The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-03-11
SCOTS SPEECH.
An Able Presentation of the
Position
Against the Initiative, Refer
endum and Recall.
PASSION, PREJUDICE,
Would Rule Under a Method
Through Which
Lincoln and Mckinley Could
Have Been Recalled.
SUNDAY.

Last week the State Journal printed
a portion of Congressman Charles F.
SCOTS speech on the Initiative and
Referendum and Recall, delivered just
before the expiration of the term. The
The subject is one that has been wide
ly discussed. but still rather vaguely
understood.
The speech is printed in the Con-
gressional Record and is regarded as
one of the ablest attacks ever made on
these doctrines of Populistic and Pro-
gressive reform.
A more extended presentation than
that heretofore given is therefore of
wide interest
Mr.. Scott said in part:
New School of Statesmen.
I have seldom taken advantage of
the latitude afforded by general de-
bate to discuss any question now be-
fore the country, particularly before
the people Of the state have the hon
or to represent in part upon this floor,
upon which I entertain very positive
convictions and which I believe is a
proper subject for discussion at this
time and in this place. That question,
bluntly stated is this: Is representa-
tive government a failure? We are
being asked now to answer that ques-
ton in the affirmative. A new school
of statesmen has arisen, wiser than
Washington, or Hamilton and Frank
lyn and Madison, wiser than Webster
and Clay and Calhoun and Benton,
wiser than Lincoln and Sumner and
Stevens and Chase, wiser than Gar
field and Blaine and Mckinley and
Taft, knowing more in their day than
all the people have learned in all the
days of the years since the republic
was founded.
And they tell US that representative
government is a failure They do not
put this declaration into SO many
words-part of them because they do
not know enough about the science of
government to understand that the
doctrines they advocate are revoIu-
tionary, and the rest of them because
they lack the courage to openly de-
clare that it is their intention to
change our form of government, to
subvert the system upon which our in
situations are founded. But that is in
effect what they propose to do.
A Revolutionary System.
I said that it is revolutionary and
subverslve of our present system of
government a declaration in effect
that representative government is a
failure.
When the constitution of the Unit
ed States guaranteed to every state in
the Union a republican form of gov
eminent, it guaranteed to them rep
resentative government, that form of
government under which the laws
should be enacted, interpreted and
executed, not directly by the people
themselves but by the duly chosen rep
resentatives of the people
1t follows, therefore, that to substi-
tute the methods of a democracy for
the methods of a republic touching any
one of the three branches of govern
ment is to that extent subversive and
revolutionary.
Now, it does not follow by any
means that because proposed
change is revolutionary it is therefore
unwise. Taking it by and large
wherever the word revolution" has
come into human history it has beer
only another word for progress. Be-
cause a nation has pursued certain
methods for a longs time it does not
at all follow that those methods
are the best, although when a nation
like the United States, so bold and
alert, so little hampered by tradition
so ready to try experiments has clune