cajole from the people by such a scheme as this Public Opinion Bill. Intelligent laws can not be passed without consideration, debate, Wise legislation requires deliberation, and the opportunity for amendment. To answer discussion. "yes" or "no" on an abstract question is to legislate by ballot without any of the safeguards which representative government throws around the making of laws. Plebiscites of this sort have determined and fixed the power of autocratic emperors, but they have never made the laws of a free people. This Public Opinion Bill is not even a referendum, for the referendum submits to popular approval a perfected measure, and in the case of purely local questions it is often used by our legislature. What is called the initiative is now covered, for all reasonable purposes, by the right of petition, but this Public Opinion Bill puts both initiative and referendum into one act and provides for the submission to the people not of perfected law but of any abstract question which any thousand people choose to suggest and which any five thousand voters can be found to sign, and upon which the people have no opportunity to do more than vote categorically "yes" or "no." You can not hesitate, you can not modify, you can not amend, you can not postpone. The pistol is at your head; throw up your hands and answer "yes" or "no" at your peril. There are four questions on the ballot. Only one probably has been discussed, and that insufficiently, for perhaps thirty days. No matter; you must answer "yes" or "no" on all four, and the legislature must in reality, whatever theoretical liberty it is supposed to retain, obey the mandate. There is to be no chance for reconsideration, no time for reflection or for second thought. . . . It is exactly because I trust the people and desire that they should have every advantage that I oppose such revolutionary legislation as this. To compel the people to legislate in a manner practically impossible for any very large body of voters is to do an injustice to the people themselves. It would be like compelling the people to decide by ballot on what they happened to read in the newspapers or hear from their neighbors whether a man was The voters cannot de cide wisely on hearsay evidence. Some statistics on voting. guilty of murder or not, and then finding fault with them because they reached an erroneous decision. The people would not be to blame for the wrong decision, but those who forced upon them a method of trying a criminal case which in its very nature was utterly impossible in practice. Under this bill the people are to be asked to legislate by saying "yes" or "no" to any question, no matter how abstract or how complicated, which anyone can manage to have placed on the ballot. To deal with such questions by a categorical answer is absurd. It is the easiest thing in the world to frame a question to which a categorical "yes" or "no" is impossible. Take the familiar one, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Answer it "yes" or "no" and see where it leaves you. Abstract questions can just as easily be framed to which a categorical "yes" or "no" would be utterly misleading, perilous, and unrepresentative. No people, no matter how intelligent, could legislate in such a way as this otherwise than disastrously. There would be no opportunity for modification or amendment, for repeated votes on different stages, or for debate. There would be but little chance for discussion, and good legislation without the opportunity for debate, amendment, and deliberate consideration is an impossibility. Less than one per cent of the voters of the Commonwealth would have under this bill the power to force upon ninety-nine per cent of the voters any kind of question they chose to devise and compel them to say "yes" or "no" to it. Thousands of voters either through indifference or still more through lack of opportunity to understand the question would refrain from voting, and an imperative mandate to the legislature might be carried by a small minority of the voters. Let me ask your attention to some figures in order to give you a vivid idea of what I mean and to show how imperfectly "yes" and "no" votes, taken in this way, can be relied upon as reflections of the real will and true opinion of the people. These votes, which follow, were given upon constitutional amendments, the most serious questions which can be submitted, because they involve changes in our organic law and were submitted with all the care and deliberation which the framers of our constitution could provide. POPULAR VOTES UPON ARTICLES OF AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITU- How minority rule is es These figures show the absolute truth of my assertion that questions submitted in this way are decided by a majority of a minority, and if this is true of constitutional amendments, fully and plainly tablished. stated, you can imagine what it would be on abstract questions, unknown, blind, uncomprehended, and incomprehensible. These figures show beyond a peradventure that no true public opinion can be obtained in this way, but that on the contrary this bill is a scheme to secure legislation which could not obtain the assent of the voters properly expressed through chosen and responsible representatives. It is a device to enable small and active minorities to obtain legislation which they could not secure by legitimate methods. Representatives represent the whole people. This bill would force upon us a government by a fraction of the How popular will is not people and would defeat the will of the real majority of the people themselves. Yet the legislature would have no choice. They would be bound in conscience and in practice, if not by the words of the ascertained. statute, bound in a manner and forced by a pressure from which there would be no escape, to obey the mandate no matter how obtained, and no man could tell in what form of law the mandate would be finally embodied. The chances are that the law under the pressure of the mandate would be the work of extremists and contrary to the wishes even of those who voted "yes" on the abstract proposition. There could be no greater travesty on popular government than a system which would permit a majority of a minority of the voters to force upon the state any law they chose. It would give an enormous opportunity to the power of money skilfully and corruptly used. It would impair the rights of the people and leave those of the individual naked and defenseless. The result would not be an expression of the popular will, but a mechanical parody of that will so gross that even its authors would gaze upon it with amazement and disgust. . . . The measure destroys representative Experience has shown us the justice of their opinions. This bill invites us to cast aside all that they did, break down every method of lawmaking which they established, and reject that government. principle which they most valued, the principle of representation. I say, reject the principle of representation, because when you impair it and take from your representatives all power and all responsibility, the principle of representation falls. No men invested with the power to make laws, but relieved of all responsibility for the laws they make, are to be trusted. We may change many things, we may abolish laws and put new ones in their place, but we can not alter the fundamental principles of our government and expect the fabric to stand. If we undermine and overthrow the bulwarks of ordered liberty and individual freedom, the citadel itself will not long survive. Any measure which breaks down free representative government, advances us proportionately on the road to executive government, to the rule of one man. This Public Opinion Bill will reduce the representative on one question after another to the level of a machine. As the representative principle sinks, the executive power rises. I believe in maintaining both and maiming neither. I am opposed to crippling and extinguishing representative government. I love freedom and hate tyranny, and anything which depresses the one and opens the road to the other will meet with resistance from me. It is for this reason that I oppose this bill. |