The San Francisco call., 1910-12-25

<*""+"""+~-+-$EACON PILLSBURY, in the
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! California Weekly, which I may
Z say in passing is an excellent pa
per, founders and ,fusses fumes
and frets in an obviously painful
endeavor to manufacture some
~@@@9e@S@@a thing that might look like
9 reply to my remarks concerning
z 9 9 the advisory vote for United
Q 3 9 States senator, but he carefully
avoids touching the vital issue
of the controversy, if you may
apply that term to a dispute in which the argument
is all on one side The root of this matter is that
if once you set aside the obligation imposed on
members of the legislature by the advisory vote at
the polls you destroy the whole principle and
theory which the proceeding moves. There will
be end to all control by the people of the vote for
senator if you make the precedent that
bers of the legislature may disregard the obligation
for any one of thousand reasons that politician
like Pillsbury can invent.
A THIN VARNISH
The difference between the professional politician
and the professional reformer is merely thin
nish of lovely moral sentiments for on the
public and this proprietary medicine rubs off the
instant it in contact with the spoils of office.
This is what meant when 1 spoke of playing fast
and loose with principle-a charge which Deacon
Plsbury appears greatly to resent.
He is playing fast and loose with principle when
he advocates popular control of the election of
senators and the next minute proposes to destroy
the machinery of such control because the result
of the election did not suit him. His political
H. +1,a
THE APoTHEoSIS OF WEIGHING
1t is playing fast and loose with principle when
you advise legislators to disregard the moral obi
cation placed them by the advisory vote of their
districts. 1t is the thing telling them to
wech on debt of honor.
1t is this dishonorable course that Deacon Pills
bury advises and he still labors his ridiculous
distinction between advisory" and mandatory"
Although Mr. Pillsbury resents it. repeat that this
is nothing better than dishonest play words.
If the advisory vote is not mandatory on legislators
it is nothing. The funny part of all this is that
Pillsbury is still laborng quite unnecessarily to
prove that the state law not take away the
legal right of legislators to vote for whom they
please. OF course the inference that he desires
people to draw is that if the law made man
datory in positive terms it would foreclose the
constitutional discretion of legislators in this rea-
tion, but he is too foxy to put that in words.
PILLSBURYING LOGIC
Here is the argument in Pillsbury's words:
The distinct provision of the advisory law being,
as made plain fortnight ago by an ma, analysis OF
yond the power of legislature legislate is
null, void and of effect, and the law is to be
read If those senten not IN If, thus
relieving legislators from all obligations not i'm
posed upon themselves by themselves through
prediction promises. Those provisions are, of
themselves, without moral, legal any other
ton or obligation, and to disregard them is not to
"welch
Perhaps Mr.. Pilsbury will explain how such
vote could be made legally binding on legislators
If his argument is valid it goes to the of the
whole principle of the advisory vote and nulfes
all means or devices to control the legislature in
this regard.
MAKING A SNEAK
The argument is characteristic of the whole effort
to destroy this feature of the primary law. To
pretend that man is not bound by the law unless
he has made specific promise to follow its pro-
visions is only one more dishonest subterfuge to
obscure the facts and destroy principle. When
man engages in undertaking with his fellows he
is bound by the specific conditions thereof unless
he expressly repudiates them in advance Cand-
dates for the legislature knew the law in this regard
and if they did not to be bound by it, it was
their duty as honest to inform the voters of
that fact.
Pillsbury advises them that they were justified