 referendum. Love and brotherhood deny me the right and banish 
 the wish to assume more power than my fellows or deprive them 
 of equal participation in the development resulting from decision and 
 responsibility. Only unavoidable necessity can justify unequal sov- 
 ereignty, and no such necessity exists in cases to which the initiative 
 and referendum can be applied. 
 
 25. The final and fundamental political argument for direct legis- 
 lation is that it is necessary to true self-government. It and it only 
 can and will establish public ownership of the Government. It is the 
 
38 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 only way to prove and overcome misrepresentation with due pre- 
 cision and promptness. It is the only practicable means of destroy- 
 ing the great lawmaking monopoly which holds us in its grip to-day, 
 and which is not only a terrible evil in itself but the prolific parent 
 and protector of other monopolies and oppressions. 
 
 If the control of affairs is put in the hands of a few men for life, 
 without responsibility to the controlled, everybody recognizes the 
 fact that the Government is an aristocracy. If the control is put 
 in the hands of a few for two or three years without responsibility to 
 the controlled during that time, there is an aristocracy as much as 
 before. The duration of a government does not fix its character, 
 but the nature of the control; and even if time were of the essence of 
 the case, -many a monarch's reign has been shorter than the terms of 
 our President and Senators. To have a government by the people, 
 the legislative agents must be subject to the control of the people every 
 moment. If for one instant they cease to be subject to the orders 
 of the people, for that instant they cease to be servants and become 
 sovereigns in place of the people. 
 
 It is true that in the early history of America pure representative 
 government produced good results. It is perfectly possible that in a 
 rural community, where the people are nearly on a level, and no 
 strong class distinctions exist, representative aristocracy might take 
 a course quite close to the one in which self-government would steer 
 the ship of state. 
 
 But as the simplicity and homogeneity of primitive society give 
 place to the strong contrasts of rich and poor, millionaire and tramp, 
 Back Bay and slums, educated and ignorant, nabobs and nobodies — - 
 as the people crystalize into classes under the influence of selfish com- 
 petition and class interests grow intense, facing each other in bitter 
 antagonism — as organizations of men are formed to capture the gov- 
 ernment and the offices for their own private benefit — the divergence 
 between the people's will and the will of the men who contrive to get 
 themselves elected under the name of "representatives" grows larger 
 and larger, until in some of our cities and States scarcely a vestige 
 of real representation remains, and the Government is a despotism. 
 
 It has come to be perfectly clear that representation does not repre- 
 sent, and a little consideration will show that even under the most 
 favorable circumstances, delegate law can not be relied on to repre- 
 sent the people's will. 
 
 The best of men, the ablest of statesmen, do not really know what 
 the people want. The only way is to ask the people. 
 
 It is clear that the people are not truly represented by delegate 
 legislation. We have some attempts at representation, together with 
 geographical representation and boss representation, and machine 
 representation, and corporation, trust, and combine representation. 
 Harper's Weekly, discussing "The breakdown of legislatures," says: 
 
 Legislatures, as they were originally conceived, are breaking down because the 
 representative character of their members has changed. They have not ceased to 
 represent somebody. They are as responsible now as they ever were in the past; 
 but they represent a small, organized element of the voters, which is under the con- 
 trol of the "machine," and they are responsible to the boss of that machine. 
 
 The question of direct legislation is equivalent to the question, 
 "Ought the people's will to govern all the time, or only now and 
 then? Shall the ascertainment and execution of the people's will be 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 39 
 
 made as easy and perfect as possible, or shall it continue imperfect 
 and difficult?" 
 
 Senator Marion Butler says that no man can oppose direct Legisla- 
 tion "unless he is at heart opposed to popular government." ' 
 
 John Quincy Adams said that "the will of the people is the end of 
 all legitimate government on earth." 
 
 SUMMARY STATEMENT. 
 
 Lawmaking by final vote of delegates is not self-goverament, but government by 
 an elective aristocracy. 
 
 The remedy is the extension of direct legislation through the initiative and refer- 
 endum. 
 
 The initiative is the proposal of a law by a reasonable percentage ef the voters. 
 
 The referendum is the submission of a measure to the people for final approval or 
 rejection; obligatory, when all but urgency measures must be submitted; optional, 
 when submission may be required by petition of a reasonable percentage of voters; 
 legislative, when the option of submission is in the legislature or council; executive, 
 when the option is with the mayor or governor, etc. 
 
 Otherwise stated, the initiative is the right of provoking a decision of the sovereign 
 people, and the referendum is the right of making such decision. 
 
 Direct legislation is already in full use in town affairs. The referendum is obliga- 
 tory in the making of constitutions, and quite generally in certain city matters, and 
 it may be used in all city and State affairs at the option of the legislative authorities. 
 
 All that is necessary is to put the option in the people in the case of city and State 
 enactments (or make the submission obligatory) and add the initiative. In this way 
 the principle of direct legislation will be consistently applied from end to end of the 
 scale of legislation. 
 
 The movement for direct legislation (or strictly speaking, the movement for the 
 extension of direct legislation) is growing with astonishing vigor and unparalleled 
 rapidity. 
 
 REASONS TOR DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 It will establish self-government in place of government by councils and legisla- 
 tures; democracy in place of elective aristocracy; government by and for the people 
 in place of government by and for the politicians and the corporate interests whose 
 instruments they are. 
 
 It and it only can and will destroy the private monopoly of legislative power and 
 establish public ownership of the government. The fundamental questions are, 
 "Shall the people rule or be ruled? Shall they own the government or be owned by 
 it? Shall they control legislation or merely select persons to control it ? " The refer- 
 endum answers these questions in favor of the people. 
 
 It will perfect the representative system, correcting the evils of the unguarded 
 method of making laws by final vote of a body of delegates beyond the reach of any 
 immediate effective control by the people. 
 
 It will give the representatives a keener regard for public opinion, and enable the 
 people to pass on then- action before it takes effect. 
 
 It will constitute "a curb to the never-ending audacity of elected persons." 
 
 It will remove the concentration of temptation by diffusing power; it will no longer 
 pay to spend much time and money bringing strong pressure to bear on a few legisla- 
 tors, because their action will not be final — they can not deliver the goods. 
 
 It will eliminate legislative corruption, kill the lobby, stop blackmailing bills, 
 discourage log-rolling, check the passage of private and local acts, and close the door 
 to franchise steals and all other sorts of fraudulent legislation. 
 
 It will destroy the power of legislators to legislate for personal ends. 
 
 It will infinitely dilute the power of bribery. 
 
 It will take politics out of the slums and civilize them. 
 
 It will abolish the obstructive power of unscrupulous minorities in legislative bodies. 
 
 It will undermine the power of rings and bosses. 
 
 Under direct legislation a speaker can no longer play the czar to any purpose. 
 
 It will lessen the influence of demagogues. 
 
 i This is bedrock. To deny the initiative and referendum is to deny self-government and democracy; 
 to affirm self-government and democracy is to affirm the initiative and referendum. The whole, literature 
 of the subject focuses upon that fundamental fact. 
 
40 DIRECT LEGISLATION". 
 
 It will check the interference of employers in elections and diminish their power to 
 control the political action of employees. 
 
 It will diminish partisanship and tend to wipe out party lines in discussion and vot- 
 ing. The records we have given of the use of the referendum in the United States 
 and elsewhere prove this. 
 
 In its complete form it will enable men to vote their convictions without leaving 
 their party or deserting its candidates, and so will diminish the warping power of 
 party allegiance. 
 
 It will elevate public questions above mere party considerations. 
 
 It will simplify and purify elections. 
 
 It will work an automatic disfranchisement of the unfit, and bring out a fuller vote 
 of the more intelligent and public spirited who now so frequently stay at home because 
 they do not feel like indorsing any of the platforms or candidates presented. 
 
 It will simplify and elevate the law. 
 
 It will stop the prolific output of useless, or worse than useless, laws and ordinances, 
 and limit legislation to the few enactments really needed. The body politic will no 
 longer be disgraced by a fecundity natural only to organisms of a low order. 
 
 In conjunction with municipal home rule in local affairs it will relieve our legisla- 
 tors from the pressure of multitudinous private, corporate, and local measures, and 
 enable them to give proper attention to matters of real importance; 24,000 bills intro- 
 duced in one session of Congress, and in the New York Legislature 1,200 bills, it is 
 said, to change the charter of Greater New York, to say nothing of the mass of other 
 bills in the same session — think of it. 
 
 It will increase respect for the law and aid its enforcement. 
 
 It will develop the people's interest in public affairs. 
 
 It will compel the people to think and act. 
 
 It will elevate the press and dignify political discussion. 
 
 It will suppress the inducements that tempt ambition to pervert the Government 
 to private uses. 
 
 It will elevate the profession of politics, Weakening the motives that lead bad men 
 into political life and strengthening the attractions of public affairs for men of high 
 character and attainments. 
 
 It will add to the dignity of every citizen. 
 
 It will have a profound educational effect on the people intellectually, emotionally, 
 and morally. 
 
 It will favor stability, security, and contentment in many ways, affording a natural 
 safety valve for discontent, and preventing its accumulation, bringing responsibility 
 home to the people, stopping the schemes of political aggressors, etc. Radical changes 
 of policy and delays disastrous to business will become less frequent, because of the 
 speedy consideration and settlement of public questions in accordance with the 
 popular will. It is a guarantee against disorder. Revolution has little chance where 
 the people can easily mold the law. 
 
 It will do more than any other one thing except the growth of sympathy and con- 
 science to secure a peaceful solution of the great industrial problems that are threat- 
 ening our civilization. 
 
 It will furnish a strong decentralizing, counterbalancing force to save us from the 
 centralizing, combining, trust and monopoly tendencies that are hastening us toward 
 industrial despotism. 
 
 It will save the cost of innumerable impotent petitions and powerless mass meetings, 
 lobby expenses, abortive investigations, excessive printing of special laws, local acts, 
 private legislation, etc. The cost of legislative sessions of councils, legislatures, etc., 
 could also be reduced; perhaps one chamber of moderate size would be sufficient with 
 the referendum. 
 
 It will put honesty in power. 
 
 It will make the right of petition impartial and imperative. 
 
 It will open the door to all other reforms as fast as the people desire them. 
 
 It will no longer be necessary to wait till the millionaires and political bosses are 
 ready for the curtain to go up. 
 
 Neither will it be necessary to organize a new party in order to carry a reform. The 
 full sentiment in favor of a measure may be expressed at each election and its growth 
 recorded more perfectly than is possible by party action. Existing parties would be 
 eager to indorse a measure that showed much strength or rapidity of growth, and it 
 would be carried long before a new party could rally half the sentiment that might 
 exist in its favor. It takes a strong pull to break up party organizations and get men 
 away from lifelong affiliations. That difficulty in the path of reform would be removed 
 by direct legislation. 
 
 It is the only way to prove and overcome misrepresentation. 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 41 
 
 It means the enfranchisement of all voters on all questions at all times, in place of 
 the disenfranchiseinenl. of nearly all voters at nearly all times on all questions upon 
 which they differ from councilmen and Legislators. 
 
 It means that the mighty power of the ballot may be used not merely one day in 
 the year, but any day the public good requires— that the great engine of popular 
 sovereignty may be made to move whenever the people see lit to turn on th" steam. 
 
 It means that (he people will have constant and effective control of their Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 It is the fulfillment of Lincoln's grand promise and prophecy, "a government of the 
 people, by the people, and for the people.." 
 
 It is required by the fundamental principles of ethics and religion. The law of 
 love and the brotherhood of man can not be satisfied without legislative equality. 
 The rule of the few is unchristian — antagonism, not love; mastery, not brotherhood. 
 
 It is immediately and easily practicable. 
 
 It will make the interest of the lawgiver coincide with justice, and identify power 
 with the public good. 
 
 It will suppress class legislation. 
 
 It will tend to th" diffusion of wealth by depriving the wealthy of their overweight 
 in Government and placing the preponderance of legislative; power in the great- middle 
 and producing classes, whose interests are opposed to vast, aggregations of private 
 capital. 
 
 Every election i^ a reference to the people, a submission of certian matters to voters 
 for decision; what we call "direct legislation'' simply extends the application of the 
 principle and improves th" method. Shall we refer things in heaps for a compound 
 judgment on each heap, according to the antiquated method of reference or shall we 
 ask for a judgment on each item? 
 
 The referendum will separate the judgment on men from the judgment on issues. 
 
 It will disentangle issues and permit each one to be judged on its own individual 
 merits, thus ridding us of our conglomerate politics, with its mixture of issues in 
 complex, ambiguous platforms, each mixture to be taken only with a spc-iiied can- 
 didate or set of candidates. 
 
 It will develop civic patriotism and intelligent participation in public affairs. 
 
 It will make the Government more flexible, more easily adapted to changing condi- 
 tions. Constitutions could be changed readily, statutes repealed or vetoed, new 
 measures instituted, "deadlocks" deprived of their force, and the law rendered alto- 
 gether less rigid than at present. 
 
 It will tend to unite the people. Interests and opinions on specific measures do 
 not follow existing lines of division. People will be drawn together across the bound- 
 aries of the various organizations. The fibers of political fellowship will run over and 
 through party walls. The upper classes will take a deeper interest in the lower 
 classes, come into closer sympathy and more permanent contact with them, and take 
 a more active part in their political education. 
 
 It is the simple common-sense right of the people. 
 
 One delegate in legislative hall or council chamber can initiate a measure; surely 
 a thousand or five thousand or ten thousand citizens ought to have as much right as 
 a single delegate elected, perhaps, by themselves. 
 
 It will help the people to understand their own affairs, their city, State, Nation, 
 the age in which they live — a matter of the utmost importance, which can not be 
 accomplished without the referendum, for the people will never thoroughly under- 
 stand public affairs till they are called on to decide them. 
 
 Under the initiative and referendum the people, with the cooperation of councils 
 and legislatures, will exercise the legislative power. 
 
 Direct legislation will make it easier to elect good men and to keep them good 
 after they are elected . 
 
 It will give the chief power in effective form to the great body of the common 
 people, in whom the main hope of the future lies. 
 
 It will give labor its true weight and influence. 
 
 It is the workingmans main issue and is recognized as such by organizations rep- 
 resenting millions of the producing classes. 
 
 It is not a class movement, however, but will benefit all classes; even the bosses 
 and politicians who oppose it will be lifted by it to a nobler plane of life. 
 
 It is not a party movement; leading members of all parties are working for it. It 
 has been demanded in Democratic, Populist, Republican, Prohibition, and Socialist 
 platforms, and sometimes every party in the State has advocated it at the same time. 
 
 Those who believe in private ownership of the Government do not like the refer- 
 endum, but other people favor it as soon as they understand it. 
 
42 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 Many regard it as the primary measure, and few progressive people put it below 
 the second place in the list of leading reforms. Antimonopolists say, "Public owner- 
 ship and direct legislation"; temperance specialists declare for "Prohibition and the 
 referendum"; single taxers write, "The single tax and the referendum," etc. There 
 is a story of a group of Greek generals choosing a commander in chief. Each was to 
 write down his first choice and his second choice. When the ballots were counted 
 it was found that the first-choice votes were scattering, every general having one, 
 but the second-choice votes were all for the same man. Each general cast his first 
 vote for himself or his pet friend, but when it came to his second choice he exercised 
 his unbiased judgment, and then there was no difference of opinion. This consensus 
 of second-choice votes had vastly more weight than any of the scattering first-choice 
 ballots, and the man each general voted for next to himself or his pet hobby was 
 recognized as the proper commander in chief. The application is easy. 
 
 Indirect legislation is not much wiser as a rule than indirect love-making. The 
 people get what they want through indirect legislation about as well as Miles Standish 
 got what he wanted through representative love-making. 
 
 Direct legislation means control of your servants instead of letting your servants 
 control you. 
 
 It is simply a common-sense application of the established principles of agency, 
 affording the principal his proper rights of veto, instruction, direction, control, and 
 discharge. 
 
 Analogy calls for it on several essential grounds. 
 
 Evolution requires it. Nothing develops manhood like responsibility in large 
 affairs; nothing develops society like universal thought and discussion, social judg- 
 ment, and concerted action of the whole community. 
 
 Justice and equality demand it. 
 
 It is necessary to good government. 
 
 If Thomas Jefferson was correct in saying that "Governments are republican only 
 in proportion as they embody the will of the people and execute it, ' ' and ' ' Government 
 is more or less republican in proportion as it has in its composition more or less of this 
 ingredient of the direct action of the citizens" — if these opinions of one of the greatest 
 of those who formed the National Constitution are to be deemed correct — in other 
 words, if Jefferson knew what he was talking about, then the referendum is required 
 to fulfill the Federal Constitution, being necessary to carry out the provision which 
 guarantees the States a republican form of government. 
 
 High authorities believe it is necessary to the perpetuity of free institutions — the 
 only thing that can check the encroachments of monopoly and corruption. 
 
 It is in harmony with American principles. In fact, it is the necessary outcome of 
 their logical application. 
 
 It is already a part of the American system of government. All we need is an 
 extension of methods now in use. 
 
 Experience in Switzerland, England, France, Canada, Australia, and the United 
 States proves the great value of the referendum. 
 
 It has shown itself to be wisely conservative and judiciously progressive, educating, 
 elevating, purifying, nonpartisan, and patriotic. 
 
 It makes for peace. Where the people decide, war will be rare. 
 
 Eminent statesmen, jurists, philosophers, and philanthropists advocate it and 
 distinguished men and women in every sphere of life favor its adoption. 
 
 No one of high authority opposes it, and rarely anyone objects to it except those 
 whose political supremacy, legislative frauds, franchise schemes, or other selfish 
 interests would be endangered by it. 
 
 It is the line of least resistance in reform to-day. 
 
 The drift of public sentiment sets strongly toward the extension of direct legislation. 
 
 The whole movement of modern history points to the referendum. 
 
 It is the fulfillment of liberty, equality, and justice for which the American and 
 French Revolutions were fought and won. 
 
 Our century is filled from end to end with the growth of the people's power, and the 
 evolution of democracy must enevitably lead to direct legislation along the whole line. 
 
 The progress of civilization means the uplift of the common people. Once only the 
 sovereign could make a law; all others were his subjects; now the people make some 
 laws, influence to some extent the making of the rest, and have in theory the right to 
 exercise the whole power of government. At last the theory will be realized and 
 the people will be sovereign in fact as well as in name — no laws will be made against 
 their sovereign wish, and all laws their sovereign majesty desires will be enacted — 
 a state of things impossible except through direct legislation. 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 43 
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 
 
 Objections to direct legislation are made by those who do dot 
 understand it — those who overestimate the effects of other reforms 
 like proportional representation — those who think the referendum 
 will interfere with the dignity and usefulness of councils and legisla- 
 tures — those whose personal power would be diminished or their 
 private interests subjected to the public interest — those who object 
 because of natural inclination to take the other side, or chance 
 prejudice derived from dislike or opposition to the person bringing 
 the matter to their notice or prominently advocating it in their 
 neighborhood — those who are conservative by inherited mental 
 inertia — those who object to change on the general principle that they 
 are pretty comfortable as they are — and those who distrust the 
 people and have aristocratic leanings. 
 
 Ignorance, prejudice, self-interest, and doubt of democracy appear 
 to be the sources of objection to the initiative and referendum. Given 
 a clear understanding of the facts, the nature and workings of the 
 referendum and of the unguarded system of lawmaking by final voting 
 of the delegates, and the attitude on direct legislation depends on 
 the answer the person would give in his heart to the question, "Shall 
 the Government belong to the people or to a class?" 
 
 DO NOT UNDERSTAND. 
 
 1. Some persons say, "The referendum will keep the people voting 
 all the time, and the cost will be too heavy.'' They seem to imagine 
 that the legislature of a. State would go on passing six or eight hundred 
 laws a year and the people would have to vote on them ail, and so it 
 would cost an enormous amount of money and time. But we have 
 seen that the great mess of laws is local and should be left to the 
 municipality, and if they were, the number would be small in each 
 locality; and that the very existence of the referendum would remove 
 the motive and opportunity which produces the greater portion of the 
 laws which remain after subtracting the locals, so that the people of 
 a city or State would not ordinarily have to vote more than once or 
 twice a year, deciding anywhere from one to a dozen questions, per- 
 haps, each time. After the change was fully made, this would be the 
 case even under the obligatory referendum; and during the transition 
 the optional referendum could be used, so that the amount of voting 
 done by the people need not be heavy at any time. 
 
 Most of the referendum voting will probably be done at the regular 
 elections, without additional expense of any amount. And the cost 
 of petitions and whatever special elections may now and then be 
 needed will be more than balanced by the great economies resulting 
 from purer government and fewer laws. All this is clear in reason, 
 as we have seen, and has been proved in the history of Switzerland. 
 But even if it were not so, the matter of cost is infinitely insignificant 
 in the light of the political and social benefits of direct legislation. 
 
 Finally, it must be remembered that to attain the end desired by 
 direct legislation it is by no means necessary that the people should 
 vote on every measure passed by councils or legislatures; it is suffi- 
 cient if they have the power to do so whenever they wish. The very 
 existence of the power of popular revision and veto will obviate to a 
 
44 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 large extent the necessity for its use by preventing the pass-age or 
 even the introduction of the great mass of corrupt and private bills 
 which would have little chance of passing muster at the polls, and 
 which if passed by the legislature or council would almost certainly 
 be summoned before the people and vetoed by them. An officer does 
 not ordinarily have to use his billy or pistol to stop a wrongdoer who 
 is in possession of his senses. An employer is not obliged to keep 
 su ng or discharging his agents in order to get them to obey his in- 
 structions: the knowledge that the principal possesses the power to 
 enforce his wishes impels the agents to respect them. So it will be 
 with the people's wishes under the referendum. The larger part of 
 the most objectionable legislation will not have to be killed; it will 
 die of discouragement, and the powers of direct legislation will be 
 invoked for the most part only to correct the honest errors of judg- 
 ment on the part of legislatures and councils. 
 
 2. Some other persons who do not understand say that "the refer- 
 endum is a foreign affair, an un-American idea." The fact is, as we 
 have seen, that the referendum has been practiced in America from 
 the beginning. But if it were a foreign idea, that would not prove it 
 a false one. I never heard that the multiplication table, or the golden 
 rule, originated in America. They seem to be foreign ideas, but they 
 are pretty good ones just the same. And even the steam engine is 
 not indigenous to the soil, although we find it quite useful and entirely 
 worthy of adoption. 
 
 3. Sometimes misconception says, "So you think direct legislation 
 is a panacea, do you? Well, you are altogether mistaken; it will not 
 accomplish what you hope from it." The reply is that we do not 
 deem direct legislation a panacea, but merely a very valuable remedy. 
 It can not of itself cure all diseases incident to humanity, but it will 
 greatly improve the circulation, purify the blood, and give the natural 
 recuperative power full opportunity, and these in time may cure the 
 body politic completely. We know the referendum is able to accom- 
 plish what we hope from it, because it has accomplished it wherever it 
 has been given the chance, both in Switzerland and in the United States. 
 
 4. A more specific objector may say, "The referendum can not 
 overcome fraud and partisanship, for the power of appointment to 
 thousands of lucrative offices will still remain in the hands of poli- 
 ticians and representatives." We have not claimed that direct legis- 
 lation would, of itself, overcome all fraud and partisanship, but only 
 legislative fraud and partisanship; administrative abuses would 
 remain until the people adopted a proper civil service, the attain- 
 ment of which would be greatly facilitated by the referendum, for 
 nine-tenths of the people are strongly in favor of conducting public 
 affairs on sound business principles. The referendum, of course, 
 would not enable the people to execute the law in person. But abuse 
 of administration is much more easily checked than corrupt legisla- 
 tion. You can tell what a man does much better than what he thinks. 
 To discover the secret motive of a legislator is a far harder task than 
 to watch the actions of a mayor or governor. In this important dis- 
 tinction lies a most vital political principle, of which the referendum 
 is the full expression. The law will have to be administered by 
 judges, police, and other agents, whether legislation be direct or indi- 
 rect. But once in full use, the referendum will substantially rid the 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 45 
 
 country of legislative abuses, and give the people an easy path to the 
 destroying of administrative abuses, especially if the recall be put in 
 vigorous use along with the legislative forms of initiative and refer- 
 endum. 
 
 OVERESTIMATE OF SOME OTHER REFORMS. 
 
 5. The second class of objectors tell us that all we need to do is to 
 elect better representatives — proportional representation and care 
 in the selection of candidates will give us a good government without 
 direct legislation. It is true that much may be done along these lines; 
 but they are not in themselves sufficient. We have already shown 
 that representatives can not really represent their sovereign, even 
 with proportional representation and careful selection. Self-govern- 
 ment can never be complete without direct legislation. Neither will 
 the educating simplifying and purifying effect of the referendum be 
 attained with anything like the same ease and rapidity in any other 
 way. We believe in the measures proposed by these persons, but the 
 referendum is needed also; we are not willing to take a couple of 
 spokes in place of a complete wheel. 
 
 DIGNITY OF COUNCILMEN AND LEGISLATORS. 
 
 6. The third class of objectors consist of honest legislators and their 
 friends, who think that "the dignity of councils and legislatures 
 would depart with the advent of the referendum." We may remark, 
 at the first, that if a measure is for the public good, the dignity of a 
 legislature has no excuse for standing in the way; it must yield if it 
 conflicts with a just and beneficial movement. But in tie second 
 place, it is perfectly clear that legislative dignity and honor will not 
 suffer, but be exalted by the change. The dignity of a delegate to a 
 constitutional convention is greater than that of a member of the 
 legislature; yet all of the decisions of the convention are subject to 
 approval by the people. The dignity and honor of the legislators in 
 Switzerland is greater since the introduction of the referendum, 
 because a nobler class of men go into politics. The referendum takes 
 nothing from the power of the legislature but the power to keep the 
 people from having the laws they want — nothing but the power to 
 do wrong. The people will still desire the aid and advice of men of 
 legal learning in the framing of their laws. They will revere the 
 legislative lights more than they do now, because they will live in a 
 purer atmosphere, and be farther removed from suspicion of self- 
 interest, and be more likely to be men of high ability and character 
 on the average than now. In another way the referendum will help 
 the legislature; when a law is passed that the people do not want, or 
 a law is not passed that they do want, instead of their having to 
 rise and turn out the legislators in order to obtain their will, they can 
 leave the legislators quietly in their seats and turn down the law they 
 object to, or propose the one they desire. 
 
 The referendum ought to commend itself to honest legislators, 
 because it will do more than anything else to lift their profession out 
 of the mire and free it from scandal, and because it is in line with the 
 duty they owe to their sovereign. 
 
46 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 WHAT USE WILL THE LEGISLATURE BE? 
 
 7. Another class of objectors is concerned not so much with the 
 dignity of the legislature as with its usefulness. "What is the use of 
 councils and legislatures," they ask, "if the people are to make the 
 laws?" One would think a person of ordinary common sense would 
 not need to ask this question, yet it is asked time and time again by 
 members of legislatures before whom the referendum amendment is 
 advocated. The referendum leaves summary measures for health, 
 peace, and safety in the care of the legislators, as at present, and also 
 leaves them full powers in every other direction, subject only to revi- 
 sion by the people. The legislature becomes the emergency ruler and 
 the universal adviser — the most important advisory body in the Com- 
 monwealth. Is that being of no use? You might as well say, "Of 
 what use is a constitutional convention if the people are going to vote 
 on the provisions it recommends ?" or " Of what use is the architect if 
 you are going to determine whether or no the plans he makes shall be 
 carried out?" 
 
 These objectors sometimes put their questions thus: "Why not 
 accept the work of the representatives as final ?" This whole chapter 
 is an answer; two reasons may be restated: First, because representa- 
 tives are not rulers but agents, whose plans should always be subject 
 to the principal's orders. Second, because those who are called rep- 
 resentatives are very often misrepresentatives, and the work they do 
 is not in accord with the people's will, as is shown by the frequent 
 reverses they meet in their candidacy for reelection, and by the dis- 
 approval of a considerable portion of their work when the referendum 
 is applied to it. Even when the legislator does his best to represent 
 the people he may not succeed, because of the difference in reasonings, 
 interests, and prejudices; and even if he succeeds, the fact can not be 
 known except through an expression of opinion by the people. 
 
 THE CONSERVATIVES. 
 
 8. The attitude of some, if put into words, would be something like 
 this: "I'm pretty comfortable; let things alone." Such a position 
 will not be taken, of course, by any man of sympathy and conscience; 
 he must be satisfied that other men have comfort, liberty, justice; 
 nor by any man of energy and intelligence, for he will not be satisfied 
 with present conditions while improvement is possible. 
 
 9. The conservative does not generally put the true psychology of 
 the position into words, but finds some specific fault with the move- 
 ment. "It is unwise." Read over this chapter, or the summary 
 statement, please, and then look me straight in the eye and say "The 
 referendum is unwise." If you can do that and give me a reason for 
 such opinion other than a mere prejudice or misconception or selfish 
 interest, I will do my best to have your name enrolled in the list of 
 great discoverers. Some people, when they do not like a thing, but 
 have no reason fit for publication, are accustomed to look very 
 solemn and say, "It is unwise." 
 
 10. "It is cumbersome," another conservative says. Well, let us 
 see. Which is the most cumbersome, to vote on a few simple propo- 
 sitions now and then, or to pile up 500 laws a year in State after State; 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 47 
 
 to sign a few petitions ami register a few decisions, or to bear the 
 burdens of corrupt legislation, lobby-made law, bosses, rings, 
 machines, party despotism, private monopoly of government? 
 
 11. "It is dangerous to capital," says another. No, not dangerous 
 to capital, but dangerous to the unfair acquirement, unjust distribu- 
 tion and corrupt use of capital; not dangerous to good wealth, but 
 very dangerous to bad wealth, or rather, to the schemes of the own- 
 ers of it. 
 
 12. Another who has an aversion to change as a thing that is 
 totally opposed to his constitution and by-laws, looks at the refer- 
 endum and some of its claims, perhaps, and remarks in a fretful or 
 maybe a pugilistic tone, "Things are getting better, why can't you 
 let 'em alone V They never would have got any better if they had 
 been let alone, and the less they are let alone the faster they'll get 
 better. These conservatives talk about the referendum and other 
 needed reforms just as the Chinese talk about the introduction of the 
 railroad. "The locomotive is a noisy monster. It screeches and 
 keeps people awake. The railroad will overturn our methods of 
 transportation and destroy the dignity of our carts and palanquins. 
 The manners of the trainmen are bad, and traveling in the cars makes 
 many people ill. Sometimes persons are killed by passing trains and 
 property rights are disturbed by railroads. It is true that they carry 
 freight and passengers more quickly and cheaply than our methods 
 can, and people would get what they want when they want it more 
 nearly than now, but that is nothing compared to the noise and 
 trouble of change." It is almost impossible to convince these 
 chronic rebels against progress, because it is not a matter of reason 
 with them, but of feeling. Logic is a thing they have little acquaint- 
 ance with, or congeniality for, if it threatens their ease or impinges 
 upon then mental, moral, or physical inertia. 
 
 The final answer to all the conservatives is that direct legislation 
 is more conservative than unguarded representation. The people 
 would pass some laws that the representatives would not, but they 
 would refuse to pass a far larger number that the representatives 
 would and do enact, many of them the most dangerous and radical 
 private and class enactments. 
 
 In the 10 years from 1874 to 1885, 18 measures passed by the 
 Government of Switzerland were sent to the referendum, and 13 of 
 the 18 were rejected. Other facts of the same nature will be found 
 in the section on "The use of the referendum." 
 
 DISTRUST OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 13. "Hasty legislation," says one of those who doubt democracy. 
 "The people will pass all sorts of laws without sufficient consid- 
 eration." For answer, in addition to what has just been said, take 
 this from Sir Francis Adams, British minister to Berne, Switzer- 
 land: 
 
 The referendum has struck root and expanded wherever it has been introduced, 
 and no serious politician of any party would now think of attempting its abolition. 
 The conservatives, who violently opposed its introduction, became its earnest sup- 
 porters when they found that it undoubtedly acto<i as a drag upon hasty and radical 
 lawmaking. 
 
18 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 14. Another objector tells us that "The people are not competent 
 to make the laws. Many laws are too complicated for the people to 
 understand; it takes lawyers to comprehend them." 
 
 Exactly, and that is the kind of laws we want to stop. What right 
 has a court or policeman to arrest and punish me for violating a law 
 I can't understand, even if I read it and study it? Have I to get a 
 lawyer to explain the 13,000 odd statutes to me every year? It 
 wouldn't protect me if I did; for the lawyers don't know what the 
 laws mean a good deal of the time, and are continually wrangling over 
 them; the legislators that have passed them don't know what they 
 mean, but have to ask the supreme court; and even the judges have 
 a good deal of trouble to find out the meaning, and frequently disagree 
 among themselves about it. It's these complicated laws which 
 people can't understand that we are going to get rid of (for one thing) 
 with the referendum. 
 
 But there is another answer to this objection: Even if some of the 
 laws submitted are complicated and the people consent to consider 
 them on their merits instead of ordering them back for simplification, 
 as they would be apt to do, still we have seen by the records that 
 there is an automatic disfranchisement of the unfit in most referendum 
 votings, which is the reverse of what takes place in many legislative 
 votings on private measures, etc. 
 
 Moreover, it is hard to see why it is any more difficult to vote for a 
 complicated measure than for a complicated man — to vote for a man 
 under present conditions is to vote for a whole statute book full of 
 complicated measures, many of them not yet formulated or even 
 dreamed of. 
 
 15. There are people who have no faith in popular government, 
 regard it as dangerous to property and likely to result in unjust revo- 
 lutionary measures — "government by holding up of hands," "mob 
 rule," etc., and would like, with Carlyle, to hear the people cry, "O, 
 my superiors! my heroes! come down and rule me as thou seest best! 
 compel me to do thy sovereign will" — provided they were recognized 
 as among the heroes. 
 
 Carlyle and all his spiritual relations have missed these two great 
 truths: First, mankind has discovered that no man can be trusted 
 to govern others according to his own sweet will, or even to decide 
 what the people's interests are; for prejudice and self-interest and 
 narrow knowledge make it impossible for anyone but the people 
 themselves to give a correct decision on that point ; even the people 
 may not always judge rightly, but if they have reached a reasonable 
 degree of development they'll come much nearer to the truth for 
 themselves than anyone else can be trusted to come for them. 
 Second, the true ideal is not a society in which the masses of the people 
 are incapacitated for self-control, but a society in which every citizen 
 is capable of self-government; wise enough and good enough to be 
 worthy of a voice in the management of the social partnership. We 
 do want government by our heroes, but we also want government by 
 all for all; and the only way to combine the two is to make all men 
 heroes. It was for that, ultimately, that the world dethroned its 
 monarchs, and gave the scepter to the mob. After humanity has so 
 far developed that democracy does not involve an irretrievable loss of 
 progressive power, then the only way to transform the mob into 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 49 
 
 manhood and make it completely worthy of sovereignty is to nlaco 
 the burden upon it and let the responsibility mold it into fitness for 
 the work. The people will learn how to govern themselves much 
 faster by doing it than by watching the politicians do it, just as a boy 
 will learn how to skate or to play the cornet far better by skating 
 or playing himself than by Looking at some one else perform. 
 
 The Carlylians fail to note that self-government is nec< ssary, first, 
 for liberty and justice; second, for education and manhood. 
 
 The people of the United States are not a mob; they have not on 
 the average so much genius as Carlyle, but they have better digestion 
 and more common sense. 
 
 16. To pursue this topic a little further, some of these people who 
 would reverse the wheels of progress, undo the whole of modern 
 history, abolish manhood suffrage, and establish a high property 
 qualification or some other sort of recognized aristocracy — some of 
 these radical retrogressional objectors to popular sovereignty, the 
 sovereignty of the people, say that direct legislation is "a new trick 
 to get wisdom out of foolishness." Well, you can get it out of fool- 
 ishness sooner than out of corruption. But it w T ill not come out of 
 foolishness. The average American citizen is quite equal in sense to 
 the average politician; much more progressive, and vastly superior 
 in morality. He does not know so much of legal forms as the legis- 
 lator, and he won't refuse the guidance of the legislator in that 
 respect; but when a law is formulated, he can tell whether it will suit 
 him or not a great deal better than the legislator can, even if the 
 latter is perfectly honest. 
 
 If the masses of people are a condensation of foolishness, it is 
 curious that the greatest legislators all over the Union should spon- 
 taneously and unquestioningly have entrusted them with the adop- 
 tion and amendment of the fundamental laws of the States, the 
 constitutions. And if the people can be trusted with, the settlement 
 of the great principles of government, as experience has shown that 
 they can be, surely they can be trusted to determine the by-laws. 
 
 Moreover, the people do continually act upon the by-laws, in town 
 meetings, city votes, and the election of candidates on party plat- 
 forms. It will not be so difficult to vote on each issue separately as 
 to decide about three or four platforms, with many issues in each, 
 plus the personalities of several candidates. It requires more intelli- 
 gence to arrive at a clear judgment on a lengthy platform than on 
 propositions submitted singly. Direct legislation will simply enable 
 the people actually to accomplish in an easy, inexpensive, and 
 scientific way what they are, and in this country always have been 
 endeavoring to accomplish in a very rough, expensive, and inef- 
 fective way. 
 
 PERSONAL INTEREST. 
 
 17. Another class of objectors consist of politicians, monopolists, 
 lobbyists, and others who realize that their selfish interests would be 
 injured by the referendum, or in fact, by any improvement in legis- 
 lation tending to bring it into closer harmony with the public good. 
 The motives of this class are not very fragrant, but it is at bottom the 
 most rational of all the classes we are considering, for there is no 
 
 S. Doc. 360. 63-2 4 
 
50 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 doubt of the correctness of the idea on which their opposition is 
 based. Of course, they do not say much about the real foundation 
 of their objection. They do not say, "We are making a good thing 
 out of the present system of legislation, and we don't want to let the 
 people in; we don't want so many partners on the ground floor." 
 Instead of such a frank avowal, they adopt the errors and sophistries 
 of preceding classes, and ring the changes on "complicated laws," 
 "hasty legislation," "foreign idea," "too expensive," adding, per- 
 haps, that the words "initiative and referendum" are pedantic and 
 un-American, which may be true, but has no more to do with the 
 nature of direct legislation and the advisability of adopting it than a 
 man's name has to do with his character and the wisdom of employ- 
 ing him to clear out your stable or build your house. 
 
 18. "It is impracticable," I have heard monopolists and politi- 
 cians say. Get out your statute books and your histories and see. 
 Read Oberholtzer's "Referendum in America" and your authorities 
 on constitutional law. You monopolists of government and industry 
 know very well that the referendum is practicable, and that you are 
 afraid of it. 
 
 19. "Because it works in Switzerland is no sign it will work here." 
 Yes, it is some sign that it will work here. The fact that it woiks in 
 Swiss cities and Cantons and in the nation is a pretty good sign that 
 it will work in our cities and States. But we do not need this sign, 
 for we have a better one, viz, that it has worked in our cities and 
 States in numerous trials extending through many years, and all we 
 ask is a fuller use of what we have abundantly shown our ability to 
 use. We have proved that we can swim; untie the rope. As to the 
 Nation the problem may not be as clear as we might desire, but the 
 referendum in city and State comes first, and that is perfectly clear; 
 the rest will be equally clear when we come to it. 
 
 20. "Direct . legislation violates the representative principle." 
 This is not true; direct legislation is necessary to the perfection of 
 representation. It is lawmaking by final vote of the delegates that 
 violates the representative principle by producing' innumerable 
 misrepresentations. Speaking of this objection Mr. Moffett says: 
 
 The Teutonic device of representation was such a convenient substitute for the 
 unwieldy popular mass meeting that it gradually came to be looked upon as a political 
 end in itself, instead of as a convenient means of enabling the electorate to evade the 
 limitations of time and space. * * * The representative system is a convenient 
 medium for the transmission of political power, ji st as a system of shafts and pulleys 
 is a convenient medium for the transmission of mechanical power, and it would be 
 precisely as reasonable to object to a plan for gearing a generator directly to the ma- 
 chine it was to work as a violation of the shaft-ancl-pulley principle, as to object to a 
 practical plan of direct legislation as an infraction of the principle of representation. 
 
 21. "It would reduce the legislature to an advisory body." Not 
 quite; it would be advisory as to matters which went to the 
 people, and acting agent as to the rest. To make the legislature 
 more than an advisory body as to measures on which the people 
 wish to express themselves is to give the legislature the power of 
 overruling the people and make them sovereign in place of the people. 
 
 22. "The people can't frame the laws for an initiative; they don't 
 know enough." There are plenty of experts the people can get to 
 do that. The people can tell whether the law is what they want 
 when it is framed, and that is the important matter for them. 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 51 
 
 2:!. "The people don't waul to vote on measures; the vote is 
 always smaller than for candidates." Not always, but usually it is 
 so, because, as a rule, the less intelligent do not understand the 
 referendum and omit to vote. Bui this does not show any lack of de- 
 sire for the referendum on the part of the great nuiss of the people. 
 On the contrary, the growth of the demand for direct legislation 
 exceeds anything in the history of reform. 
 
 24. One of the great standbys of the more intelligent of the oppo- 
 nents of popular government was the assertion that "the referendum 
 will be unconstitutional because it is not a republican form of govern- 
 ment." This assertion is heard no longer. 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States definitely disposed of this 
 contention by its decision in the Oregon case, entitled ''Pacific States 
 Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. State of Oregon," decided February 19, 
 1912. The case was one involving the constitutionality of certain 
 legislation in Oregon enacted through the initiative. The telephone 
 company asserted that this legislation was unconstitutional upon the 
 ground that the initiative provisions of the constitution of Oregon 
 were contrary to the guaranty clause of the Federal Constitution 
 which guarantees every State a republican form of government. 
 The Supreme Court of the United States refused to entertain juris- 
 diction of the case upon the ground that it was a political and not a 
 judicial question, and was, therefore, one for the legislative branch of 
 the Government to decide. 
 
 Congress has already passed upon this question. Oklahoma was 
 admitted as a State into the Union, having the initiative and refer- 
 endum provisions in its constitution. The proclamation admitting 
 Oklahoma into the States specifically declared that t,lie constitution 
 of the State was a republican form of government. 
 
 Several other States having initiative and referendum provisions in 
 their constitutions have sent Senators and Representatives to Con- 
 gress. These have been seated without any question . 
 
 This seems to dispose effectively of the contention that direct legis- 
 lation is not a republican form of government. 
 
 25. Thus all objections utterly fail, and the mighty array of positive 
 arguments is left without a breach. To pass the main points in brief 
 review: 
 
 The referendum will abolish monopoly in lawmaking, make plutoc- 
 racy impossible, establish a real government by the voters, open the 
 way to new reforms, bar the path of fraud, rout the lobby, weaken the 
 corrupting power of wealth and monopoly, keep the representative 
 to his duty, rebuke partisanship, make gerrymandering useless and a 
 deadlock impossible, discourage favoritism, extravagance, and legis- 
 lative theft, lower taxation, cut down exorbitant salaries, and in 
 every way conduce to an economical administration of public affairs, 
 decentralize power, simplify elections and the law, stop the killing or 
 shelving of bills in committees and the passage or introduction of 
 blackmailing acts, save much of the time now wasted in party disputes, 
 personal politics, and angry debate, favor stability and careful legis- 
 lation, disclose the strength of malcontents and afford a safety valve 
 to discontent, elevate the press, educate the people intellectually and 
 emotionally, develop their reason, sense, dignity, and patriotism, 
 
52 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 make the public welfare hinge directly on the morality and intelli- 
 gence of the masses and bring the best men to the front as their 
 leaders. 1 
 
 Experience, reason, and the drift of public sentiment combine to 
 emphasize the value and importance of the referendum, and after all 
 it is simply the putting in practice of the American idea of the sov- 
 ereignty of the people. The Federal Constitution begins "We, the 
 people, do ordain and establish. " 
 
 i Nomination by direct ballot or petition of the people, instead of nomination by party caucus or con- 
 vention, will help to make public spirit and fitness for office the vital elements in the selection of candidates 
 instead of particular service and corporate or factional allegiance. The separation of State and municipal 
 elections by some weeks or months, and insistance on electing local officers on local issues and not upon 
 national issues, will also aid in the due subjection of party. Everything that tends to overcome the rule o 
 blind, unthinking partisanship ought to be welcomed by all true-hearted public-spirited citizens. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 TEXT OF CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS PROVIDING FOR INITIA- 
 TIVE, REFERENDUM AND RECALL. 
 
 ARIZONA. 
 
 Article IV. 
 
 Section I. (1) The legislative authority of the State shall be vested in a legisla- 
 ture, consisting of a senate and a house of representatives, but the peorde reserve the 
 power to propose laws and amendments to the constitution and to enact or reject 
 such laws and amendments at the polls independently of the legislature, and they 
 also reserve for use at their own option the power to approve or reject at the polls 
 any act, or item, section, or part of any act of the legislature. 
 
 (2) The first of these reserved powers is the initiative. Under this power 10 per 
 cent of the qualified electors shall have the right to propose any measure and 15 per 
 cent shall have the right to propose any amendment to the constitution. 
 
 (3) The second of these reserved powers is the referendum. . Under this power 
 the legislature, or 5 per cent of the qualified electors, may order the submission to 
 the people at the polls of any measure, or item, section, or part of any measure enacted 
 by the legislature, except laws immediately necessary for the preservation of the 
 public peace, health, or safety, or for the support and maintenance of the depart- 
 mepts of the State government and State institutions; but to allow opportunity for 
 referendum petitions no act passed by the legislature shall be operative for 90 days 
 after the close of the session of the legislature enacting such measure, except such 
 as require earlier operation to preserve the public peace, health, or safety, or to pro- 
 vide appropriations for the support and maintenance of the departments of the State 
 and of State institutions: Provided, That no such emergency measure shall be con- 
 sidered passed by the legislature unless it shall state in a separate section why it is 
 necessary that it shall become immediately operative and shall be approved by the 
 affirmative votes of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the legisla- 
 ture, taken by roll call of ayes and nays, and also approved by the governor; and 
 should such measure be vetoed by the governor it shall not become a law unless it 
 shall be approved by the votes of three-fourths of the members elected to each house 
 of the legislature, taken by roll call of ayes and nays. 
 
 (4) All petitions submitted under the power of the initiative shall be known as 
 initiative petitions, and shall be filed with the secretary of state not less than four 
 months preceding the date of the election at which the measures so proposed are to 
 be voted upon. All petitions submitted under the power of the referendum shall be 
 known as referendum petitions, and shall be filed with the secretary of state not more 
 than 90 days after the final adjournment of the session of the legislature which shall 
 have passed the measure to which the referendum is applied. The filing of a refer- 
 endum petition against any item, section, or part of any measure shall not prevent the 
 remainder of such measure from becoming operative. 
 
 (5) Any measure or amendment to the constitution proposed under the initiative, 
 and any measure to which the referendum is applied, shall be referred to a vote of 
 the qualified electors and shall become law when approved by a majority of the 
 votes cast thereon and upon proclamation of the governor and not otherwise. 
 
 (6) The veto power of the governor shall not extend to initiative or referendum 
 measures approved by a majority of the qualified electors. 
 
 (7) The whole number of votes cast for all candidates for governor at the general 
 election last preceding the filing of any initiative or referendum petition on a State 
 or county measure shall be the basis on which the number of qualified electors 
 required to sign such petition shall be computed. 
 
 (8) The powers of the initiative and the referendum are hereby further reserved 
 to the qualified electors of every incorporated city, town, and county as to all local, 
 city, town, or county matters on which such incorporated cities, towns, and coun- 
 ties are or shall be empowered by general laws to legislate. Such incorporated cities, 
 
 53 
 
54 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 towns, and counties may prescribe the manner of exercising said powers within the 
 restrictions of general laws. Under the power of the initiative 15 per cent of the 
 qualified electors may propose measures on such local, city, town, or county matters, 
 and 10 per cent of the electors may propose the referendum on legislation enacted 
 within and by such city, town, or county. Until provided by general law said cities 
 and towns may prescribe the basis on which said percentages shall be computed. 
 
 (9) Every initiative or referendum petition shall be addressed to the secretary of 
 state in the case of petitions for or on State measures, and to the clerk of the board 
 of supervisors, city clerk, or corresponding officer in the case of petitions for or on 
 county, city, or town measures; and shall contain the declaration of each petitioner, 
 for himself, that he is a qualified elector of the State (and in the case of petitions for 
 or on city, town, or county measures of the city, town, or county affected), his post- 
 office address, the street and number, if any, of his residence, and the date on which 
 he signed such petition. Each sheet containing petitioners' signatures shall be 
 attached to a full and correct copy of the title arid text of the measure so proposed to 
 be initiated or referred to the people, and every sheet of every such petition con- 
 taining signatures shall be verified by the affidavit of the person who circulated said 
 sheet or petition, setting forth that each of the names on said sheet was signed in the 
 presence of the affiant, and that in the belief of the affiant each signer was a quali- 
 fied elector of the State, or in the case of a city, town, or county measure, of the city, 
 town, or county affected by the meaure so proposed to be initiated or referred to the 
 people. 
 
 (10) When any initiative or referendum petition or any measure referred to the 
 people by the legislature shall be filed, in accordance with this section, with the sec- 
 retary of state, he shall cause to be printed on the official ballot at the next regular 
 general election the title and number of said measure, together with the words 
 "Yes" and "No" in such manner that the electors may express at the polls their 
 approval or disapproval of the measure. 
 
 (11) The text of all measures to be submitted shall be published as proposed amend- 
 ments to the constitution are published, and in submitting such measures and pro- 
 posed amendments the secretary of state and all other officers shall be guided by the 
 general law until legislation shall be especially provided therefor. 
 
 (12) If two or more conflicting measures or amendments to the constitution shall be 
 approved by the people at the same election, the measure or amendment receiving 
 the greatest number of affirmative votes shall prevail in all particulars as to which 
 there is conflict. 
 
 (13) It shall be the duty of the secretary of state, in the presence of the governor 
 and the chief justice of the supreme court, to canvass the votes for and against each 
 such measure or proposed amendment to the constitution within 30 days after the 
 election, and upon the completion of the canvass the governor shall forthwith issue 
 a proclamation, giving the whole number of votes cast for and against each measure 
 or proposed amendment, and declaring such measures or amendments as are approved 
 by a majority of those voting thereon to be law. 
 
 (14) This section shall not be construed to deprive the legislature of the right to 
 enact any measure. 
 
 (15) This section of the constitution shall be in all respects self-executing. 
 
 Sec. 2. The legislature shall provide a penalty for any willful violation of any of 
 the provisions of the preceding section. 
 
 Adopted by vote of the people February 9, 1911. Arizona was admitted into the 
 Union February 14, 1912. 
 
 ARKANSAS. 
 
 Article V. 
 
 Section 1. The legislative powers of this State shall be vested in a general assembly, 
 which shall consist of the senate and house of representatives, but the people of each 
 municipality, each county, and of the State reserves to themselves power to propose 
 laws and amendments to the constitution and to enact or reject the same at the polls 
 independent of the legislative assembly, and also reserve power at their own option 
 to approve or reject at the polls any act of the legislative assembly. The first power 
 reserved by the people is the initiative, and not more than 8 per cent of the legal 
 voters shall be required to propose any measure by such petition, and every such pe- 
 tition shall include the full text of the measure so proposed. Initiative petitions 
 shall be filed with the secretary of state not less than four months before the election 
 of which they are to be voted upon. 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 55 
 
 The second power is a referendum, and it may be ordered (except as to laws neces- 
 sary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety) either by 
 the petition signed by 5 per cent of the legal voters or by the legislative assembly as 
 other bills are enacted. Referendum petitions shall be filed with ths secretary of 
 state not more than 90 days after the final adjournment of the session of the legislative 
 assembly which passed the bill on which the referendum is demanded. The veto 
 power of the governor shall not extend to measures referred to the people. All elec- 
 tions on measures referred to the people of the State shall be had at the biennial regular 
 general elections, except when the legislative assembly shall order a special election. 
 Any measure referred to the people shall take effect and become a law when it is ap- 
 proved by a majority of the votescast thereon and not otherwise. The style of all bills 
 shall be, "Be it enacted by the people of the State of Arkansas." This seel ion shall 
 not be construed to deprive any member of the legislative assembly of the right to 
 introduce any measure. The whole number of votes cast for the office of governor at 
 the regular election last preceding the filing of any petition for the initiative or for 
 the referendum shall be the basis on which the number of legal votes necessary to 
 sign such petition shall be counted. Petitions and orders for the initiative and for 
 the referendum shall be filed with the secretary of state, and in submitting the same to 
 the people he and all other officers shall be guided by the general laws and the acts 
 submitting this amendment until legislation shall be specially provided therefor. 
 
 Adopted September 12, 1910. 
 
 CALIFORNIA. 
 Article IV. 
 
 Section 1. The legislative power of this State shall be vested in a senate and 
 assembly, which shall be designated "the Legislature of the State of California"; 
 but the people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and amendments to 
 the constitution, and to adopt or reject the same, at the pol Is independent of the 
 legislature, and also reserve the power, at their own option, to so adopt or reject 
 any act, or section, or part of any act passed by the legislature. 
 
 The enacting clause of every law shall be "The people of the State of California do 
 enact as follows." 
 
 The first power reserved to the people .diall be known as the initiative. Upon the 
 presentation to the secretary of state of a petition certified, as herein provided, to 
 nave been signed by qualified electors equal in number to 8 per cent of all the votes 
 cast for all candidates for governor at the last preceding general election at which 
 a governor was elected proposing a law or amendment to the constitution set forth in 
 full in said petition, the secretary of state shall submit the said proposed law or 
 amendment to the constitution to the electors at the next succeeding general elec- 
 tion occurring subsequent to 90 days after the presentation aforesaid of said petition, 
 or at any special election called by the governor, in his discretion, prior to such 
 general election. All such initiative petitions shall have printed across the top 
 thereof in 12-point (black-face) type the following: "Initiative measure to be sub- 
 mitted directly to the electors." 
 
 Upon the presentation to the secretary of state at any time not less than 10 days 
 before the commencement of any regular session of the legislature of a petition certi- 
 fied, as herein provided, to have been signed by qualified electors of the State equal 
 in number to 5 per cent of all the votes cast for all candidates for governor at the last 
 preceding general election at which a governor was elected proposing a law set forth 
 in full in said petition, the secretary of state shall transmit the same to the legisla- 
 ture as soon as it convenes and organizes. The law proposed by such petition shall 
 be either enacted or rejected without change or amendment by the legislature within 
 40 days from the time it is received by the legislature. If any law proposed by such 
 petition shall be enacted by the legislature, it shall be subject to referendum, as 
 hereinafter provided. If any law so petitioned for be rejected, or if no action is 
 taken upon it by the legislature within said 40 days, the secretary of state shall sub- 
 mit it to the people for approval or rejection at the next ensuing general election. 
 The legislature may reject any measure so proposed by initiative petition and pro- 
 pose a different one on the same subject by a yea-and-nay vote upon separate roll 
 call; and in such event both measures shall be submitted by the secretary of state 
 to the electors for approval or rejection at the next ensuing general election or at a 
 prior special election called by the governor, in his discretion, for such purpose. 
 All said initiative petitions last above described shall have printed in 12-point (black- 
 face) type the following: "Initiative measure to be presented to the legislature." 
 
56 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 The second power reserved to the people shall be known as the referendum. No 
 act passed by the legislature shall go into effect until 90 days after the final adjourn- 
 ment of the session of the legislature which passed such act, except acts calling elec- 
 tions, act providing for tax levies or appropriations for the usual current expenses of 
 the State, and urgency measures necessary for the immediate preservation of the 
 public peace, health, or safety, passed by a two-thirds vote of all the members elected 
 to each house. Whenever it is deemed necessary for the immediate preservation of 
 the public peace, health, or safety that a law shall go into immediate effect, a state- 
 ment of the facts constituting such necessity shall be set forth in one section of the 
 act, which section shall be passed only upon a yea-and-nay vote upon a separate roll 
 cali thereon: Provided, however, That no measure creating or abolishing any office or 
 changing the salary, term, or duties of any officer, or granting any franchise or special 
 privilege, or creating any vested right or interest, shall be construed to be an urgency 
 measure. Any law so passed by the legislature and declared to be an urgency measure 
 shall go into immediate effect. 
 
 Upon the presentation to the secretary of State within 90 days after the final adjourn- 
 ment of the legislature of a petition certified, as herein provided, to have been signed 
 by qualified electors equal in number to 5 per cent of all the votes cast for all candi- 
 dates for governor at the last preceding general election at which a governor was 
 elected, asking that any act or section or part of any act of the legislature, be sub- 
 mitted to the electors for their approval or rejection, the secretary of state shall submit 
 to the electors for their approval or rejection, such act, or section or part of such act, 
 at the nextsucceeding general election occurring at any time subsequent to 30 days 
 after the filing of said petition or at any special election which may be called by the 
 governor, in his discretion, prior to such regular election, and no such act or section 
 or part of such act shall go into effect until and unless approved by a majority of the 
 qualified electors voting thereon; but if a referendum petition is filed against any 
 section or part of any act, the remainder of such act shall not be delayed from going 
 into effect. 
 
 Any act, law, or amendment to the constitution submitted to the people by either 
 initiative or referendum petition and approved by a majority of the votes cast thereon, 
 at any election, shall take effect five days after the date of the official declaration of 
 the vote by the secretary of state. No act, law, or amendment to the constitution, 
 initiated or adopted by the people, shall be subject to the veto power of the governor, 
 and no act, law, or amendment to the constitution, adopted by the people at the polls 
 under the initiative provisions of this section, shall be amended or repealed except 
 by a vote of the electors, unless otherwise provided in said initiative measure; but 
 acts and laws adopted by the people under the referendum provisions of this section 
 may be amended by the legislature at any subsequent session thereof. If any pro- 
 vision or provisions of two or more measures, approved by the electors at the same 
 election, conflict, the provision or provisions of the measure receiving the highest 
 affirmative vote shall prevail. Until otherwise provided by law, all measures sub- 
 mitted to a vote of the electors, under the provisions of this section, shall be printed, 
 and, together with arguments for and against each such measure by the proponents and 
 opponents thereof, shall be mailed to each elector in the same manner as now pro- 
 vided by law as to amendments to the constitution proposed by the legislature (and 
 the persons to prepare and present such arguments shall, until otherwise provided 
 by law, be selected by the presiding officer of the senate"). 
 
 If for any reason any initiative or referendum measure proposed by petition as 
 herein provided be not submitted at the election specified in this section, such fail- 
 ure shall not prevent its submission at a succeeding general election, and no law or 
 amendment to the constitution proposed by the legislature shall be submitted at 
 any election unless at the same election there shall be submitted all measures pro- 
 posed by petition of the electors, if any be so proposed, as herein provided. 
 , Any initiative or referendum petition may be presented in sections, but each 
 section shall contain a, full and correct copy of the title and text of the proposed 
 measure. Each signer shall add to his signature his place of residence, giving the 
 street and number if such exist. His election precinct shall also appear on the paper 
 after his name. The number of signatures attached to each section shall be at the 
 pleasure of the person soliciting signatures to the same. Any qualified elector of 
 the State shall be competent to solicit said signatures (within the county or city and 
 county of which he is an elector). Each section of the petition shall bear the name of 
 the county or city and county in which it is circulated, and only qualified electors of 
 such county or city and county shall be competent to sign such section. Each sec- 
 tion shall have attached thereto the affidavit of the person soliciting signatures to 
 the same, stating (his own qualifications and) that all the signatures to the attached 
 section were made in his presence and that to the best of his knowledge and belief 
 
DIltEGT LEGISLATION. 57 
 
 each signature to the Bection is the gem ine signature of the person whose name it 
 purports to be, and no other affidavit thereto shall be required The affidavit of any 
 person soliciting signatures hereunder shall be verified free of charge 1 y any officer 
 authorized to administer oaths. Such petitions so verified shall be prima facie evi- 
 dence that the signati res thereon are genuine and that the persons signing the same 
 are qualified elei tors. Unless and until it be otherwise proven upon official investi- 
 gation, it shall be presumed that the petition presented contains the signatures of 
 the requisite number of qualified electors. 
 
 Each seeli<m of the petition shall he filed with the clerk or registrar of voters of the 
 county or city and county in which if was circulated, but all said sections eirculated 
 in any county or city and county shall be filed at the same time. Within 20 days 
 after the filing of such petition in his office the said l< rk, or registrar of voters, shall 
 determine from the records of registration what n mber of qualified electors have 
 signed the same, and if necessary the hoard of supervisors shall allow said clerk or 
 registrar additional assistants for the purpose of examining such petition and provide 
 for their i ompensation. The said clerk or registrar, upon the completion of such 
 examination, shall forthwith attach to said petition, except the signatures thereto 
 appended, his certificate, properly dated, snowing the result of said examination, 
 and shall forthwith transm.it said petition, together with his said certificate, to the 
 secretary of state and also file a ( opy of said certificate in his office. Within 40 days 
 from the transmission of the said petition and certificate by the < lerk or registrar to 
 the secretary of state, a supplemental petition identical with the original as to the 
 body of the petition bu1 i ontaining supplemental names, may he tiled with the clerk 
 or registrar of voters, as aforesaid. The clerk or registrar of voters shall, within 10 
 days after the tiling of such supplemental petition, make like examination thereof, 
 as of the original petition, and upon the completion of such examination shall forth- 
 with attach to said petition his certificate, properly dated, showing the result of said 
 examination, and shall forthwith transmit a copy of said supplemental petition, 
 except the signatures thereto appended, together with his certificate, to the secretary 
 of state. 
 
 When the secretary of state shall have received from one or more county clerks or 
 registrars of voters a petition certified as herein provided to have been signed by the 
 requisite number of qualified electors, he shall forthwith transmit to the county clerk 
 or registrar of voters of every county or city and county in the State his certificate 
 showing such fact. A petition shall be deemed to be filed with the secretary of state 
 upon the date of the receipt by him of a certificate or certificates showing said petition 
 to be signed by the requisite number of electors of the Stale. Any county clerk or 
 registrar of voters shall, upon receipt of such copy, file the same for record in his 
 office. 
 
 The duties herein imposed upon the clerk or registrar of voters shall be performed 
 by such registrar of voters in all cases where the office of registrar of voters exists. 
 
 The initiative and referendum powers of the people are hereby further reserved to 
 the electors of each county, city and county, city and town of the State, to be exer- 
 cised under such procedure as may be provided by law. Until otherwise provided 
 by law, the legislative body of any Buch county, city and county, city or town may 
 provide for the manner of exercising the initiative and referendum powers herein 
 reserved to such counties, cities and counties, cities and towns, but shall not require 
 more than 15 per cent of the electors thereof to propose any initiative measure nor 
 more than 10 per cent of the electors thereof to order the referendum. Nothing con- 
 tained in this section shall be construed as affecting or limiting the present or future 
 powers of cities or cities and counties having charters adopted under the provisions 
 of section 8 of article 11 of this constitution. 
 
 In the submission to the electors of any measure under this section, all officers shall 
 be guided by the general laws of this State, except as is herein otherwise provided. 
 
 This section is self-executing, but legislation may be enacted to facilitate its opera- 
 tion, but in no way limiting or restricting either the provisions of this section or the 
 powers herein reserved . 
 
 Adopted October 10, 1911. 
 
 COLORADO. 
 
 Article V. 
 
 Section' 1. There shall be submitted to the qualified electors of the State of Colo- 
 rado, at the next general election for members of the general assembly, for their 
 approval or rejection, the following constitutional amendment, which, when ratified 
 by a majority of those voting thereon, shall be valid as part of the constitution. 
 
58 DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 Sec. 2. That section 1 of Article V of the constitution of the State of Colorado be 
 so amended as to read as follows: 
 
 "Section 1. The legislative power of the State shall be vested in the general 
 assembly, consisting of a senate and house of representatives, both to be elected by 
 the people, but the people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and 
 amendments to the constitution and to enact or reject the same at the polls independ- 
 ent of the general assembly, and also reserve power at their own option to approve or 
 reject at the polls any act, item, section, or part of any act of the general assembly. 
 
 "The first power hereby reserved by the people is the initiative, and at least 8 per 
 cent of the legal voters shall be required to propose any measure by petition, and 
 every such petition shall include the full text of the measure so proposed. Initiative 
 petitions for State legislation and amendments to the constitution shall be addressed 
 to and filed with the secretary of state at least four months before the election at 
 which they are to be voted upon . 
 
 "The second power hereby reserved is the referendum, and it may be ordered, 
 except as to laws necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, 
 or safety, and appropriations for the support and maintenance of the department of 
 state and State institutions, against any act, section, or part of any act of the general 
 assembly, either by petition signed by 5 per cent of the legal voters or by the general 
 assembly. Referendum petitions shall be addressed to and filed with the secretary 
 of state not more than 90 days after the final adjournment of the session of the gen- 
 eral assembly that passed the bill on which the referendum is demanded. The filing 
 of a referendum petition against any item, section, or part of any act shall not delay 
 the remainder of the act from becoming operative. The veto power of the governor 
 shall not extend to measures initiated by or referred to the people. All elections on 
 measures referred to the people of the State shall be held at the biennial regular gen- 
 eral election, and all such measures shall become a law or a part of the constitution 
 when approved by a majority of the votes cast thereon, and not otherwise, and shall 
 take effect from and after the date of the official declaration of the vote thereon by 
 proclamation of the governor, but not later than 30 days after the vote has been can- 
 vassed. This section shall not be construed to deprive the general assembly of the 
 right to enact any measure. The whole number of votes cast for secretary of state 
 at the regular general election last preceding the filing of any petition for the initia- 
 tive or referendum shall be the basis on which the number of legal voters necessary 
 to sign such petition shall be counted. 
 
 "The secretary of state shall submit all measures initiated by or referred to the 
 people for adoption or rejection at the polls, in compliance herewith. The petiton 
 shall consist of sheets having such general form printed or written at the top thereof 
 as shall be designated or prescribed by the secretary of state; such petitions shall be 
 signed by qualified electors, in their own proper person only, to which shall be attached 
 the residence address of such person and the date of signing the same. To each of 
 such petitions, which may consist of one or more sheets, shall be attached an affidavit 
 of some qualified elector, that each signature thereon is the signature of the person 
 whose name it purports to be, and that to the best of the knowledge and belief of the 
 affiant each of the persons signing said petition was, at -the time of signing, a qualified 
 elector. Such petition so verified shall be prima facie evidence that the signatures 
 thereon are genuine and true, and that the persons signing the same are qualified 
 electors. The text of all measures to be submitted shall be published as constitu- 
 tional amendments are published, and in submitting the same and in all matters per- 
 taining to the form of all petitions the secretary of state and all other officers shall be 
 guided by the general laws and the act submitting this amendment, until legislation 
 shall be especially provided therefor. 
 
 "The style of all laws adopted by the people through the initiative shall be, 'Be it 
 enacted by the people of the State of Colorado.' 
 
 "The initiative and referendum powers reserved to the people by this section are 
 hereby further reserved to the legal voters of every city, town, and municipality as to 
 all local, special, and municipal legislation of every character in or for their respective 
 municipalities. The manner of exercising said powers shall be prescribed by general 
 laws, except that cities, towns, and municipalities may provide for the manner of ex- 
 ercising the initiative and referendum powers as to their municipal legislation. Not 
 more than 10 per cent of the legal voters may be required to order the referendum, 
 nor more than 15 per cent to propose any measure by the initiative in any city, town, 
 or municipality. 
 
 "This section of the constitution shall be, in all respects, self-executing." 
 
 Sec. 3. Each elector voting at said election and desirous of voting for or against 
 this amendment shall deposit in the ballot box a ticket whereon shall be printed or 
 written the words, "For the amendment to section 1 of Article V of the constitution, 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 59 
 
 providing for the initiative and referendum," and "Against the amendment to section 
 I of Article V of the constitution, providing for the initiative and referendum," and 
 shall indicate his or her approval or rejection of the proposition by placing a cross (X) 
 after one of such sentences. The vote cast for the adoption or rejection of said amend- 
 ment shall be canvassed and the result determined in the manner provided by the 
 laws of the Slate of Colorado for the canvass of votes for Representative in Congress. 
 
 Sec. 4. In the opinion of the general assembly an emergency exists; therefore, this 
 act shall take effect on and after its passage. 
 
 Adopted November 8, 1910. 
 
 MAINE. 
 
 Part 1 of article 4 is hereby amended as follows, namely: 
 
 By striking out all of section I after the word "Maine " in the third line thereof and 
 inserting in lieu thereof the following words: "But the people reserve to themselves 
 
 f)bwer to propose and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the legis- 
 ature, and also reserve power at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any 
 act, bill, resolve, or resolution passed by the joint action of both branches of the legis- 
 lature, and the style of their laws and acts shall be ' Be it enacted by the people of the 
 State of Maine,' " so that said section as amended shall read as follows, namely: 
 
 "The legislative power shall be vested in two distinct branches, a house of repre- 
 sentatives and a senate, each to have a negative on the other, and both to be styled 
 the Legislature of Maine, but the people reserve to themselves power to propose laws 
 and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the legislature, and also 
 reserve power at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any act, bill, resolve, 
 or resolution passed by the joint action of both branches of the legislature, and he style 
 of their laws and acts shall be 'Be it enacted by the people of the State of Maine.' '' 
 
 Part 3 of article 4 is hereby amended as follows, namely: 
 
 By inserting in section 1, after the words "biennially and " in the second line thereof, 
 the words "with the exceptions hereinafter stated," so that said section shall read as 
 amended : 
 
 "The legislature shall convene on the first Wednesday of January, biennially, and, 
 with the exceptions hereinafter stated, shall have full power to make and establish all 
 reasonable laws and regulations for the defense and benefit of the people of this State 
 not repugnant to this constitution nor to that of the United States." 
 
 Part 3 of article 4 is further amended by adding to said article the following sections, 
 to be numbered from 16 to 22, inclusive, namely: 
 
 "Sec 16. No act or joint resolution of the legislature, except such orders or resolu- 
 tions as pertain solely to facilitating the performance of the business of the legislature, 
 of either branch, or of any committee or officer thereof, or appropriate money therefor 
 or for the payment of salaries fixed by law, shall take effect until 90 days after the 
 recess of the legislature passing it, unless in case of emergency (which with the facts 
 constituting the emergency shall be expressed in the preamble of the act) the legis- 
 lature shall, by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, otherwise 
 direct. An emergency bill shall include only such measures as are immediately neces- 
 sary for the preservation of the public peace, health, or safety; and shall not include 
 (1) an infringement of the right of home rule for municipalities, (2) a franchise or a 
 license to a corporation or an individual to extend longer than one year, or (3) provision 
 for the sale or purchase or renting for more than five years of real estate. 
 
 "Sec. 17. Upon written petition of not less than 10,000 electors, addressed to the 
 governor and filed in the office of the secretary of state within 90 days after the recess 
 of the legislature, requesting that one or more acts, bills, resolves, or resolutions, or 
 part or parts thereof, passed by the legislature, but not then in effect by reason of the 
 provisions of the preceding section, be referred to the people; such acts, bills, resolves, 
 or resolutions, or part or parts thereof, as are specified in such petition shall not take 
 effect until 30 days after the governor shall have announced by public proclamation 
 that the same have been ratified by a majority of the electors voting thereon at a gen- 
 eral or special election. As soon as it appears that the effect of any act, bill, resolve, 
 or resolution, or part or parts thereof, has been suspended by petition in manner afore- 
 said, the governor by public proclamation shall give notice thereof and of the time 
 when such measure is to be voted on by the people, which shall be at the next general 
 election not less than 60 days after such proclamation, or in case of no general election 
 within six months thereafter the governor may, and if so requested in said written peti- 
 tion therefor, shall order such measure submitted to the people at a special election 
 not less than four nor more than six months after his proclamation thereof. 
 
 "Sec. 18. The electors may propose to the legislature for its consideration any 
 bill, resolve, or resolution, including bills to amend or repeal emergency legislation, 
 
60 DIEECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 but not an amendment of the State constitution, by written petition addressed to 
 the legislature or to either branch thereof, and filed in the office of the secretary of state 
 or presented to either branch of the legislature at least 30 days before the close of its 
 session. Any measure thus proposed by not less than 12,000 electors, unless enacted 
 without change by the legislature at the session at which it is presented, shall be 
 submitted to the electors, together with any amended form, substitute, or recom- 
 mendation of the legislature, and in such manner that the people can choose between 
 the competing measures or reject both. When there are competing bills, and neither 
 receives a majority of the votes given for or against both, the one receiving the most 
 votes shall at the next general election to be held not less than 60 days after the first 
 vote thereon, be submitted by itself, if it receives more than one-third of the votes 
 given for and against both. If the measure initiated is enacted by the legislature 
 without change, it shall not go to a referendum vote unless in pursuance of a demand 
 made in accordance with the preceding section. The legislature may order a special 
 election on any measure that is subject to a vote of the people. The governor may, 
 and if so requested in the written petitions addressed to the legislature shall, by proc : 
 lamation, order any measure proposed to the legislature by at least 12,000 electors 
 as herein provided, and not enacted by the legislature without change, referred to 
 the people at a special election to be held not less than four or more than six months 
 after such proclamation, otherwise said measure shall be voted upon at the next gen- 
 eral election held not less than 60 days after the recess of the legislature to which 
 such measure was proposed. 
 
 "Sec. 19. Any measure referred to the people and approved by a majority of the 
 votes given thereon shall, unless a later date is specified in said measure, take effect 
 and become a law in 30 days after the governor has made public proclamation of the 
 result of the vote on said measure, which he shall do within 10 days after the vote 
 thereon has been convassed and determined. The veto power of the governor shall 
 not extend to any measure approved by vote of the people, and any measure initiated 
 by the people and passed by the legislature without change, if vetoed by the governor, 
 and if his veto is sustained by the legislature shall be referred to the people to be 
 voted on at the next general election. The legislature may enact measures expressly 
 conditioned upon the people's ratification by a referendum vote. 
 
 "Sec. 20. As used in either of the three preceding sections the words 'electors' and 
 'people' mean the electors of the State qualified to vote for governor; 'recess of the 
 legislature' means the adjournment without day of a session of the legislature; 'gen- 
 eral election ' means the November election for choice of presidential electors or the 
 September election for choice of governor and other State and county officers; 'meas- 
 ure' means an act, bill, resolve, or resolution proposed by the people, or two or more 
 such, or part or parts of such, as the case may be; 'written petition' means one or 
 more petitions written or printed, or partly written and partly printed with the 
 original signatures of the petitioners attached, verified as to the authenticity of the 
 signatures by the oath of one of the petitioners certified thereon, and accompanied 
 by the certificate of the clerk of the city, town, or plantation in which the petitioners 
 reside that their names appear on the voting list of his city, town, or plantation as 
 qualified to vote for governor. The petitions shall set forth the full text of the measure 
 requested or proposed. The full text of a measure submitted to a vote of the people 
 under the provisions of the constitution need not be printed on the official ballots, 
 but, until otherwise provided by the legislature, the secretary of state shall prepare 
 the ballots in such form as to present the question or questions concisely and 
 intelligibly. 
 
 "Sec. 21. The city council of any city may establish the initiative and referendum 
 for the electors of such city in regard to its municipal affairs, provided that the ordi- 
 nance establishing and providing the method of exercising such initiative and refer- 
 endum shall not take effect until ratified by vote of a majority of the electors of said 
 city voting thereon at a municipal election: Provided, however, That the legislature 
 may at any time provide a uniform method for the exercise of the initiative and 
 referendum in municipal affairs. 
 
 "Sec. 22. Until the legislature shall enact further regulations not inconsistent 
 with the constitution for applying the people's veto and direct initiative, the election 
 officers and other officials shall be governed by the provisions of this constitution and 
 of the general law, supplemented by such reasonable action as may be necessary to 
 render the preceding sections self-executing." 
 
 Adopted September 14, 1908. 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 61 
 
 MISSOURI. 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. 
 
 The legislative authority of the State shall be vested in a legislative assembly, con- 
 sisting of a senate and house of representatives, but the people reserve to themselves 
 power to propose laws and amendments to the constitution, and to enact or reject the 
 same at the polls, independent of the legislative assembly, and also reserve power at 
 their own option to approve or rejeel at the polls any act' of the legislative assembly. 
 The first, power reserved by the people is the initiative, and not more than 8 per cent 
 of the legal voters in each of al least, two-thirds of the congressional districts in the 
 Slate, shall be required to propose anj measure by such petition, and every such 
 petition shall include the full text of the measure so proposed. Initiative petitions 
 shall be filed with the secretary of state not, less than four months before the election 
 at which they are to he voted upon. The second power is the referendum, and it 
 may he ordered (except as to laws necessary for the immediate preservation of the 
 public peace, health, or safety, and laws making appropriations for the current 
 expenses of the State government, for the maintenance of the State institutions, and 
 for the support of public schools) either by the petition signed by 5 per cent of the 
 legal voters in each of at least 1 wo-thiids of the congressional districts in the State, or 
 by the legislative assembly, as other bills are enacted. Referendum petitions shall 
 be filed with the secretary of state not more than 90 days alter the final adjournment 
 of the session of the legislative assembly which passed the bill on which the refer- 
 endum is demanded. The veto power of the governor shall not extend to measures 
 referred to the people. All elections on measures referred to the people of the State 
 shall he had at the biei nial regular general elections, except when the legislative 
 assembly shall order a special election. Any measure referred to the people shall 
 take effect and become the law when it is approved by a majority of the vote[r]s cast 
 thereon, and not otherwise. The style of all bills shall be: "Be it enacted by the 
 people of the State of Missouri." This section shall not be construed to deprive any 
 member of the legislative assembly of the right to introduce any measure. The whole 
 number of votes cast for justice of the supreme ccurt at the regular election last pre- 
 ceding the filing of any petition for the initiative, or for the referendum, shall be the 
 basis on which the number of legal voters necessary to sign such petition shall be 
 counted. Petitions and orders for the initiative and for the referendum shall be filed 
 with the secretary of state, and in submitting the same to the people he, and all other 
 officers, shall be guided by the general laws and the act submitting this amendment, 
 until legislation shall be especially provided therefor. 
 
 Adopted November 3, 1908. 
 
 MONTANA. 
 Article V. 
 
 Section I. The legislative authority of the State shall he vested in a legislative 
 assembly, consisting of a senate and house of representatives; but the people reserve 
 to themselves pow T er to propose laws and to enact or reject the same at the polls, 
 except as to laws relating to appropriations of money and except as to laws for 
 the submission of constitutional amendments and except as to local or special laws, 
 as enumerated in Article V, section 26, of this constitution, independent of the leg- 
 islative assembly; and also reserve power at their own option to approve or reject at 
 the polls any act of the legislative assembly, except as to laws necessary for the imme- 
 diate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, and except as to laws relat- 
 ing to appropriations of money, and except as to laws for the submission of consti- 
 tutional amendments, and except as to local or special laws, as enumerated in Article 
 V, section 2(5, of this constitution. The first power reserved by the people is the 
 initiative, and 8 per cent of the legal voters of the State shall be required to propose 
 any measure by petition: Provided, That two-fifths of the whole number of the coun- 
 ties of the State must each furnish as signers of said petition 8 per cent of the legal 
 voters in such county, and every such petition shall include the full text of the 
 measure so proposed. Initiative petitions shall he filed with the secretary of state 
 not less than four months before the election at which they are to be voted upon. 
 
 The second power is the referendum, and it may be ordered either by petition 
 signed by 5 per cent of the legal voters of the State: Provided, That two-fifths of the 
 whole number of the counties of the State must each furnish as signers of said peti- 
 tion 5 per cent of the legal voters in such county, or by the legislative assembly as 
 other bills are enacted. 
 
G2 DIEECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 Referendum petitions shall be filed with the secretary of state not later than six 
 months after the final adjournment of the session of the legislative assembly which 
 passed the bill on which the referendum is demanded. The veto power of the gov- 
 ernor shall not extend to measures referred to the people by the legislative assembly 
 or by initiative referendum petitions. 
 
 All elections on measures referred to the people of the State shall be had at the 
 biennial regular general election, except when the legislative assembly, by a major- 
 ity vote, shall order a special election. Any measure referred to the people shall 
 still be in full force and effect unless such petition be signed by 15 per cent of the 
 legal voters of a majority of the whole number of the counties of the State, in which 
 case the law shall be inoperative until such time as it shall be passed upon at an 
 election and the result has been determined and declared as provided by law. The 
 whole number of votes cast for governor at the regular election last preceding the 
 filing of any petition for the initiative or referendum shall be the basis on which the 
 number of the legal petitions and orders for the initiative and for the referendum 
 shall be filed with the secretary of state; and in submitting the same to the people 
 he and all other officers shall be guided by the general laws and the act submitting 
 this amendment until legislation shall be especially provided therefor. The enacting 
 clause of every law originated by the initiative shall be as follows: "Be it enacted 
 by the people of Montana." This section shall not be construed to deprive any 
 member of the legislative assembly of the right to introduce any measure. 
 
 Sec. 2. That separate official ballots be used at the general election, to be held in 
 November, 1906, and shall have printed thereon the words, "For the amendment to 
 the constitution providing for direct legislation and reference of laws," and the 
 words, "Against the amendment to the constitution providing for direct legislation 
 and reference of laws." 
 
 It shall be the duty of the legislative assembly to enact legislation suitable for 
 carrying this amendment into effect. 
 
 Sec. 3. All acts or parts of acts in conflict with this act are hereby repealed. 
 
 Sec. 4. This act shall take effect and be in full force from and after its passage 
 and approval by the governor. 
 
 Adopted bv the constitutional convention held at Helena, Mont., July 4, A. D. 
 1889, and ending August 17, A. D. 1889. 
 
 NEVADA. 
 
 Article XIX. 
 
 Section 1. Whenever 10 per cent or more of the voters of this State, as shown by 
 the number of votes cast at the last preceding general election, shall express their wish 
 that any law or resolution made by the legislature be submitted to a vote of the peo- 
 ple, the officers charged with the duty of announcing and proclaiming elections, and of 
 certifying nominations, or questions to be voted on, shall submit the question of the ap- 
 proval or disapproval of said law or resolution to be voted on at the next ensuing elec- 
 tion wherein a State or congressional officer is to be voted for, or wherein any question 
 may be voted on by the electors of the entire State. 
 
 Sec 2. When a majority of the electors voting at a State election shall by "their 
 votes signify approval of a law or resolution, such law or resolution shall stand as the 
 law of the State and shall not be overruled, annulled, set aside, suspended, or in any 
 way made inoperative except by the direct vote of the people. When such majority 
 shall so signify disapproval the law or resolution so disapproved shall be void and of no 
 effect. 
 
 Adopted November 8, 1904. 
 
 OKLAHOMA. 
 
 Article V. 
 
 Section 1. The legislative authority of the State shall be vested in a legislature, 
 consisting of a senate and a house of representatives; but the people reserve to them- 
 selves the power to propose laws and amendments to the constitution and to enact 
 or reject the same at the polls independent of the legislature, and also reserve power 
 at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any act of the legislature. 
 
 Sec. 2. The first power reserved by the people is the initiative, and 8 per cent 
 of the legal voters shall have the right to propose any legislative measure, and 15 per 
 cent of the legal voters shall have the right to propose amendments to the constitution 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 by petition, and every such petition shall include the full text of the measure so pro- 
 posed. The second power is the referendum, and it may be ordered (except as to 
 laws necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety), 
 either by petition signed by 5 percent of the legal voters or by the legislature as other 
 bills are enacted. The ratio and per cent of legal voters hereii before stated shall be 
 based upon the total number of votes cast at, the last general election for the State 
 office receiving the highest number of votes at such election. 
 
 . :;. Referendum petitions shall be filed with the secretary of state not more than 
 90 days after the final adjournment of the session of the legislature which passed the 
 bill on which the referendum is demanded. The veto power of the governor shall 
 ..tend to measures voted on by the people. All elections on measures referred to 
 the people of the State shall be had at the next election held throughout the state, 
 except when the legislature or the governor shall order a special eled ion for the express 
 purpose of making such reference. An\ measure referred to i he people by the inil ia- 
 tive shall take effect and be in force when it shall have been approved by a majority 
 of the votes cast in such election. Any measure referred lo the people by the refer- 
 in shall take effect and be in force when i1 shall ha\ e been approved by a majority 
 of the votes casl I hereon and not otherwise. 
 
 The style of all hills shall he: " He it enacted by the people of the Stale of Okla- 
 homa." 
 
 Pet it ions and orders for the in it iative and for the referendum shall he hied with the 
 
 secretary of stale and addressed p. the governor of the Stale, who shall submit the 
 
 to the people. The legislature shall make suitable provisions for carrying into 
 
 effect the provisions of this article. 
 
 Sec. 1. The referendum may he demanded by the people against one or more items, 
 
 ons, or parts of any act of the legislature in the same manner in which such power 
 
 may be exercised against a complete act . The filing of a referendum petition against 
 
 one or more items, sections, or parts of an act shall not delay the remainder of srch 
 
 acl from becoming operative. 
 
 SEC. 5. The powers of the initialise and referendum, reserved to the people by this 
 constitution for the Slate at large, are hereby further reserved to the legal voters of 
 every county and district therein as to all local legislation or action in the administra- 
 tion of county and district government in and for their respective counties and dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 ,The manner of exercising said powers shall he prescribed by general laws, except 
 that hoards of county commissioners may provide for the time of exercising the initia- 
 tive and referendum powers as to local legislation in their respective counties and 
 dislricts. 
 
 The requisite number of petitioners for the invocation of the initiative and refer- 
 endum in counties and districts shall bear twice or double the ratio to the whole num- 
 ber of legal voters in such county or district as herein provided therefor in the State 
 at large. 
 
 Sec 6. Any measure rejected by the people, through the powers of the initiative 
 and referendum, can not he again proposed by the initiative within three years there- 
 after by less than 25 per cent of the legal voters. 
 
 Sec. 7. The reservation of the powers of t he initiative and referendum in thisarticle 
 shall not deprive the legis'ature of the right to repeal any law, propose or pass any 
 measure, which may he consistent with the constitution of the Stale and the Consti- 
 tution of the United States. 
 
 Sec. S. Laws shall he provided to prevent corruption in making, procuring, and 
 s ibmitting initiative and referendum petitions. 
 
 Adopted September 17, 1907. Oklahoma was admitted into the Union November 
 16, 10(17. 
 
 OREGON. 
 
 Section 1 of Article IV of the constitution of the State of Oregon shall be, and 
 hereby is, amended to read as follows: 
 
 "Section 1. The legislative authority of the State shall be vested in a legislative 
 assembly, consisting of a senate and house of representatives, but the people reserve to 
 themselves power to propose laws and amendments to the constitution, and to enact 
 or reject the same at the polls, independent of the legislative assembly, and also 
 reserve p nver at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any act of the legis- 
 lative assembly. The first power reserved by the people is the initiative, and not 
 more than 8 per cent of the legal voters shall be required to propose any measure by 
 such petition, and every such petition shall include the full text of the measure so 
 proposed. Initiative petitions shall be filed with the secretary of state not less than 
 
64 DIEECT LEGISLATION. 
 
 four months before the election at which they are to be voted upon . The second power 
 is the referendum, and it may be ordered (except as to laws necessary for the immediate 
 preservation of the public peace, health, or safety), either by petition, signed by 5 per 
 cent of the legal voters or by the legislative assembly, as other bills are enacted. 
 Referendum petitions shall be filed with the secretary of state not more than 90 days 
 after the final adjournment of the session of the legislative assembly which passed the 
 bill on which the referendum is demanded. The veto power of the governor shall not 
 extend to measures referred to the people. All elections on measures referred to the 
 people of the State shall be had at the biennial regular general elections, except when 
 the legislative assembly shall order a special election. Any measure referred to the 
 people shall take effect and become the law when it is approved by a majority of the 
 votes cast thereon, and not otherwise. The style of all bills shall be: 'Be it enacted 
 by the people of the State of Oregon.' This section shall not be construed to deprive 
 any member of the legislative assembly of the right to introduce any measure. The 
 whole number of votes cast for justice of the supreme court at the regular election last 
 preceding the filing of any petition for the initiative or for the referendum shall be the 
 basis on which the number of legal voters necessary to sign such petition shall be 
 counted. Petitions and orders for the initiative and for the referendum shall be filed 
 with the secretary of state, and in submitting the same to the people he and all other 
 officers shall be guided by the general laws and the act submitting this amendment 
 until legislation shall be especially provided therefor." 
 Adopted, June 2, 1902. 
 
 SOUTH DAKOTA. 
 
 Article III. 
 
 Section 1. The legislative power shall be vested in a legislature which shall con- 
 sist of a senate and house of representatives, except that the people expressly re- 
 serve to themselves the right to propose measures, which measures the legislature 
 shall enact and submit to a vote of the electors of the State, and also the right to 
 require that any laws which the legislature may have enacted shall be submitted to 
 a vote of the electors of the State before going into effect (except such laws as may be 
 necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, sup- 
 port of State government, and the existing public institutions): Provided, That not 
 more than 5 per cent of the qualified electors of the State shall be required to invoke 
 either the initiative or the referendum. This section shall not be construed so as 
 to deprive the legislature or any member thereof of the right to propose any measure. 
 The veto power of the executive shall not be exercised as to measures referred to a 
 vote of the people. This section shall apply to municipalities. The enacting clause 
 of all laws approved by vote of the electors of the State shall be: "Be it enacted by 
 the people of South Dakota." The legislature shall make suitable provisions for 
 carrying into effect the provisions of this section. 
 
 Adopted, November 8, 1898. 
 
 UTAH. 
 
 Article VI. 
 
 Section 1. (Power vested in senate, house, and people.) The legislative power of 
 the State shall be vested: 
 
 1. In a senate and house of representatives, which shall be designated the Legis- 
 lature of the State of Utah. 
 
 2. In the people of the State of Utah as hereinafter stated: 
 
 1 he legal voters, or such fractional part thereof of the State of Utah as may be pro- 
 vided by" law, under such conditions and in such manner and within such time as may 
 be provided by law, may initiate any desired legislation and cause the same to be 
 submitted to a vote of the people for approval or rejection, or may require any law 
 passed by the legislature (except those laws passed by a two-thirds vote of the members 
 elected to each house of the legislature) to be submitted to the voters of the State 
 before such law shall take effect. 
 
 \ he legal voters, or such fractional part thereof as may be provided by law, of any 
 legal subdivision of the State, under such conditions and in such manner and within 
 such time as may be provided by law, may initiate any desired legislation and cause 
 the same to be submitted to a vote of the people of said legal subdivision for approval 
 or rejection, or may require any law or ordinance passed by the lawmaking body of 
 said legal subdivision to be submitted to the voters thereof before such law or ordi- 
 nance shall take effect. 
 
DIRECT LEGISLATION, 
 
 65 
 
 Sec. 22. i Enacting clause; passage and amendments of law. |. The enacting clause of 
 every law shall be, "Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Utah." Except 
 such laws as may be passed by the vote of the electors as provided in subdivision 2, 
 section 1, of this article, and such laws shall begin as follows: "Be it enacted by the 
 people of the State of Utah.'' No bill or joint resolution shall be passed, except with 
 the assent of the majority of all the members elected to each house of the legislature, 
 and after it has been read three times. The vote upon the final passage of all bills 
 shall be by yeas and nays; and no law shall be revised or amended by reference to its 
 title only; but the act as revised or section as amended shall !>•■ reenacted and pub- 
 lished at length 
 
 Adopted, November 6, L900. 
 
 TABLE ANALYZING AMENDMENTS IN FORCE. 
 
 Name of State. 
 
 Arizona 
 
 Arkansas 
 
 California 
 
 Colorado 
 
 Maine 
 
 Missouri (note 5) 
 
 Montana (note 3) 
 
 Nevada (referendum only) 
 
 Oklahoma (note 4) 
 
 Oregon 
 
 South Dakota (note 1) 
 
 Utah (note 2) 
 
 Year 
 
 amend- 
 ment was 
 adopted. 
 
 1911 
 1010 
 1910 
 1910 
 
 1908 
 1908 
 1906 
 1905 
 1907 
 1902 
 1S98 
 1900 
 
 Percentage 
 
 signatures 
 
 for 
 
 initiative. 
 
 Percentage 
 signatures 
 
 for 
 referendum. 
 
 5 and 8 
 
 8 
 
 i 12,000 
 
 Note 2. 
 
 ' 10,000 
 5 
 5 
 
 10 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 
 Note 2. 
 
 Provision 
 for initia- 
 tive on con- 
 stitutional 
 amend- 
 ments. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 No. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 No. 
 
 Note. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 No. 
 
 No. 
 
 1 Voters. 
 
 Important defects in the amendments above tabulated may lie added. They explain, in alarge measure, 
 why other States have not shown such good results as Oregon. In fact, Oregon is the only State in which 
 direct legislation has had a fair trial. The Oregon system is free from so-called "safeguards and restric- 
 tions," and the publicity pamphlet is distributed to the voters in an effective manner. 
 
 1. South Dakota. — The initiative practically worthless because an initiated measure can not go to the 
 people unless first enacted by the legislature. The legislature has refused to act on several important 
 proposals and, since a legislature can not be-mandamused, the South Dakota initiative amounts to nothing 
 more than a petition. 
 
 2. Utah. — This State enacted the "principle," leaving all the details to be enacted by law. The legis- 
 lature has refused to put it into operation, and so Utah has no initiative and referendum. 
 
 3. Montana. — Fetitions must be signed by 5 or 8 per cent of the electors "in each of two-fifths of the 
 counties of the State." This distribution has rendered it too difficult and expensive to operate and no 
 petitions have been filed since its adoption. Several attempts have been made. 
 
 4. Oklahoma. — The Oklahoma initiative has the worst of all "jokers," which requires a "majority of all 
 votes cast in the election" for a law to be enacted. This means in actual operation a two-thirds majority 
 of those voting on a proposition and none have passed which have been submitted at general elections 
 since the adoption to the constitution. Oklahoma is the only other State, except Oregon, which has the 
 publicity pamphlet, but its distribution has been a roaring farce. It was poorly printed and is sup- 
 posed to be sent to the election officials at the primaries precediug the general election. This has not 
 been done and not over one-third of the voters have had copies of the proposed laws. 
 
 5. Missouri. — Missouri, like Montana, requires a distribution of petitioners. They must be secured in 
 "each of two-thirds of the congressional districts." This has already proven very cumbersome and will 
 prove more so in the future. 
 
 S. Doc. 360. 63-2 5 
 
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