The weekly Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1911-1922, 1912-03-07

seryatlve where its own tradition:
are concerned than the professions
politicians. Farmers do not organ
lie to check the advance of inten
sive agriculture, nor physicians tt
warn an unsuspecting public against
the seductions of bacteriology OF
serum therapy. The advent OF
wireless telepraphy was not regard.
ed as call to arms by the electrical
engineers, nor when aeroplanes be-
gan to dot the blue were we deafen-
ed with warning cries from the
physicists. And even among the
theologians that disconcerting new
arrival the higher crisicism was not
altogether anathema. But when any
scientific and progressive mind turns
Its attention to the machinery of
politics what a chorus of admoni-
ton rises from the ranks of the
politicians!
Thus every effort to resore to the
people the reins of government
which have been so gradually but
surely transferred to the hand of
special privilege is noted with APP
prehension and misgiving by our
lawmakers, who see in such reforms
as the Initiative, the Referendum,
the Recall, popular election of
Sanofore o,J I,.oo+ 49,.
generally, only insidious attacks up
on our representative form of gov
eminent. The Initiative and Refer
endum, they tell us, are repugnant
to the republican form of govern
ment guaranteed by the Constitution
of the United States. Although no
less Republican than Lincoln was
content to describe our Government
as ga government of the people,
for the people and by the people,"
latter-day guardians of our liberties
would have the last clause amended
to read "and by representatives of
the people. The Constitution, they
tell US, makes this republic and not
a democracy representative and
not popular government. But how
ever we describe the system the
fathers fashioned, the fact remains
that the central idea they sought to
embody therein was an affirmation
of the equal rights of men. And
these new devices, inasmuch as they
are aimed at special privilege, are.
merely fresh applications of this
principle. Granting the original
intention to have been that our laws
should be framed not by the people
but by their representatives, the
fact, remains that it was not in
tended that they should be framed
by representatives of the public
enemy. 1t was never intended that
the fattening and pampering of
special interests should supersede
the ideal of the greatest good to the
greatest number. 1t is certainly not
imaginable that the authors of the
Constitution would contemplate with
equanimity some of the uses to
which the mechanism of govern
ment they SO lovingly devised has
been put. Yet it is these very abuses.
apparently, which makes the mechan
ism so peculiarly sacrosanct in the
eyes of the professional politician.
The original purpose of our politi-
cal machinery was to express and
enforce the will of the people
Gradually, but to an astounding ex-
tent, it has become an instrument
for enforcing the will of special
privilege in its many guises. The
sole purpose of such chanes In the
old machinery as are contemplated
in the Initiative and Referendum is
to give back to the people the con-
troll usurped by special privilege.
But the politician, who knows every
bolt and crank and valve in the old
machine, naturally SHES at the new
model with its battling contraptions
In the form of safety devices and
automatic brakes.
Popular Election of Senators.
In this. connection it is interest
ing to note that in the last session
of the Sixty-frst Congress Senatorial
opposition to the amendment for the
popular election of Senators was
largely confined to the same ele-
ment which rallied to the defense of
Senator Lorimer when MS more
squeamish colleagues tried to GUST
him from seat in which purchased
votes had helped to place him. In
the same connection it is also
pertinent to remark that with our
Senators elected by the people in
stead of by the legislatures we
would be spared such wasteful and
unseemly deadlocks as the old sys-
tenn has recently inflicted upon
Colorado, Montana, Iowa and New
York In the latter State, after
more than sixty futile ballotings
had resulted in nothing more than
the wasting of the legislators time
or1 kbo v,oox,1o, 3 xnor~r