The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1911-05-12
no longer have representative govern.

no longer have representative govern
ment
Among the remedies proposed in re-
cent years have been the initiative and
referendum in the field OF legislation
and the recall in the field of admins
tration. These measures are supposed
to be characteristic of the most radical
programs. and they are supposed to
be meant to change the very charac
ter of our government. They have no
such purpose Their intention is to
restore, not to destroy, representative
government. II must be remembered
by every candid man who discusses
these matters that we are contrasting
the operation of the initiative and the
referendum not with the representative
government which We possess in the
ory and which we have long persuaded
ourselves that we possedd in fact, but
in contrast with the actual state of
affairs, in contract with Legislative
processes which are carried on in Sc
cret, responding to the Impulse of sub
sidized machines and carried through
by men whose unhappiness it is to
realize that they are not their own
masters, but puppets in a game.
If we felt that we had genuine rep
resentative goy rnment in our state
legislatures no one would propose the
initiative or referendum in America
They are being proposed now as a
means of bringing our representatives
back to the consciousness that what
they are bound in duty and in mere
policy to do is to represent the sover-
eign people whom they profess to
serve and not the private interests
which creep into their counsels by way
of machine orders and committee con-
| ferences. The most ardent and sue
cessful advocates of the initiative and
referendum regard them as a SOLDERING
means of obtaining genuine represent
ative action on the part of legislative
bodies. They do not mean to set any
thing aside. They mean to restore and
influence, rather.
The recall is a means of administra-
tive control. If properly regulated and
devised it is a means of restoring to
administrative officials what the initia-
tive and referendum restore to legis-
lators-namely, a sense of direct re-
sponsibility to the people who choose
them.
The recall of judges is another mat
tier. Judges are not lawmakers. They
are not administrators. Their duty is
not to determine what the law shall be,
but to determine what the law is. Their
independence, their sense of dignity
and of freedom, is of the firste conse-
quence to the stability of the state. To
apply to them the principle of the re-
call is to set up the idea that determi-
nations of what the law is must re-
spond to popular Impulse and to popu-
lar judgment
1t is sufficient that the people should
have the power to change the law
when they will. 1t is not necessary
that they should directly influence by
threat of recall those who merely in
terpret the law already established
The Importance and desirability of the
recall as a means of administrative
control ought not to be obscured by
drawing it into this other and very
different field.
The second power we fear is the
control of our life through the vast
privileges of corporations which use
the wealth of masses of men to sus-
tain their enterprise. 1t is in connec-
ton with this danger that it is neces-
sary to do some OF our clearest and
/ frankest thinking. 1t is fundamen-
tai mistake to speak of the privileges
of these great corporations as If they
fell within the class of private right
and of private property. Those who
administer the affairs of great joint
stock companies are really administer
ing the property of communities, the
property of the whole mass and mis-
cellany of men who have bought the
stock or the bonds that sustain the en-
terprise. The stocks and the bonds
are constantly changing hands. There
is no fixed partnership. Moreover,
managers of such corporations are the
trustees of moneys which they them
selves never accumulated but which
have been drawn together out of pri-
vate savings here. there and every
where
What is necessary in order TO rectifv