The Washington times., 1914-11-07
THE PEOPLE.

mate that it places on the capacity
of the people to do business for
themselves, and do it better than
their Representatives" could do it
for them. Oddly enough, too, this
tribute to the aggregated common
sense of the whole people comes
with most enthusiasm from many of
the people and newspapers that have
been longest and most bitterly op-
posed to such measures as the refer
endum.
One illustration, from a number
that might be cited, will suggest
how this new estimate of public ca
pacity has been established. In Mis-
souri, the last legislature passed
"full crew law" similar to the enact
ments of Pennsylvania, New York,
and some other States. The railroads
protested bitterly against it, insist
ing that it merely compelled them to
hire and pay more men in train op-
Grafton than they needed to do the
work, and that this was a particu
larly unjustifiable imposition at a
time when revenues were bad and
likely to be worse.
The legislature paid no attention
to protests; and seemingly nobody
dreamed that the people would side
with the railroads. 1t has so long
been popularity assumed that the peo-
pie were reliably opposed to any
thing that corporation might want,
and in favor of anything a corpora
tion might oppose, that it seemed
to the uninformed-quite hopeless to
appeal in such a case from legisla-
ture to people.
Now, Missouri has a referendum
provision, recently adopted. The
railroads and the political conserva-
tives all opposed its adoption; but
the State adopted it. Somebody con-
ceived the strange idea, after the
legislature had passed the "full
crew law" that it might be worth
while to test out ,ublic sentiment
about it. Possibly the people as a
whole would be willing to give the
railroads a square deal, despite the
tradition to the contrary.
So the referendum was invoked;
the necessary petition was circulated,
signatures were secured without
much difficulty, requiring that the
new law be submitted to the refer
endum of the States voters; and on
Tuesday it came before them.
AS a result the voters, by big
majority, undid the work Of the
legislature; the law was rejected;
and the same group of interests
that originally opposed the referen-
dunn OH the ground that it would en-
able the people to skin the corpora
tions at will, are now thanking their
stars for the fact that they have a
way to appeal to the aggregate good
sense and fairness of all the people!
New York and Pennsylvania still
have their full-crew laws, and no
chance to get rid of them. Those
States are too conservative" to let
the people pass on laws; they want
Representative" government through
the legislature alone; and all at once
they wake up to the fact that the
legislatures are apparently more
radical than the people.
Well, people who understood what
it was all about, and who had real
confidence in the fairness and the
sense of the community as a whole,
have known that all the time. 1t is
not difficult to explain, either. A
legislature can't represent whole
people nearly so well as the whole
people can represent themselves.
Take for instance the procedure by
which such a measure as a "full
crew bill" gets passed.
The railroad employees move on the
legislature and ask for it. More or
less organized labor sentiment is or
ganized back of the demand; not
particularly on the merits of the
proposition, but on the general the
ory that labor must stand together.
Nobody in particular is much op-
posed to it except the railroads; and
of course they are denounced as try
ing to club good legislation to death.
The average legislator assumes that
he will please the railroad vote"
and the "labor vote" by supporting
the legislature, and it doesn't occur
to him that anybody else is going to
care very much either way.
That was perfectly good reasoning,
too, in the old days when the general
public never got a chance to dir its
views on the work of its legisla-
lures. The legislator who could get
himself solid with the railroad vote
by supporting one little bill, and with
the school teachers by supporting
another, and with the saloon vote by
helping another, and so on, might