The Arizona sentinel., 1910-09-08
OREGON PLAN'' AbSURDITIES
 EXPOSED BY Ex- -COV. CHER

admitted any more than the people of Oregon can propose law.
 How are you going to do it?
 How are you going to get togetLcr and propose law, unless you do 1t like the three tailors who got together in London and said "We the peopl<;, propose, etc.
 Under our system any man say Jeff Jones can propose his own law and get the circulators to circulate it and get EIGHT per cent of the voters to sign it and put it on the ballot. That's is all 1t takes.
 Now that brings me to a new indus try we have in Oregon under this sy5- tenn and that f5 the industry of pro fessional circulators of petitions.
 These men know their routes and know where to go and how to 80 about 1t, and as you all know there Is no trouble in getting people to sign a petition. You know how 1t Is yo ''- self. All of you sign petitions every day just to get rid of the man that has 1t fn charge, and at 5c per name, there professional circulators mako good money out of the industry.
 So Jeff Jones proposes his 1aW-;l law that nobody knows anything about and if Jeff Jones has little money and wants to push this law, he cal put 1t in the hands of the professional eircufators and they get the EIGHT per cent and the law goes on the bal lot. This has been worked so much in Oregon that today more thau two thirds of the people vote against oy- cry law that comes along because they have no time to read over the big bunch of laws and find out what is good, what is bad and what is indif ferent. Tn November next we have THTRTY-TWO jaws to vote on. What do you think of that Thirty-two laws for every voter to read over and digest before he votes on them Would you 1o it. Certainly not. Can any man spare the time to do this inteHigently? Ger tainIy not
 When a Dill is brought up in the legislature, 1t is referred to a commit tee. It is looked over carefully to sec that it does not conflict with any other law that might be on the statutes, and must then como up before that bo y and all that is good saved and all thdt is bad taken away from it. But under the iniative you have to vote on that bill "Yes" or "No," as it was pli d on the ballot Is that right? Is a. the rule of the people?
 Now can the people get together 70 initiate a law? You can't do it. How under heaven are the people of Ari- zona going to get together to initiate a law? Again you can't do it, and down deep in your hearts you know vol cant.
 But Jeff Jones with a little money and his gang of hired circulators can, but is that case of the peoples rule Certainly not.
 Take the thfrty-two laws that are to come before the people of Oregon in November Some of the laws cover from 20 to 100 pages each. Now w">t voter Is going to take the time and trouble to read over those thirty two laws i'll order that he may vote III. telligentfy. l can't do it and neither could you.
 Two years ago was talking to q crowd of business men on the corner and we had whole cart load of laws to act on. 1 asked one of them if he had looked into them or read them over, and he replied that he had not, and did not intend to. 1 asked he second man and he made the same re ply and the question went on and we found that not one in the crowd had read the laws over and all intended 70 vote against them for that reason.
 Take 1t here in Yuma and on one block cut out 100 men. Would any one of those men be qualified to make or initiate law? Would you. How would you go about it. This is no reproach to those 100 men. No insult to their in tclligence, but simply way to show you just what the initiative means and how much of fallacy it all is. You can't do 1t. I can't do it
 If any of you feel that you can't pick out legislators to go and do this work for you, if you think that you can't find honest mCnt to go to legislatures why don't you go yourselves and then ycu will be sure that the legislature is composed of honest men.
 Now up in Oregon there is at pres ent what Oregonians call the law fac tory and nine-tenths of the laws pro- posed in Oregon come from that law factory.
 Up in Oregon we have the salmon industry and there are thousands of fishermen there who secure their HV ing through the salmon industry. Al the outlet of the river hundreds of the fishermen use nets, and on the upper river hundreds of these fishermen use the wheels of side pens. Between the two there has always been warfare. Before the initiative the legislature took both sides of the question and split the thing so that things wera nearly always half way satisfactory.