People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1895 — Initiative and Referendum. [ARTICLE]

Initiative and Referendum.

The above heading is suggestive of one of the great reforms, we believe the very greatest reform, the country needs and which the people are ready to receive, namely, a system by which the body of the people by direct act shall suggest and ratify the laws of the land. The Initiative and Referendum system would place all the power of legislation in the hands of the people Where it of right belongs. It would forever triumph over the corrupting influence of wealth and king power, as at present asserted in state and national legislative bodies, the dis gracer of our boasted civilization. Its introduction into the political arena for discussion at this time is from the general recognition that our legislative bodies are absolutely dishonest and incompetent; that the members who compose these bodies are at best but the equal of those who have delegated them with power, and consequently not more competent to make laws and decide upon the various affairs of government than the average of their constituents. It is patent to all that the ideal legislature of honest, honorable, intelligent self-sacrificing delegates is but a fleeting dream. Instead we all know that corrupt influences are at work in every stage of this representative system from primary to senate chamber. It is needless to prove that such government is misrepresentative instead of representative.

And because of these facts thousands of our best intellects and most profound economists are studying the ways of Switz erland, our progressive little sister republic of the glacial Alps, and pronouncing them practical ana immediately desirable for each of our several states, and for the whole .vast cation of 70,000,000 people. It is feasable. It will come. But you ask an explanation of this profound inovation upon our American customs. It is but the elaboration ■of our New England town meeting. It is the most American of all our American institutions, only we have allowed Switzerland to carry it out in its practical completeness, while we have recognized it only as an infant slumbering in the cradle. It is the infant now of our proudest expectations, and full of the promise of deliverrnce from partisan strife and professional politics.

The Initiative is simply the proposing of laws by the people. The Referendum is the submitting of laws to direct vote of the people. Impossible you say. Let us see. You already vote upon amendments to the constitutions of both state and nation, and that is considered proper. In fact a constitutional amendment is considered of too great importance to trust with representatives* in a final vote. Public men and measures are now discussed in the numei’ous press, from the rostrum and in private debate; it would be doubly sounder the new system, measures more than men receiving the purifying scrutiny of the citizen. To our present press could be added an official gazette through which the people could be informed of the affairs of state and proposed legislation, upon the plan of the Congressional Globe.

The fact that laws would be submitted to the voters for their approval or rejection would stimulate interest in public affairs and at once develop a high intelligence upon economic questions, and that is more than can be said of the present elected representatives. The comparative competence of elector and elected is at least favorable to the former so that the proposed system cannot be successfully opposed upon the ground of ignorance. It remains then only to devise the method of execution which must be as inexpensive and simple as possible. And here is where the Australian ballot can be used in all its glory, the voter being able to decide separately upon a list of proposed laws as easily as is now done upon a list of proposed officers, and upon a day set apart for that especial purpose. It is impossible in a short newspaper article to enter into the details of so important and radical a proposition as the Initiative and Referendum, for to fully comprehend its beauties one should give the matter careful thought, and study the practical working of the system in Switzerland. Elaborate on our New England town meeting, where nearly 1,000 voters assemble in a body and transact business in the usual legislative way

aggregating #50.000 and forty or more counts in a single day. Consider that a country where the people originate or propose the laws, and then vote upon their adoption, would be a pure democracy; the officeis would in truth be but the servants of the masses, their clerks so to speak.