The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-08-06

compatible promises which there IS
not the slightest intention of redeem
ing, and which, if redeemed, would
result in sheer ruin. FarSeeing pa
triots should turn scornfully from men
who seek power on platform Which
with exquisite nicely combines silly
inability to understand the nauonaI
needs and dishonest insincerity IN
promising conflicting and impossible
remedies.
If this country is really to go for
ward along the path of social and &c
onomic Justice, there must be a new
party of nationwide and non-sect1on-
al principles, party where the lltu-
lar national chiefs and the real state
leaders shall be in genuine accord,
party in whose counsels the people
shall be supreme, a party that snail
represent in the nation and the sew
eraI states alike the same cause, the
cause of human rights and of govern
mental efficiency. AT present botn the
old parties are controlled by profess
sional politicians in the interests OF
the privileged classes, and apparently
each has set up as its ideal of bust
ness and political development a gov
eminent by financial despotfsm tenn
pered by make-believe political aSsas-
sination Democrat and Republican
alike, they represent government OF
the needy many by professional poll
ticians in the interests of the rich few.
This is class government, ana class
government of a peculiarly unWhole-
some kind.
1t seems to me, therefore. that the
time is ripe, and overripe, for genuine
Progressive movement, nationwide
and juStiee-loving, sprung. from and re-
sponsible to the people themselves, and
sundered by a great gulf from both OF
the old party organizations, while repre-
senting all that is best in the hopes, be-
liefs, and aspirations of the plain peo-
pie who make up the immense majority
of the rank md file of both the old par
ties.
The first essential in the Progressive
program is the right of the people TO
rule. But a few months ago our OPP
pcnents were assuring US with insincere
clamor that it was absurd for us to talk
about desiring that the people should
rule, because, as matter of fact, the
people actually do rule. Since that
time the actions of the Chicago con-
vention and to an only less degree Of
the Baltimore convention, have shown
in striking fashion how little the people
do rule under our present conditions.
We should provide by national law for
primaries. We should pro-
vide for the election of United States
senators by popular vote. We should
provide for a short ballot; nothing
makes it harder for the people to con-
troll their public servants than to force
them to vote for so many officials that
they cannot really keep track of any
one of them, SO that each becomes in
distinguishable in the crowd around
him There must be stringent and eff
cient corrupt practices acts, applying
to the primaries as well as the cleo
tions; and there, should be publicity of
campaign contributions during the
We should provide through
out this Union for giving the people in
every state the real right to rule them |
selves, and really and not noninaIly to
&C ntrol their public servants and their
agencies for doing the public business;
an incident of this being giving the |
people the right themselves to do this |
public business if they find it impos- |
sible to get what they desire through |
the existing agencies. 1 do not attempt |
to dogmatize as to the machinery by |
which this end should be achieved In |
each community it must be shaped so |
as to correspond not merely with the |
needs but with the customs and ways
Of thought of that community, and no |
community has a right to dictate to |
any other in this matter. But wherever
representative government has in |
actual fact become non-representative
there the people should secure to them
selves the initiative, the referendum |
and the recall, doing it in such fashion |
as to make it evident that they do not |
intend to use these Observation-Disclosures |
wantonly or frequently, but to holdt
them ready for use in order to correct |
the nisdeeds or failures of the public |
when it has become evident |
that these misdeeds and failures can
nos be corrected in ordinary and normal !
fashion. The administrative officer |
should be given full power, for other |
wise he cannot do well the peoples
work; and the people should be given
-ull power over him.
L do not mean that We shall aban-
Ion representative government; on the
contrary, mean that We shall devise /
methods by which our government
shall become really representative. TO
use such measures as the initiative
and recall indiscriminateIyl
and proniscuously on all kinds of oc-
,asions would undoubtedly cause dis
aster; but events have shown that at /
present our Institutions are not rep
resentative-at any rate in many
states, and sometimes in the nation
and that we cannot wisely afford to |
ct this condition of things remain
Onger uncorrected. We have permit
ed the growing up of a breed of poll
.icians who, som etimes as a means of
serving the great special interests of /
privilege which stand behind them,
visit so-called representative institu-
ions into means of thwarting instead
IF expressing the deliberate and well
thought out judgment of the people as =