Within a few years past the Swiss institutions, the initiative and referendum, have been studied in many lands by many men who have had many different interests to serve. Wherever in Europe, west of the German Empire, representative government has already established itself on substantial foundations the next step seems to be the referendum or plebiscite, advocated either as a corrective of evils which have developed in the representative system or as a means of helping some agitator gain his ends. In France a revolutionary group has for years urged a plebiscite on the republican constitution in the hope that the people would vote against it and the way would then be opened for another form of government. The name plebiscite in French and Italian history is at once suggestive of the plebiscites of the Napoleons, and of Victor Emmanuel during the reconstruction days in Italy. . . In Belgium, when the constitution of that kingdom was recently revised, the subject of the referendum was generally discussed throughout the country. ... The In England the subject has received not a little attention. leaders of the Socialist and Labor party in England have expressed an interest in the referendum also. In a recent parliamentary campaign the Liberal party put forward as one of its issues a "Local Veto" bill which, had it been passed, would have introduced into England the principle of allowing the people to vote in local districts on the question of prohibiting the liquor trade, in very much the same manner as in the American States. . . . In Canada . . . there is a large fund of material for a scientific treatise on the referendum. . . . In the Anglo-Saxon communities in Australia and New Zealand the referendum has already gained considerable headway and it seems likely to enjoy a much greater development within the next few years. In our own Republic the reform has recently been given a great impetus by reason of the admiration which has been expressed for Switzerland's example. This result has been induced in some degree by a study of the subject by a large number of competent writers on constitutional questions, but it has been chiefly encouraged by a popular political movement in the West of far-reaching proportions. 299. Initiative and referendum in the United States. The various steps in the extension of popular legislation in the United States are thus given by Beard :1 The participation of the people in the making of constitutional law is not only on the increase, but there is also a decided tendency to extend the power of the voters to ordinary legislation as well. 1 Copyright, 1910, by The Macmillan Company. As we have seen, the practice of even submitting constitutions to popular ratification was not one of the original devices of our constitutional system, only three of the eighteenth-century constitutions being submitted to the electorate for approval or rejection. Slowly, however, the idea came to be accepted that voters, in a final analysis, had the right to pass upon their own fundamental laws. ... The doctrine of popular referendum was also early extended to several important matters besides constitutions and amendments. It was not such a long step, therefore, from these and similar practices, to the adoption of a complete system of initiative and referendum, whereby the voters may initiate any measure or require the referendum on any legislative act. Many causes are responsible for this extension of older practices. In some instances, legislators were only too glad to shirk their responsibilities by leaving certain questions to the decision of popular vote. The practice of enlarging the state constitutions so as to include provisions of a temporary and statutory, rather than a fundamental, character led to the breaking down of the old distinction between the solemn formulation of constitutional law and the enactment of mere statutes. Perhaps the most important reason, however, was a distrust in the legislature a distrust that filled our state constitutions with long and detailed limitations on the powers of legislatures and finally ended, in several states, in the assumption of ultimate legislative authority by the voters. It was under these circumstances that the initiative and referendum were adopted as remedies for our legislative evils. . . . The system of initiative and referendum is being extended to local as well as to state-wide matters. . . . The advocates of this new form of government have carried their agitation to Washington, as well as to the capital of nearly every state in the Union, and in 1907 it was stated on good authority that no less than 110 members of the House of Representatives were at that time pledged to vote for the adoption of the referendum for acts of Congress or bills passed by either house, and for the establishment of the initiative for certain topics, including popular election of United States Senators, parcels post, immigration, and the regulation of interstate commerce. 300. Arguments for the referendum. The following catechism sums up the leading arguments in favor of the popular referendum : Q. Is the Referendum un-American? A. The Referendum is not un-American unless the principle of majority rule or rule by the people is un-American. . . . As the growth of numbers made it necessary to rely more and more on representatives, the direct vote of the people was lost, because no one thought of any way in which it could be retained. But now that we have a plan whereby the direct vote can be taken without an assembly of the people, it is possible to go back to the original American system of actual popular sovereignty.... Q. Has it made frequent elections necessary, thus greatly increasing the cost? A. Instead of making elections more frequent and thus increasing taxation, the experience of the Swiss is the reverse. It is not worth while for politicians to attempt to squander the people's resources or for private interests to bribe them to do so when the people have it in their power upon petition of a small minority, to submit any measure passed by a legislature to a direct vote of the people and veto it if a majority so votes. Q. Does it take from the people's representatives any just rights that belong to them, or in any way limit their legitimate exercise of power? A. The Referendum takes from the people's representatives no power that justly belongs to them. The legislators are the agents and servants of the people, not their masters. No true representative has a right or a desire to do anything his principal does not wish to have done, or to refuse to do anything his principal desires to have done. . . . Q. Why is it imperatively demanded to-day? A. The Referendum is imperatively demanded because there has arisen in our midst in recent years a powerful plutocracy composed of the great public-service magnates, the trust chieftains and other princes of privilege who have succeeded in placing in positions of leadership political bosses that are susceptible to the influence of corrupt wealth. .. Against these evils the Referendum is a powerful weapon. It brings the government back to the people, destroying corruption and the mastership of the many by the few. 301. Arguments against the initiative and referendum. The leading objections to the system of popular legislation may be summarized as follows: 1 It is not at all surprising that a system which proposes to vest the legislative power in the mass of voters, rather than in the representative branch of the government . . . should awaken considerable opposition and criticism. It is contended by the opponents of the initiative and referendum that legislation, being a difficult and technical matter demanding the attention of experts and careful deliberation, cannot be done effectively by the mere counting of heads. . . . 1 Copyright, 1910, by The Macmillan Company. The second leading argument against the initiative and referendum is the frequent lack of interest shown in propositions submitted to popular vote. The third argument advanced against the referendum is based on the ground that it is very easy for any pernicious interest in the state, affected adversely by a good law, to secure signatures to a petition demanding a referendum and thus postpone the date of the law's going into effect for a considerable period at least until a popular vote could be taken - and, perhaps, through the indifference of the majority defeat it with a solid and active minority. Another argument against the initiative and referendum is the contention that responsibility for law-making is shifted from a definite group, known as the legislature, to a large and irresponsible group of persons who mark their ballots within the secrecy of the polling place. If the legislature makes mistakes or fails to reflect popular will, its members can be punished, if the electors are interested enough to defeat those who seek reëlection; whereas it is impossible to fix any responsibility or to punish any one politically, if a badly drawn or unwise measure is passed by a popular vote. IV. MINORITY REPRESENTATION 302. The nature and conduct of political majorities. Giddings makes the following analysis of majorities in modern democracies:1 First of all, then, we must observe that a political majority is a consciously formed association for effecting a consciously apprehended purpose; yet it never is an unmixed product of perfectly independent, reasoned action on the part of all its members. Multitudes of adherents have ranged themselves by personal feeling or class prejudice, or a social instinct that prompts them to act in political matters as in other things, with this group of individuals rather than with that. Thus the membership of a political majority exhibits a complete gradation of mental development, from a quick and sensitive intelligence at the margin, where independent voting occurs, to stupid bigotry in the unstimulated interior of the mass. Consequently, there is a reasonable presumption that the temper of the whole is neither extremely radical nor ultraconservative, but very moderately progressive. A political majority of the voters of a large country, with diversified resources and occupations and a heterogeneous population, will be governed mainly by a conservative instinct and will be modified only 1 Copyright, 1900, by The Macmillan Company. very slowly by opinion. It will carefully respect the fundamental political prejudices of "slow" people. Among such prejudices are those in favor of personal liberty in the broad sense of the word, against the increase of direct taxation, against certain forms of sumptuary legislation, and against interference with such traditional political habits as have become a second nature. A political majority, therefore, has a nature that can be described in terms of the laws of social psychology, and its conduct is subject to natural limitations. . . . As social structure becomes more complex the difficulties of holding the diverse elements of a majority together in a working coördination rapidly increase. All other things remaining the same, the inertia of conservatism would increase, and political stagnation would bring progress to an end. . . . But other things do not and cannot remain unchanged. As the difficulties of maintaining party cohesion increase, the necessity of adhering to a positive policy becomes more imperative. . . . As voters become responsive to opinion, they become capable of independence. 303. Necessity for representing minorities. Mill argues that majority rule, regardless of minorities, is unjust and undemocratic. That the minority must yield to the majority, the smaller number to the greater, is a familiar idea; and accordingly, men think there is no necessity for using their minds any farther, and it does not occur to them that there is any medium between allowing the smaller number to be equally powerful with the greater, and blotting out the smaller number altogether. In a representative body actually deliberating, the minority must of course be overruled; and in an equal democracy (since the opinions of the constituents, when they insist on them, determine those of the representative body), the majority of the people, through their representatives, will outvote and prevail over the minority and their representatives. But does it follow that the minority should have no representatives at all? Because the majority ought to prevail over the minority, must the majority have all the votes, the minority none? . . . In a really equal democracy, every or any section would be represented, not disproportionately, but proportionately. A majority of the electors would always have a majority of the representatives, but a minority of the electors would always have a minority of the representatives. Man for man, they would be as fully represented as the majority. Unless they are, there is not equal government, but a government of inequality and privilege: one part of the people rule over the rest: there is a part whose fair and equal share of influence in the |