The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-17
ONEAL PLEADS AGAINST VAGARIES OFFERED BY
 SELFISH POLITICIANS
CONTINUED FROM FACE D


 must rest our ultimate hope of permanent politcial reform. The forces of reform
 are too often shortlived, while the evil
 influences they may overcome generally
 arise from defeat with renewed vigor l An antidote to this indifference Of the people and a safeguard almost sur.
 ficient in itself to overcome even The
 existence of a venal or corrupt iegisla- | ture can be found in the high sense of
 official obligation and the independent exercise by the great majority of Amer | ican executives of the legislative func- tions vested in them by the constitutions | of the states.
 .tIt seems to be assumed that under | the system of the initiative only those | laws would be proposed which leglsla- | ture under the control or domination or special or selfish interests would refuse | to pass, and that all such laws rejected l by such influences would be in the ln- terest of the people. I can not bring my l self to the adoption of this pleasing | thought I fear that with the advent or | this political millennium. there would Stlll | remain, here and there some unregener- | ated interests, some seeker for special privilege, whose desires, i'll imitation of the practices that prevailed in the older days, could still be concealed under the guise of some fair-seeming bill. It would be everybody's business to act as a com- fnittee to examine it, to expose its fal- lacies or to warn the public against it's insidious purposes. The necessary result would be that nobody would give It careful scrutiny or supervision. It would not be subject to such amendment Gs wisdom or experience might suggest. It must be accepted or rejected in the exact form and terms in which it is proposed. It would not even be read aloud once in the presence of all whose duty 1t would be to vote upon it. and it might become a law by the vote of a single individual who had never read it until he cast his ballot. It is not improbable that there might be an astute or interruptions in- terest behind it, giving it secret aid and comfort; and, although with a greedy ,eg- isiature looking on from afar off, there would not be even any Adams county votes for sale: neither would there be anyone. as was the governor in former times, before his power had been over thrown by this modern political reform, charged with the duty of protecting the public against it's own indifference, or checking the misguided career of public opinion. There would be no magic from the destruction or overthrow of the leg islature by which the ordinary citizen, 10 whom political duty is but an incident, could be converted into an alert, vigilant and well informed legislator. To qualify citizen to vote intelligently upon a law involves degree of investigation and at- tention to detail and a qaulity of thought that will be voluntarily assumed only by the elector who appreciates to an extra ordinary degree the duty which his citi- zenship involves, or an individual who has in the measure a personal interest no- consistent with the public good.
 Number of Laws
 With the initiative in operation it 1 would be the sheerest folly to suppose that the number of laws would come | within the compass of the ordinary mans | serious and considerate examination, and l in the consideration of matters which | furnish opportunity for demagogical ap- peals and class or raciaf prejudices the | very purpose for which government ex- ists would often be defeated, and the | rights of the helpless minority no long CT protected by the safeguards now se- | cured by every American constitution, | would be ruthlessly sacrificed. T assume that no one will controvert the proposition that laws ought to be made in spirit as impersonal, with sense of duty as nigh, with a con science as much bound by the solem- nifty of San oath, with mind as much informed by argument and debate, and surrounded by an atmosphere as much removed from bias and passion as that in which they are construed and en- forced.
 ''To discard well established methods of procedure by which truth is ascer- tained and justice administered to a person charged with crime and submit the question of his guilt or innocence to the ballot of the electorate would shock the public conscience Yet to say that men without any more responsibility than their own sense of duty may inn pose, influenced possibly by malice pre- judice or self interest, without legal check or constitutional limitation, could by the mere brutal power of numerical majority take away the most sacred rights or impose intolerable burdens upon helpless minority would be equally as shocking to every man whose sense of justice had not been blunted by false and vicious political theories.
 No Constitutional Limitations
 'If the claim that opposition to the initiative discloses a distrust of the peope be true, then there is no constitutional limitation by which the people restrain themselves which can not be regarded as Q reproach. Not a criminal statute has ever been adopted which does not In ef- feet affirm the possible existence of q class of people who may prove unworthy
 
 ballots after the commission of crime but before conviction fasten upon their fellow men an unjust and onerous law. Opposition to the initiative then is not a declaration of distrust of the I,eople but a. recognition that in the multitudinous in- terest and various activities that go to make up the sum of a great peoples in terest; there must be to qualified cx- tent delegations of public duties and well considered diyicinnS nF and public responsibility. To combat this political heresy Is not to distrust the people. We would ignore the unmis- table teachings of history if we failed to recognize that every nation which has achieved political and orderly liberty has done so through the representative system and that every government which has abandoned it for the despotism of a monarchy, or for the turbulence, tyranny or uncertainty of a democracy, has fallen into decay and suffered the loss of it's anlmating and sustaining principle. Eng lands parliament has never yielded its prerogatfve nor have the people ever es- tablished commune. When the first gleam of political and civil liberty that ever frightened the darkness in which the Russian peasant moved made it's appear- ance It was contemporaneous with the establishment of douma.
 Unless this political heresy is checked the hosts of socialism, reinforced by eeI | fish and time serving politicians and re- cruited by all the elements of discomfort will soon direct their attacks against the | federal government itself and grad,alIv
 sap and undermine the foundations of
 our free institutions.
 Distrust of People
 | Tt is claimed by the advocates of the
 initiative that that system is necessary