The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1893-09-01
Direct Legislation.

Direct legislation provides that small
number Of citizens desiring any reform may
require the legislature to submit this reform
to vote OF the whole people. This is the
most vital part of the whole thing. 1t also
provides that every bill passed by legisla-
lures must be submitted to all the people
and approved by them before it becomes
law. The first is called the initiative and
the second The referendum.
effective voting" is the most thorough
plan of proportional representation. 1t has
several proposed forms, but the proper and
only logical one is that every party which
makes nominations shall have at least one
representative in the legislature, and each
representative of any PARTY shall cast for
any measure the number of votes cast for
him by citizens.
Our present system of law making by
delegated authority has proved most COM
plee failure as republican or democratic
form of government. When the power Of
the people is transferred at the ballot box,
for instance in this county, and lodged in
the hands of four men-three delegates and
one senator-the people become entirely
helpless. Those four men can do as they
may choose with that great power which has
been entrusted to them. They may sell it
to the highest bidder; they may use it to
carry out some policy of their own peculiar
notions or to promote the interest of some
corporation which seeks to obtain valuable
franchises concealed in some obscure, and
cunnipgly worded bill. In short the polit-
ical rights of a whole community transferred
to the kee ping and exercise of four men is
open 10 a multitude of such abuses as above
mentioned, and we all know that it has been
more frequently used to promote such abuses
than for the interest of the whole people.
This does not apply especially 10 our legis-
lators, the legislators for our county or State,
but has general application to the legis-
latures of all the States and the national
Congress.
Through this system of delegated power
the whole nation, and every individual
State comprising the nation, and every city
of any considerable size in the country,
have been turned over TO rings and corpor-
atoms which plumber and abuse the public,
defy laws, control courts Of justice, and have
made our business system and our social
system the breeding places Of moral leprosy.
Our delegated system cries loudly for
reform which shall retain the law making
power in the hands of the people by meth
DDS known as the "inltiatIve and referen-
dunn" above described.
Our delegates to State legislature and
congress should go as the mere instruments
to execute the will of the people, which
demands should be definitely expressed in
written or printed forms, and to such
measures should the work of the law making
bodies be confined, the result of their COM
bined work in the shape of perfected bills TO
be referred back to the people for approval
or rejection. Such a democratic system
would uproot and totally destroy the present
awful and corrupt slavish party methods in
vogue.
In the matter of the number of delegates
each county or district should send to the
legislature or congress, might very properly
be confined to one for each party. Those
representatives would cast for each bill,
when put upon its passage, the number of
votes he received at the polls. If represent
tative Jones had received 1000 votes the
clerk of the House would credit his aye or
nay vote with that number. If co.delegates
Smith and Johnson had respectively
received 1000 and 500 votes their aye or
nay votes would be credited accordingly
minimum vote at the popular election of
delegates would be fixed low enough to
insure any considerable minority right to
be heard in the law making body and high
enough to shut out inconsiderable fractions
Our law making systems have become so
honey combed by corruption from the
primary election to the Presidential seat,
that in self defence the people will be forced
to reform them.