The Seattle star. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1899-1947, 1922-02-17
Sign the Bill for
Reapportionment


bossed state legislatures for years are
| joining the chorus. Why? Here's the
answer.
To redistrict this state honestly
means to give the majority of the peo-
Pile control of the state government.
They haven't control now.
The initiative measure would reduce
the number of state representatives
and state senators some of the sparse
ly settled sections of the state may
elect to the legislature, and increase
the number to be chosen by the thickly
populated sections and the cities. And
that is eminently right, plainly in ac-
cord with the principle of the Amerl-
can government and our own state
constitution.
A Seattle citizens vote should be as
good, as powerful, as that of the man
who lives in the far corner of some So
called "cow county" But, it isn't. His
vote is worth two or three of yours. In
some districts few hundred voters
select a member of the legislature,
while in others, tens of thousands of
voters have only one representative at
Olympia. This system isn't right, it
isn't just, it isn't American. This state
today has NOT representative govern
ment. 1t has system of plural voting
as wrong as that in Germany under
the old kaiser.
THE politicians declare that if the
L state is redistricted, the cities will
rule. Well, what of it? If the cities
have the most votes, the most people,
they have right to control. For this
is the United States! And representa-
tive government means equal voting
power for all voters.
A few days ago one of the bosses of
the legislature man who voted FOR
the poll tax and FOR nearly every
other bad law that legislatures have
passed in recent years--proclaimed
the theory that the cities need the bal
ance wheel, must have the check of the
present system to keep them from
going wild In other words, he thinks
the folks of the cities and the thickly
populated districts haven't common
sense enough to run their own state, to
run their own business, and that they
should sit quietly and pay three
fourths of the taxes of the state.
The politicians don't want this state
redistricted because they might lose
control of it Immediately.
There's clause in the state consti-
tuition, put there by the honest old
Americans who founded this common
wealth, that COMMANDS the legisla-
ture to redistrict the state every 10
years And the legislature not only
has disobeyed the command of the
constitution, but has fought bitterly to
keep it from being obeyed.
We have now the spectacle Of folks
I who herald the supposedly high per-
centage of their Americanism from
house tops urging the people of the
state to disregard the constitution.
THE politicians are not alone in
1 their fight against giving the ma
jority of the people control the state govern
ment. The politicians are being assisted by
every special interest that has found friends in
the state government. The special interests
don't want majority rule anywhere. They are
afraid of the majority. Especially are they
afraid of the people of the cities, for it is in the
cities that the special interests have found
their latest plucking, their richest fields.
The legislatures for the last 10 or Is years
have not represented the people Of this state.
We have not had anything but mere form
and fraud of representative government We
never will have it until the state is redistrcted.
If you believe in representative govern
ment, in the basic principle Of Americanism,