The representative., 1893-05-31

But, gentlemen with the money
bags, don't talk about revolution.
GOD help you if you ever have to swal-
low that medicine-a dose of blue
pill, made up of dynamite and
bayonets! An ungodly dose for pie
thoric man with good bank account.
Preserve peace by preserving JUS
tice. There is nothing else that will
preserve peace in land of public
schools.
The Initiative and Referendum.
There is a very powerful magazine,
published in Boston (Copley Square)
Mass, $500 per year,, which every
reformer should have if he can spare
the money; it is called '"The Arena"
1t is at the forefront of the Liberal
hosts; and all over the Union, in the
great cities, they are forming "Are-
ma clubs to discuss the articles
which appear in it from time to
time. am much struck with por-
tions of an article in the May num-
ber, entitled, Glow to Introduce
the Initiative and Referendum"
from the pen of w. D. McCracken
A. M. reprint some extracts plac-
ing in italics and capitals the most
significant passages. 1t opens as
follows:
If we would solve the social prob
lem IN peace, let us look to our
methods of legislation aphile there is
get time. The list Of needed reforms
is SO long, and the means of intro
ducing them so poor and inefficient,
that men are losing patience. The peO-
pie are weary with that profitless
playing with vital problems in which
our legislators indulge; they are dis
gusted with that periodic, unmean-
ing, meandering up and down the
gamut OF great questions, which is
palmed off upon them as lawmaking.
They cry aloud for some prompt,
business-like action on the part of
their representatives. They acdnt
direct legislation For if there be a
political prophecy which it is safe to
make at this time, it is that our rep
resentdtaue system cannot remain IN its
present form for another decade, IF THE
REPUBLIC is TO ENDURE.
The distance between the voter
and the final act of legislation is so
great that his expressed will is frit-
tered away before it accOmplishes
it's object. There are too many stag
eS in the process, too many middle
men, too many cooks to spoil the
broth. In that uncertain, vague,
middle ground between the people
and their laws, permanent source
of corruption has arisen - the lobby.
1t is vertiable Third House, more
efficient than it's companions. the
two constitutional Houses, working
secretly, unremittingly, and with
out scruple for evil ends.
want you, good reader to consid-
er this carefully, and then take it
out and show it to your unconverted,
hard-shell, optimistic neighbor, who
thinks that "whatever is, is right. >"
Tell him this is not written by a
Russian anarchist, or by a wild-eyed
cowboy, with revolvers strapped to
his waist, but by Master of Arts, a
scholar and thinker; and that it is
published, not in Arkansas or Mis-
sisSippi, but in Boston-the "hub of
the universe classic, conservative
Boston. And ask that neighbor what
these words we have underscored
mean. Ask him what is to happen,
in the next ten years, unless these
evils are arrested ''in peace" "while
there lis yet time? Does not this
scholarly gentleman believe that we
are on the brink of bloody revolu-
tiOn, only to be arrested by wise
measures of craftsmanship, to be
adopted at once? And then ask that
neighbor to consider the state of af-
fairs in this country to-day. The leg
islatures meeting, session after ses-
sion. the people clamoring for re-
forms and no. reforms given them;
the corporations and the rings all
powerful and the people all power
less. Committees showing up the
tremendous robberies of the whole
populations and grand juries refus-
ing to indict with the plainest proofs
before them.
What is the remedy? A constitu-
tiOnal convention to revise that rag
ged, Joseph's coat of contradictions
and plutocratic tricks, we call our
constitutions and SO to revise it as to
give annual sessions, and the right
of the people to demand that specific
measures shall be put into the shape
of laws, by the legislature, with the
right of the people to vote them up
or vote them down. That would end
the Lobby. For who would pay the
representatives of the people corrup-
tion money, when the people them
| selves had the ultimate power to
make or unmake the laws, and abol-
ish all the villainies the legislature
could cook up?