The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-09
Friend of Colonel Roosevelt Scores the Recall of
 Judges
MIR. DIXON GIVES OUT
 ANOTHER CHALLENGE
Claims McKinley's Reply to His ln- yitation Was Not Specifications Caustic-Mr. LaFollette An
 nounces His Attitude

Princeton. N. J.. March s.-senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts preached vigorous opposition to the tni- 1iative. referendum and recall here to- night before the students of Princeton university. His speech was one of a series on public affairs delivered un- der the Spencer Trask lecture fund MT. Lodge denounced the initiative, referendum and recall as both obso- lete and impracticable and subver- sive of the fundamental ideas of rep resentative government. In emphasiz- ing the latter point he quoted freely from books written by Gov. Woodrow Wilson, while president of Princeton university.
 Is Not Representative 'It is quite true" said MT. Lodge. "that the voters are the means by which we necessarily obtain an ex- pression of the popular will, but majority of the voters are not neces- sarily the people and do not at all times represent the real wishes of the people. The majority of those who vote on any given question may be
  ephemeral one. The majority of one year may be the minority of the next. and yet you will observe that in all the practical arrangements for the compulsory initiative, referendum and for the recall of judges the people who can compel the initiative and who in practice carry the referendum, the number who can foree d recall and who in its practical operation may be able to carry 1t are a small majority of the voters.
 "To start the initiative or the re- call in all the provisions that l have seen only minority, sometimes very small percentage, of those who voted at the last election, is required. When the act asked for has been adopted by the legislature and referred 1t ap- pears, If experience is of any value. that a large proportion of the voters express no opinion, either from indif- |. ference or from not comprehe ending the question while the small and interested tv iacritx, tslea@ paft tc1Ss'ta- for sfs law, tho submission of which to the voters has been compelled by their or iginal action.
 The result is that laws are placed upon the statute book without there being any sufficient evidence that they are there. I will not say by the will of the peoplc--but even by the will or the majority or the reSlStereu cOleIS.
 Minority Would Be Effective
 "A small minority of the voters would be generally effective under these methods, and of course a small minority of the voters is a still smaller minority of the people, for the voters themselves nre small minority of the whole people. Therefore it is important to bear in mind that when it is proposed to make the gov ernment more directly government of the people, what is intended to make the government more clearly responsive and more absolutely under the control of the majority of the voters, whether that ma jority is large or small. Also 1t is to be remembered that this will result in the destruction of representative government, and it is the substitution of the will of portion of the voters for the will of all h the voters who are represented by the leg islative bodies l cannot express my mean ing better than by quoting from distin- guished ex-president of this university in his book on Constitutional Government, published in 190S."
 Quotes Wilson
 Mir. Lodge quoted reference by Wood- row Wilson to the use of the initiative and referendum as "the virtual abandonment of the representative principle, and the attempt to put in the hands of the voters themselves the power to initiate and nega-
 
 for themselves what they have not been able to get satisfactorily done throuNh the representatives they have hitherto chosen to act for them.''
 MT. Lodge next discussed what he termed the widespread feeling that con stitutions do not differ from laws. that they may deal with any subject and he the receptacle of any ideas which at the moment happen to be popular To illus trate the habit of regarding the constitu- tion as if it was an ordinary law he referred to Mir. Wilson's writings in which he said: "The danger is that constitution making will become with us only cum brous mode of legislation
 While it may be better worse to adopt legislation by direct vote as a sub stitute for representative government" continued MT. Lodge, there can be no question whatever that to abandon repre- sentative government and to take up in its place legislation by direct vote is to ssturn from high state of evolution to lower and more primitive one"
 Historical Instances
 The senator cited instances in history where policies such as the initiative, ref. erendum and recall of judges had not met with success.
 Representative government and lib- erty.'' he said, faded away together. and the executive became all powerful. There fore in these propositions now made to us there is nothing new. They are old propositions. We are today asked to lay aside the great advance in government made, as history shows. by the represen- tative system and return to earlier forms.
 "One of the great arguments used by the advocates of these changes in our con- stitution is that by obtaining the direct action of the voters we shall be free from the demoralizing influence and the con trol of money in politics and in our legis- latures
 T have always believed theoreticallv that the more elections were rnultiplied and the more elaborate the machinery for selecting and electing the candidates. the larger the field for professional politicians and for the employment of money to con trbl election results.
 ''The evidence afforded by the primary system in actual operation seems to con- firm this theory"
 Stephenson Election
 Mir. Lodge here referred to the contest over the seat of Senator Stephenson of Wisconsin. where the primary system is in operation. He said the Senate invcsti- gstion brought forth statetnents that all the candidates in that elertion spent an
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