there will be no end to the changes desired, and all the laws of the land will become unsettled. For these reasons many people object to the changes contemplated in the Initiative and the Referendum.

In answer to these objections it is only necessary to say that, under a democratic form of government, the people have a right to those changes, constitutional or otherwise, through which they will be benefited. To deny them this right is to take from them the basic principle of democracy, and virtually to say to a people that self-government is a good thing, but that you will end in lawlessness and chaos if you undertake to govern yourselves! The principle of self-government was placed in the Constitution, and the spirit of democracy a ruling by the people-breathes in almost every word and line; and as it was interpreted and obeyed for three-fourths of a century, the benefits were such as to fill the fondest hopes and desires. But conditions are such that the right of self-government is more or less restricted. Interpretations of the Constitution and laws have been so rendered that the rights of man are not so great as they were by original interpretation. The Constitution has not changed, but interpretations have changed, and it is because of the changed interpretations that an amendment to the Constitution becomes an absolute necessity. And this amendment is to re-proclaim that the people of a democracy are the source of all power, and the same may be asserted at pleasure, the amendment sought through the Initiative and the Referendum being a re-statement, an emphatic affirmation, of the original understanding and interpretation of the Constitution.

The question has been asked: "Will this system prove satisfactory in settling such problems as that presented by the liquor question?" It will settle that problem as easily and as effectually as can be done under any other system. It will allow the voters to express themselves on this subject, and if a majority says, "Yes, the saloon must go,' then the saloon with all its influence will go as quickly as though a political party, organized for that purpose, had secured a majority of the votes and placed its men in power.

A prohibitory law with a party behind it means nothing more than a prohibitory law with an educated majority behind it; and if in the first instance a majority could be successful in enforcing the law, it certainly could in the second. If there be virtue in majorities, if self-government as tried in this and other countries has not proven a failure, then assuredly the saloon system, along with many other evils, may be destroyed more quickly under this system than under the representative system. There is the opportunity of getting the question before the people oftener, and of obtaining a more general hearing than in any other manner.

In a republic two conditions, at least, are essential: first, a pure ballot or as nearly so as can be secured; second, effective control of representatives, or those who serve. The first of these conditions was certainly badly mangled, so much so that a general uprising of our people caused the adoption of a remedy. But how we suffered before we got it! We went to Australia and borrowed her system of secret ballot, which is about as near perfection as we can ask. The last decade and longer has demonstrated that the people are no longer masters of the servant-representatives. The burdens are becoming heavier year by year, while the ability to meet them becomes less and less. The time to strike for our "altars and our homes" is now, and the occasion is urgent. This time we go to Switzerland and borrow of her the Initiative and the Referendum and make them a part of the constitutional law of the land; and through them the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness will be permanently established.

THE TELEGRAPH MONOPOLY.

THE

BY PROFESSOR FRANK PARSONS.

XIV.

THE DEFENDANT'S BRIEF.

'HE defendant's pleas, so far as made in open court at least, fall into four divisions, financial, political, constitutional, and miscellaneous. We will first investigate the sources and general character of defendant's arguments and evidence, then we will state their several pleas as briefly as possible, and to save time and space will annex to each the plaintiff's replication.

House Report 114, Senate Report 577, the Bingham and the Blair Hearings, the North American Review, vol. 137, p. 422, Senate Miscellany 86, 42-2, etc., contain large quantities of Western Union arguments and testimony, the spokesman being generally either the president of the company or an attorney. Several pamphlets against the postal telegraph have also been issued by the company, the earliest one that has come to my knowledge being in large part taken almost verbatim from a pamphlet previously published in England by Robert Grimston, chairman of the Electric and International Telegraph Company, which, before the transfer of the English telegraph to the government, occupied a position in Great Britain somewhat like that of the Western Union in this country. The statements of the Western Union pamphlet are taken up in detail by the Washburn committee and shown to be a tissue of falsehood and misstatement.1 To find the relation of offices, wires, etc., to population in 1868–9, the statistics of offices, wires, etc., were brought down to date, while the population of the United States was taken at thirty-one millions (the census of 1860) instead of thirtynine or forty millions, which was estimated by statisticians to be the population corresponding to the date of offices,

1 House Report 114, pp. 14-31.

wires, messages, etc., an estimate proved by the following census to be nearly correct. The populations of European countries, on the other hand, were brought down to date, and in this way the pamphleteers made a favorable showing for the Western Union. In counting offices, they included all competing offices, though often adding substantially nothing to telegraph facilities, also railroad, hotel, branch offices, etc., while in Europe there were no competing offices, and the railroad and branch offices were to a large extent omitted, about 1,200 in France, and correspondingly in other countries. In comparing rates the Western Union shortened the distances in Europe and enlarged them in this country. Even the facts of geography must yield to the necessities of corporate logic. In dealing with Belgium the company copied from the British pamphlet a lot of statements which the Belgian government had already in May, 1868, officially declared to be untrue and to contain "as many errors as words."4

In 1867 the Western Union said their average rate was 57 cents; in June, 1872, they said it had been reduced fifty per cent; and in December, 1872, they said it was 62 cents." In early reports the company stated the average charge at 57 cents, and the average cost at 40 cents; in later reports the company state the average charge for the same years covered by the said early reports as $1.04, and the cost as 63 cents, in order to make it appear that they had reduced rates very much since the said early years. The company seems to have a delicate feeling that the truth is too sacred to be used in corporation statements or testimony.

President Green told the Hill committee that the average press rate was 62 cents per one hundred words, and then immediately proceeded to give the figures of the press business, which show an average press rate of over 30 cents per hundred words delivered, and $30 per hundred words sent." President Orton's sworn evidence in court could not be

2 House Report 114, pp. 15, 16.

5 Senate Miscellany 79, 42-3.

8 Id. 29-32.

4 Id. 23.

6 See authorities cited in note 37, Part X, ARENA, Dec. 1896, p. 25.

7 Senate Report 577, Part II, p. 23; see Part II of this discussion, note 1, paragraphs 4-6, ARENA, Feb. 1896, pp. 400-1.

made to agree with his testimony before the Washburn committee.8

Such are a few illustrations of the value of Western Union testimony, logic, and statistics. Others will be found scattered through these papers, and they may be found in bulk by anyone who cares to examine the statements made by the company and its officers and attorneys. It is a painful subject, and we will leave it with one further illustration from the Blair Report, 1885, Senate Committee on Education and Labor, vol. i, p. 875. Dr. Norton Green, President of the Western Union, has been telling the committee that rates are much higher in Europe than in America (using for his comparison international rates in Europe and inland rates here); the committee asks:

Q. What is it that causes the great disparity between your rates and the rates charged between England and the Continental countries?

Green. I think a good deal of it grows out of the conducting of a commercial business by the government and the conducting of the same business by individual enterprise.

Q. Do you know of any other cause to which the difference can be attributed?

Green. No, sir; salaries are much lower there than here. They pay much less for the service than we do.

Q. Is the telegraph a source of revenue beyond expenses to the governments abroad?

Green. I do not know of any government that has ever made any profit out of the telegraph. [Extensive knowledge.] The British postoffice system claim to be making about expenses, but they get large appropriations every year. They claim, however, that those appropriations are for the extension of the plant, the construction of new lines.

Q. They must do much less business there than is done in this country in proportion?

Green. No, sir; they do a larger business in proportion to the amount of wires they have than we do in proportion to our wires.

Q. Then if they are doing a larger business with cheaper labor, and are receiving much higher prices than you receive, why should they not make money? [Did ever a reckless witness walk into a prettier trap?]

Green. Well, I do not know why, but somehow governments never make any money out of anything. [See the big profits stated below.] Q. You state the fact as you understand it, but you do not feel called upon to account for it.

Green. I do not feel called upon to account for it.

The objections urged by the defendant against the estab lishment of a national telegraph system are as follows:

8 House Report 114, p. 100.