The Daily Alaska empire., 1935-03-08
MT. Wallace's Proposal.
CNew York Times,)

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 Secretary Wallace has been called "sle most interesting personality in the Cabinet Few of our statesmen, certainly have been thoughtful and as candid, or h&yeK KwHfen as feadably. His, of fical reports as we'll as his pamphlets and articles have been remarkably free from political cches He gis not content to tissue orders he likes to speculate phllosophically about them, to play with ideas. He is fertile in thinking up new schemes All these qualities are revealed in his article in the current Golfers You will not find many Cabinet officers calling attention to instances in which the Administrations loosely coordinated ef- forts tend to check another and cancel out You will not find many politicians in office writ ing sentences as frank this: Now that farmers have had little taste of the same sort of thing our gigantic infant industries have fattened will they not press for new and constantly greater processing taxes, group by group? Very likely"
 MT Wallaces main suggestion in his present article is for nothing less than political technique for dealing with crucial problems and amending the Constitution. He proposes an Econ omic Council of four members who would be "as revered and trusted the Supreme Court" The councillors would be appointed by the President with the consent of Congress for overlapping terms of, say, from nine to fifteen years. They would have power ito determine by direct referendum the will of the people key questions of national policy They might even put the whole question "canddly and concisely" on the ballot itself outlining the situation the alternatives, the price of taking this course, that one, and the price of wabble :" Ordinarily, MT. Wallace reminds us it takes seven years to amend the Constitution, and with events moving at their present rate, this is "a perilously long time. Theerfore he suggests that the council be given power to initiate an amendment, which could be ratified by referendum upon two-thrds vote of the people He indicates that referendumS would be useful at present such issues as tariffs. debts and land policy"
 This is a far-reaching proposal and it raises some fundamental questions There can be no question that popular referendum is often useful, particularly where the matter to be decided is one that somes within the direct experience of nearly every and involves technical questions and no very complicated considerations of social causa- ton incidence secondary effects. Prohibition was question of this type and the celerity with which it repealed by the referendum method has led to demand that this method be hereafter the usual one of submitting amendments Repre- sentative Wadsworth has already introduced bill to that effect. But when complicated ques- tion is submitted 10 a popular referendum, it is likely to be decided by emotional slogans and by a public the majority of which has never really studied it. The duty and function of Legislator, as Burke reminded us is not merely to find what the prejudcest of the majority of his constituents are, and then to reflect them, but to give those constituents the benefit of his special study and judgment. f