Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1894 — IS REFERENDUM WISE? [ARTICLE]

IS REFERENDUM WISE?

A Belief of tli<e Populist Party. The “referendum” in politics is a practice of having laws which are passed by delegates of the people referred back to the people for a vote on the same. Laws in that case do not go into effect unless they are enforced by a majority of the votes. * * * * Under the “referendum” plan every law of Congress would have to be voted upon by the people of all the States before it could be put into force. Every law passed by a State Legislature would have to be referred back to the people of that state, and would only become operative when carried by a popular vote. All city laws and ordinances would become effective only after a vote ~ of the people of the city. Because the Populists favor the referendum argues little for or against it. That party is at war with everything which is. They oppose existing institutions not because the institutions are bad, but simply because they exist. There theory is that whatever is, is wrong. They oppose the National banks, not because that system is a bad one, but because it is a good one. Success with them is a badge of dishonesty. They advocate the owning of railroads by the Government, not because they can show that any benefits would fallow such ownership, but because the-Government does not own them now and they want everything different from what it is. now. They would have the Government go into the business of loaning money, mot because that is legitimate and proper, but because no government on the face of the earth is doing such a business; and they insist that the world has all been run, up to date, on a wrong

plsfi. They are the advocates of having everything changed so as to prove that wisdom never existed on the planet until the birth of the Populist party. They oppose the representative form of government, not because it is not well adapted to the needs and developement of our Nation, but because it has been the one actually in^operation up to the present time. If we were living under the referendum plan they would be just as clamorous for us to adopt' the representative p an. They insist that, up to date, nothing has been rightly done because the world has been struggling along in the dark and that no light ever came until the dawn of Populism. Was there ever such another party of egotists?

R. G. HORR.