The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1917-03-29

SINS of commission which may be cor
rected by the Referendum, must as
suredIy be admitted. If proof were
necessary it was afforded by my last
letter in which pointed out the manner
in which the General Assembly treated
four constitutional amendments adopted
by the people less than two years ago.
That legislatures equally fail and must
ever fail to be thoroughly representative
is absolutely true, as will be evident
from a moments thought. We send
men to the legislature who agree with
the majority upon certain general
propositions, but assuredly do not
represent them on all. AS voters we
make tpe best we can of the situation.
When they meet. those propositions
upon which the majority in large part
unite, may never come before the
legislature in anv shape, but an in
finite variety of other propositions are
voted on, about which the legislature
received no mandate from the people.
Some propositions may be rejected
although the majority of the people
sincerely desire their adoption and wee
versa For wrongful Rejection or re-
fusal to submit to the whole people to-
day we have, no remedy and popular
government fails.
A representative government is one
which represents. We may well enough
be represented in ninety cases out of
one hundred by the average Legislature.
The matters usually determined by it
are not of the gravest Importance and
even if errors exist we may well put up
with them, but deeper matters of
principle should, as the believers in the
Initiative and Referendum feel, be sub
ject to review at all times by the
people, the legislature often failing to
be representative for reasons given.
South Dakota among the States of
the Union was first to rise to an ap-
probation of this apparent government
defect, and adopt the Initiative and
Referendum as part of its govern
ment. = In so doing it followed an ex-
ample set by Switzerland, where, in
both national and cantonai government,
the Initiative and Referendum have
protected the people for scores of years.
Oregon quickly followed the lead of
South Dakota and from that time to
the present some eighteen or nineteen
states have followed their example.
among them the states of the entire
western coast and Maine on the East,
northern states like Ohio and Michigan,
and southern states like Mississippi and
Arkansas, Republican states and Demo-
cratic states.
No state of the Union having once
adopted the Initiative and Referendum
has ever retraced this step. The people,
/ feeling themselves in lust control of
their government, having been exceed
ingly jealous of any attempt to take
away their power.
III lllG lOulNAaNlOll VI Jul SONGILlilEuI
| leaders of constitutional conventions
! felt an extreme reluctance TO trust
governmental control to the hands of
the people. For this reason they pro-
vided, save in the adoption of constitu-
lions, eXcluively tor representative
government. They may have been in a
measure excusable at that time, be-
cause the average intelligence of the
American citizen of one hundred and
forty years ago was infinitely lower
than today. Schools were a rarity.
Men could not meet together to COM
pare ideas with the same freedom as
now. Newspapers were almost un-
known and the republican idea was as
crude, though well founded in principle,
as were the social institutions of the
day. The theory then was that the
people, ignorant as they were, could
select superior men to govern but were
not themselves equal to bearing any