The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1898-12-15

- A-ctizen of Western State asks The |
Post for some suggestions AS TO the best |
means Of protecting the people against the |
lobby. lie says that as. soon as the Legis- |
lature Of his State assemblies the agents Of
corporations will 'resume business at the
old lstand;" that they will be supplied
with money to buy legislative favors and
will corrupt the men whom the people
have chosen 10 represent them.
II IL, perhaps, not practicable at the
present stage ofrnoral progress TO secure
complete immunity from lobby scandals.
But il ought to be- and we believe, Is,
practicable TO go long way in that direc-
ton. The first step should be the exercise
Of greater care in the choice OF legisla-
tors.
The remedy offered by The Post
is good enough as far as 1T goes.
The people should always take
great interest in their primaries
and conventions in..order that the
best men may be nominated, and
should then 90 to the polls and see
that the best nominee Of all the
parties is elected. 1t would be the
duty of the people TO do this even
if there was no lobby, but some
thing else must be done to remove
the evil even after the very best
men are selected as . Legislators.
They should be protected from the;
willy Vaccinations OF the lobby. (
To intelligently reach a conclu-
sion as to the best and completest
protection against the lobby, it is
necessary to understand what the
lobby is. There are many kinds
of Hobbies around every legislature
and every Congress. The only lob
by, however, that is always around
every Congress and every legisla-
ture, and which always attempts
to corrupt such bodies, is the lob
by representing monopoly. In our
opinion the most powerful, effect
i've, and permanent remedy to pro
tect the people against the cor
rupting influence of the corpora
tons and monopolies through lob
bies, is the referendum; that is, to
give the people the power,-when-
ever they are dissatisfied with any
law passed by legislature to pc
tition to- have the law submitted
to q popular vote. At the recent
election the state of South Dakota
adopted constitutional amend
ment by large majority, provld
ing that whenever five per cent. OF
the voters petitioned to have any
law submitted to popular vote
that then it should be done at a
special election. The effect OF
such constitutional provision.
giving the people themselves a
right to review and pass upon the
actions of their representatives in
the legislature will have a whole
some and far reaching influence
In the first place, when the mon
opolies know that the people can
repeal any bad measure which
they get through the legislature by
corruption, then they will spend
less money in trying to bride leg
islators to pass infamous laws. 1t
will have further influence than
this: it will purify elections, fol
the corporationists and mOnopo-
lists will spend less money to man,
ipulate primaries and control con.
yentions in order to get their man
nominated and elected, if they
know that the people have the
power to review and undo the
work of one of their tools after
they get him. to the Legislature
In short, the referendum will make
it certain that better men will be
elected to the legislature. Wher
the best men are in the Legislature
it is hard to corrupt such men
and, besides, with the referendum
i'm force there will not be such {
lobby sent to try to corrupt sucf
men.
There are dozens of other far
reaching advantages that woulC
grow out of the establishment o
the referendum which we have no
the time and space now to discuss
Suffice it to say that the referen
dunn is pure democracy. Oul
form of government is no
a pure democracy but is
representative form of government
by which the people delegate pow
er to others who often betray tina
power. The referendum gives tht
people the chance to neutralizt
the evils of such treachery when i
occurs. With the referendum es
tablished we would have demo
cratic form of government. AS i
is now we have very largely
monopoly representative torm o
government. In the language o
Mr.. William j. Bryan: ''The prin
ciple of the referendum will ne
be opposed by any democrat who
believes with Thomas Jefferson
that the people are capable of sci
government, nor by any republi
can who believes with Abraham
Lincoln that this should be gov
eminent of, for, and by the PEG
pie"