The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1897-07-07
THE INITIATIVE AND REFEREN.
DUN.

Every Leading Republican Paper
No Advocates 1t.
The growth of Populist ideas in pub
lie favor is something astonishing.
The party must grow with equal rapi-
dity, if we do not permit it to be trad
ed away for few offices for traitors.
In Illinois they have recently had
great trouble with their legislature.
The utter inadequacy of our present
system has been over and over demon
strated
In the issue of June Is of the Chica-
go Times-Herald, the great Republican
paper of the Northwest, we find the
following most astonishing article:
THE address Of General Leib, in
which he advocates the adoption of the
initiative and referendum of Switzer-
land as the only preventive of vicious
and corrupt legislation, is chiefly in
teresting from the fact that the people
are beginning to show lively interest
in any schemes that are now advanced
lators. The fact that the people give
willing ears to the collaboration of any
plan that promises to curb the powers
of legislators who choose 70 defy the
popular will is in itself an ominous
and significant portent of the day of
reckoning that must surely come. The
people will not tamely submit always
to the high-handed betrayal of their
rights and liberties by those who are
intrusted with the lawmaking power.
'Such meetings as General Lieb ad-
dressed are the legitimate products Of
an Outrageous abuse of the lawmaking
power, as shown by the braZen defiance
of popular will by majority of the
members of the fortieth assembly in
this state. The protest against our re-
preventative form of government pro-
ceeds from popular indignation over the
manner in which the rights of the
people are bartered away in state leg
islatures and city councils.
"ClCse students of our municipal and
state politics will not deny that the re-
ferendum, as enforced in the republic
of Switzerland, offers tempting escape
from the bad work of purchasabe
legislators 1t is claimed that the
people of Switzerland enjoy the great
est freedom and the pur at democracy
of any civilized people on the globe,
because they hold the power of veto in
their own hands. The representative
system of government is in use in most
of the cantOnS, but in none without the
check of referendum, which requires
that all laws must be submitted to a
vote of the people before they have le-
gal force This lodges in
the hands of the people
the power to veto all legislation
that may have been conceived in other
motives than those of public policy.
The success Of the referendum is par
ticularly interesting to Americans
when it is remembered that the consti-
tuition adopted by the Swiss people is
almost an exact copy of our own, but
that the representative feature was af-
terward declared to be "undemocratic"
because it left the citizen dependent
upon the representative.
''The agitation of the question of the
adoption of the referendum in this
country is certain to at least serve one
good purpose; it will impress the
people more strongly with the import
ance of exercising increasing vigilance
and care in the selection of men to
represent them in our law making
bodies"
And yet there are those who would
drop all the great questions embraced
in the Omaha platform and make the
fight on free silver alone!
1t is dreadful to think that the Peo-
pies Party of Minnesot- twice nomi-
mated for governor a man who went
down to St. Louis last summer and