The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1899-06-16
DIRECT LEGISLATION.
A New York Newspaper's Plea

A New York Newspapers Plea for
Popular Government.
On Manhattan island there is a voice
crying in the political wilderness for
direct legislation, and it proceeds from
the Verdict, Oliver Belmont's illustrat-
ed weekly. The Verdict says:
Monopoly, fecund of trust, spawns
IKE a pike; while principle, minated OF
popular effort, lies in a barren bed. The
enemy strengthens himself while We
lole. The growth of the trusts marks
the growth Of ignorance; the sun Of
american progress borders narrowly
on an eclipse of money and another
oark age may yet descend. Someone
once said that: Law is the safest he'll
met The value of the apothegm de-
pends upon who wears this steel cap.
II II De honesty, good! But if some
trust robDer go to Albany or Washing
ton n forge himself some head piece
OF a statue, the story runs blackly dif-
lerent. 1t is not always true that a
state has added to its safety because it
mas added to its laws. AS things are.
the Verdict is free to say it despairs of
1alr n %virtuous legislation. In those
lists OF house and senate, right seems
ever to go down before the spear OF
riches. There must be change-change
unusual and change that reaches far.
IN this storm Of money hat beats for
evil upon our capitols, the Verdict,
steering for safety, finds the public's
pest harbor in the initiative and refer
endum. Is it radical and what then?
Lincoln and Washington and Christ
n all they strove for were radical.
Novelty is not, per Sc, a defect. and
justice has its skirmish line, improve
ment Its pioneer. The initiative and
referendum would but put in the
hands of the people the power to d.
rectly propose a law, or pass a law, or
repeal a law. Is that a suggestion Of
topsy-turvy revolution? If a people
may be trusted to select their lawmak-
ers, may they not be trusted to select
their laws? The trusts might corrupt
a congress or buy a legislature, but
they could not bride a whole people.
Give US the initiative and referendum,
n give us the income tax. The first
would be a lattice to let in the day; the
second a broom to bring down those
law cobwebs, spun of money, and in
which The rights Of the public are
caught like flies. 1T is better to be a
poor fisherman than to NEEDLE with
the government of men, said Danton.
But the Frenchman was a tumbrel at
the time and suffered no doubt some
coming confusion of the guillotine. Had
he been given freedom and a sober
second thought, he would have seen
that one is driven to NEEDLE with gov
eminent, to keep it from meddling viii
lainously with him. Therefore, let us,
the public. become promptly. popularity
meddlesome, and let it be by that sys-
tenn of initiative and referendum above
%rehearsed. Democracy could do this.
and democracy should. The party
should not hesitate nor 90 half way.
Its cry should be: All or nothing:'
Its war should be to the death. There
should be no blackmail of partial peace
paid to monopoly; no traffic with the
enemy whereby he gained the least. 1t
is the worst of oppression that makes
coward terms with tyranny, or which
Would-to use a colloquialism-'divide
the pot with the trusts. This is an
era Of potato bug politics, and the
trusts devour what the people grow.
Some stand must be made; some neal
and stubborn stand, or two decades will
witness us overrun and swamped O.
money. He will be wise in that dar
who, living without flag as without cit
itz%enship, carries his country on the
sole of his shoe"