Perth Amboy evening news., 1907-03-20
INITIATIVE AND
REFERENDUM

the state of Oregon was written BY
Herman b. Walker. the Washington
correspondent of the Newark Eve.
ming News, and was published in that
newspaper, March 9:
WASHINGTON, MARCH 2:="Or-
egon undoubtedly has the best system
of fundamental laws of any state ii
the union, and they have been obtain
ed through the initiative and refer.
erdum, said Jonathan Bourne, re-
publican senator-elect from that
state. whose term of office begins
Monday. Mr.. Bourne was elected az
the unanimous choice of the Oregon
legislature early in the winter, after
having beeniindorsed by pluralit,
vote OF the people of that state last
June, in the general election. The
election in which Bourne was chosen
was the first direct vote upon United
States senators in oregon, and |
think,.iin the United States, at a gem
eral 1eleetion, although in many OF
the southern states there is direct
vote upon candidates in the party pri
maries. "
1Aere has for many years been the
same kind of fight on in Oregon
against machine rule that there now
is in many states. The men who
fought machine rule, in Oregon, how.
ever, did not. waste their time with
reform HI fights within the party
lines They realized that there was
no choice between the party ma
chimes, and that little progress coult
be made in securing reform laws
through the medium of first trying
to get the party machines in the
hands OF good men favorable to such
laws. Oregon's fight was begur
about eigat years ago, and from the
outset it was waged as a fight, not
for the control of party machines
but as a fight to smash all party ma
chimes by destroying the machine
power.
To Smash Machine Rule.
Instead of confusing popular opin-
ion with many proposed reforms, the
men who started out TO smash ma
chine rule in Oregon made only one
issue and stuck to that. They as
serted that the reason the machines
were powerful and were able to con
troll nominations, elections and legis-
lation, and make deals with the rail-
roads and corporations, by which
they defeated laws the corporations
didn't want and passed others the
corporations did want, was because
they were able to dictate the issues
in campaign and by confusing issues
and directing attention to the per-
sOnality of candidates instead of pub
lie questions, prevented the people
from expressing their opinion on
questions and issues. To put an end
to machine rule, these men asserted,
il was necessary not to attack the
machine, but to destroy its power,
and their proposed pfan of destroy
ing the machines power was to give
the people chance to vote on ques-
tions and issues sepal ately; to initi-
ate questions and have them put to a
vote, regardless of the machines, and
TO give the people direct veto pow
er over the actions of their represen-
tatives
Oregons fight for restoration of
peoples rule in place of machine rule
was made along non-partisan lines
Earnest, thinking, patriotic men not
blinded by the dest-throwing meth
DDS of the machines, and their parrot
cry that political movements should
be confined to party lines, organized
a Peoples Power League. They franz
ed a proposed amendment to the con-
stitution of the state to allow the
voters, by petition, to have referred
to a direct vote, any question of pol
icy they desired, and to secure a ref
erendum vote on such acts of the leg
islature as were not popularly APP
proved
Into the Hands OF the People.
At little expense these men prose-
cuted an active campaign through
tho state, explaining their plan of
putting the real governing powel
back into the hands of the people
Whenever man was nominated for
Office in either party, the Peoples
Power League asked him whether 0,
not he favored the constitutional
amendment for the peoples rule
Each candidate was asked to answer
yes" or mo- in writing. If he re
fused 10 answer at all he was put
urOn the list of those opposed to the
peoples rule program. These an
swers were given wide circulation
and the voters were urged to vote
only for those nominees for Office, ir-
respective of party, who favored the
peoples rule. The result was what
might have been expected The poll
ticians of the machine and corpora.
ton brand tried to dodge and evade
the issue For two or three years
they succeeded, and in the near
time made an effort to ridicule the
peoples rule program out of exist
ence. When that didn't work the,
tried to allay public sentiment b.
passing a few halfway measures an(
palming them off as being in the in
terests of the people All the money
and the influence of the machines 0,
both jarties and Of all the corpora
tions IN the state were used to make
the people believe that the Peoples
Power Leageu was only an aggrega
ticn of demagogues and fakirs, ant
their program merely the blatherinf
of freaks and faddists.
The few opponents of the direct
vote plan who fought it in the open
used all the familiar arguments. The
thrashed over the same old stray
which the opponents of the advisor
vote system in New Jersey are begin
ming to stir up. They appealed tt
sectional and partisan prejudices
They urged that to amend the consti