The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1911-05-06


supposed to be meant to change the
very character Of our government.
They have no such purpose. Their
intention is to restore, not to de5-
troy, representative government. IL
must tie remembered by every candid
man who discusses these matt s,s
that we are contrasting the Operations
of the initiative and the referendum
not with the representative govern
ment which we possess ip theory and
which we have long persuaded our
selves that we possessed in fact but
affairs in contrast with legislative
processes which are carried on in Sc
eret, responding to the impulse of
subsidized machines and carried
through by men whose unhappiness
it is to realize that they are not
their own masters, but puppets in
game.
If we felt that we had genuine
representative government in our
state legislatures no one would pro-
America. They are being proposed
now as a means of bringing our rep
resentatives back to the conscious
ness that what they are bound in
duty and in mere policy to do is to
represent the sovereign people whom
they profess to serve and not the pri-
vate interests which creep into their
counsels by way of machine orders
and committee conferences. The
most ardent and successful advo-
Gates of the initiative and referen-
dun regard them as SOLDERING
means of obtaining genuine represen-
tative action on the part of legisla-
tive bodies. They do not mean to set
aside. They mean to res
tore and influence, rather.
The recall is means of admins
trative control. If properly regulat-
ed and devised it is means of res
toring to administrative officials
what the initiative ond referendum
restore to gislators-namely
sense of direct responsibility to the
people who choose them.
The recall of judges is another
matter. 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
IF the first consequence to the sta
Dility of the state. To apply to them
he principle of the recall is to set up
the idea that determinations OF
what the law is must respond to pop
llar impulse and to popular judg
ment.
1t is sufficient that the people
should have the power to change Tie
law when they will 1t is not neces-
sary that they should directly influ-
ence by threat of recall those who
merely interpret the law already es-
tablished. The Importance and o'asir-
ability of the recall as means OF
be obscured by drawing it into this
other and very different field.
The second power we fear IS tie
control of our life through the vast
OF corporations which use
the wealth of masses of men to sus-
ain their enterprise. 1t is in connee-
ton with this danger that it is neaes-
sary to do some of our clearest aud
arankest thinking. 1t is fundamen
al mistake to speak of the privileges
Of these great corporations as if they
ell within the class of private right
md of private property. Those who
the affairs of great joint
stock companies are really admins
ering the property of communities,
he property of the whole mass and
of men who have bought
he stock or the bonds that sustain
he enterprise. The stocks and the
bonds are constantly changing
hands. There is no fixed partnership.
manag gers of such corpor-
atoms are the trustees of moneys
which they themselves never accum-
ulated but which have been drawn
together out of private savings here,
there and everywhere.
What is necessary in order to rec
tify the whole mass of business of
this kind is that those who control
it sh Guild entirely change their point
of view They are trustees, not mas
ters of private property not only be-
cause their power is derived from q
of men. but also because.
in its investments it affects a multi
tude of men. 1t determines the de-
or decay of communities.
1t is the means of lifting or depress-
ing the life of the whole country.
They must regard themselves as rep
resentatives of a public power There
can be no reasonable jealousy of pub
lie regulation in such matters, be-
cause the opportunities of all men
are affected. Their property is every
where touched, their savings. are
everywhere absorbed, their employ
ment is everywhere determined, by
these great agencies. What we need,
therefore, is to come to common
view which will not bring antagon-
isms. but accommodation. The pro-