Daily capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1896-1899, 1898-03-02


iust as good a reason for not allowing
the people to elect officials, because 1t
is very seldom that more than two
thirds of the voters go to the polls
at any election. The above facts show
that a great many citizens want this
power.
Let a constitutional amendment for
this purpose be submitted to the peo-
ple and see whether the majority want
the new system.
Objection S. 1t will be too expen.
sive-will cost too much for elections
and printing.
Answer There will be no percepti-
BILE cost for elections because special
elections VIII very seldom be called to
vote Oh proposed changes. Laws will
be elected or defeated at the regular
elections held every two years or Of
tener for the election of officials. 1t
would be an unusual thing TO have
more than nine proposals submitted
at one election. Zurich, Switzerland,
has averaged only seven a year for
more than twenty years. But even If
there was twice that number, the
printing and delivery to every citizen
of a pamphlet copy of the proposed
laws cannot exceed ten cents per
voter, ten thousand dollars for ref
erendum vote in Oregon. Our legis-
lature squanders more than twice that
sum at every session for the one item
OF clerk hire. For a national referen-
DUN it would be only one and a half
million dollars, a mere tri1e compared
with the millions congress wastes
every year.
The chattel slavery question was
settled by four years of war that cost
the people of the North and South in
finite suffering-helples widows and
orphans as well as strong men-crip-
pied and slaughtered more than a mil
lion of our bravest and best, and be-
sides all this has already cost us in
debts, interest and well deserved pen
sions, at least ten thousand million
dollars-more than enough to have
paid the market value of all the slaves
and still pay all expenses of one ma
tional special referendum election
every year for thousand years.
Objection 6. If the people have the
Initiative and Referendum, great and
dangerous changes are likely to be
made by the voters enacting their
hasty impulses into law.
Answer. "All experience hath shown
that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than
to right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed"
Declaration of Independence.
Revolution by force of arms was
the only method the plain people of
any nation ever had for making great
changes in government until the Swiss
adopted direct law-making by the vOt
ers, through the Initiative and Refer
endum. Not one "hasty impulse has
been enacted into law by the voters Of
Switzerland.
No large deliberative body has ever
knowingly made a great change i'm the
law except after careful and long con-
tinued discussion. Under the proposed
system of Direct Legislation, all the
voters form one vast deliberative as
sembly. In slight degree this is true
of our citizens now as to some con-
stitutional amendments, and no in
stance can be found in American his
tory where the people of any state
have approved any constitutional
amendment unjustly attacking the lib
critics of the citizen or the rights of
property. Many good amendments
have been rejected on the first sub
mission which We're adopted when
submitted the second or third time af-
ter years of discussion and education.
Consider the action of the Swiss on
government ownership of railways
and government national bank. A
proposal by the government in 1891 to
buy the Central railway, one of the
most important lines, was rejected by
one hundred and ffty-siX thousand
majority.
October /, 1896, after five years more
of study and discussion, the question
of buying all the railroads was sub
mitted by an Initiative petition and
carried by fifty thousand majority in
Il vote of nearly four hundred thou
sand.
In 1896 the Swiss congress passed
bill creating a government national
bank. In its tendency to centrnliZe
power in the national government the
bill Is like the demands of the pOpu-
lists in the United States, though in
details there is great difference. The
Referendum was demanded by eighty
three thousand voters (ouly thirty
thousand were required, and the pro
pOsal was defeated by fifty thousand
majority in vote of nearly four hun
dred and forty thousand. This does
not look like enacting the hasty inn
pulses, either of the people, the con
gress, or the politicians.
1t is not possible that all our vot-
ers could give us so many hasty and
ill-advised laws as we now get from
congress and the state legislatures.
Objection Z. II will be too slow and
will take too long to make or change
n law.
Answer. We think 1t will be fast
enough, because II will be as fast as
the majority of the voters want the
10 ahn Nx,rIg