Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1899-11-23
DIRECT e
@ LEGISLATION.
Appeal to Reason.

roads and telegraphs and the great.
er monOpolics would furnish EN-.
ployment for all the unemployed al
salaries they have never dreamed
of. For instance, attaching tele
graph system to the postal depart
ment and putting u wire in every
Office, reducing the tariff to ten
cents for l5.word message to any
point, as has heen proven by the
statements of poStmaster-generaIs,
both Republican and Democratic,
can be done, would add 10000 ad-
dltional telegraph operators, and
the revenue, by reason of the in.
crease in business which these rates
would produce, would pay them
better wages than they now receive.
The same policy in railroads would
take on 500, 900 more railroad men.
With Direct Legislation the peo.
pie can apply any experiment the
majority shall decide will be for the
public good. IL they want proper
tional representation they can have
it without depending on the legls.
lature for 1t. If they want the sin-
gle tax, public ownership of any
trust, expansion or anti-eXpansion,
they have the means at hand to ut
once apply it or reject IT, as they
sec tit.
No government can be higher
than the average intelligence of the
masses. The agitation of friends
of this or that measure would bring
them before the people, and the
public would soon be educated on
the merits of any proposed meas.
ure. They would have to Rad
the law to vote on it, and they
would then discuss it on its merits,
not with an eye rs to how It would
affect the vote for or against some
friend running for some office, ~
is now the case.
1t will be Il majority rule, not
rule by few representative who
can be bribco. Where private in.
terests are great enough those who
benefit bya law can pay thous 'nds
of dollars for II representative vote,
but it would be impossible to bribe
IA ma jor,ty of the voters and if
they were, these voters, seeing that
the law worked IA hardship on them
would at the ncNt election, or even
sooner, repeal that law.
There are 357 congre, smrn, who
"represent' i2,OOO,OW voters, or
over 10000 each. A law can be
bribed through Congress by pay
ing, say $1,000 "a vote for lS0 votes,
IL ma jority, or SlS0,OOO. This vast
sum would only ray three cents
apiece for the neccss ry ma orlty
OF votes to make that law under
Direct Legislation. And who sup
poses that G,O00,OOO voters would
sell themselves on a measure for
three cents apiece? Or that $50 a
vote would be taken by enough to
enact n law? And 500 vote
would mean 1900 ,OOO, 900 for "a law,
and that places 1t out Of the realm
of the possible into the absurd
Bribery under Direct Legislation
would simply not be.
To assume that the people are
not wise enough to adopt whole.
some measures when they are sub
mlttrd, is 10 assume that few will
do for the many the best things Tor
them. This is not aud never has
been true. Aud if il were true,
wo"lI not that few be- able to have
the same degree ot influence on the
many TO get them 10 adopt good
laws nS they would under the pres
ent system which is ~ profitable to
the bribrr and corrurtionist'
Direct Legislation is coming. The
agitation which has been carried
on for years has created ~ demand
for it, and il il being incorporated
IN the platform Of both old parties
throughout the country. There IN
no argument against it except that
the rule of "a few is better than the
rnle OF the people.
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