Part 9

Few are aware of the advances which direct legislation has made in state government in the United States. Many facts on this subject, collected by Mr. Ellis P. Oberholtzer, were published in the "Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science," November, 1891. Condensed, this writer's statement is as follows: Constitutional amendments now go to the people for a vote in every state except Delaware. The significance of this fact, and the resemblance of this vote to the Swiss Referendum, are seen when one considers the subject matter of a state constitution. Nowadays, such a constitution usually limits a legislature to a short biennial session and defines in detail what laws the legislature may and may not pass. In fact, then, in adopting a constitution once in ten or twenty years, the voters of a state decide upon admissible legislation. Thus they themselves are the real legislators. Among the matters once left entirely to legislatures, but now commonly dealt with in constitutions, are the following: Prohibiting or regulating the liquor traffic; prohibiting or chartering lotteries; determining tax rates; founding and locating state schools and other state institutions; establishing a legal rate of interest; fixing the salaries of public officials; drawing up railroad and other corporation regulations; and defining the relations of husbands and wives, and of debtors and creditors. In line with all this is a tendency to easy amendment. In nearly all the new states and in those older ones which have recently revised their constitutions, the time in which amendments may be effected is as a rule but half of that formerly required. Where once the approval of two successive legislatures was exacted, now the consent of one is considered sufficient.

In fifteen states, until submitted to a popular vote, no law changing the location of the capital is valid; in seven, no laws establishing banking corporations; in eleven, no laws for the incurrence of debts excepting such as are specified in the constitution, and no excess of "casual deficits" beyond a stipulated sum; in several, no rate of assessment exceeding a figure proportionate to the aggregate valuation of the taxable property. Without the Referendum, Illinois cannot sell its state canal; Minnesota cannot pay interest or principal of the Minnesota railroad; North Carolina cannot extend the state credit to aid any person or corporation, excepting to help certain railroads unfinished in 1876. With the Referendum, Colorado may adopt woman suffrage and create a debt for public buildings; Texas may fix a location for a college for colored youth; Wyoming may decide on the sites for its state university, insane asylum and penitentiary.

Numerous important examples of the Referendum in local matters in the United States, especially in the West, were found by Mr. Oberholtzer. There are many county, city, township, and school district referendums. Nineteen state constitutions guarantee to counties the right to fix by vote of the citizens the location of the county seats. So also usually of county lines, divisions of counties, and like matters. Several western states leave it to a vote of the counties as to when they shall adopt a township organization, with town meetings; several states permit their cities to decide when they shall also be counties. As in the state, there are debt and tax matters that may be passed on only by the people of cities, boroughs, counties, or school districts. Without the Referendum, no municipality in Pennsylvania may contract an aggregate debt beyond 2 per cent of the assessed valuation of its taxable property; no municipalities in certain other states may incur in any year an indebtedness beyond their revenues; no local governments in the new states of the West may raise any loans whatever; none in other states may exceed certain limits in tax rates. With the Referendum, certain Southern communities may make harbor improvements, and other communities may extend the local credit to railroad, water transportation, and similar corporations. The prohibition of the liquor business in a city or county is often left to a popular vote; indeed, "local option" is the commonest form of Referendum. In California any city with more than 10,000 inhabitants may frame a charter for its own government, which, however, must be approved by the legislature. Under this law Stockton, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Oakland have acquired new charters. In the state of Washington, cities of 20,000 may make their own charters without the legislature having any power of veto. Largely, then, such cities make their own laws.

In fact, the vast United States seems to have seen as much of the Referendum as little Switzerland. But the effect of the practice has been largely lost in the great size of this country and in the loose and unsystematized character of the institution as known here.

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In the "American Commonwealth" of James Bryce, a member of Parliament, there is a chapter entitled "Direct Legislation by the People." After reciting many facts similar in character to those given by Mr. Oberholtzer, Mr. Bryce inquires into the practical workings of direct legislation. He finds what are to his mind some "obvious demerits." Of these demerits, such as apply to details he develops in the course of his statements of several cases of Referendum. In summing up, he further points out what seem to him two objections to the principle. One is that direct legislation "tends to lower the authority and sense of responsibility of the legislature." But this is precisely the aim of pure democracy, and from its point of view a merit of the first order. The other objection is, "it refers matters needing much elucidation by debate to the determination of those who cannot, on account of their numbers, meet together for discussion, and many of whom may have never thought about the matter." But why meet together for discussion? Mr. Bryce here overlooks that this is the age of newspaper and telegraph, and that through these sources the facts and much debate on any matter of public interest may be forthcoming on demand. Mr. Bryce, however, sees more advantages than demerits in direct legislation. Of the advantages he remarks: "The improvement of the legislatures is just what the Americans despair of, or, as they would prefer to say, have not time to attend to. Hence they fall back on the Referendum as the best course available under the circumstances of the case and in such a world as the present. They do not claim that it has any great educative effect on the people. But they remark with truth that the mass of the people are equal in intelligence and character to the average state legislator, and are exposed to fewer temptations. The legislator can be 'got at,' the people cannot. The personal interest of the individual legislator in passing a measure for chartering banks or spending the internal improvement fund may be greater than his interest as one of the community in preventing bad laws. It will be otherwise with the bulk of the citizens. The legislator may be subjected by the advocates of women's suffrage or liquor prohibition to a pressure irresistible by ordinary mortals; but the citizens are too numerous to be all wheedled or threatened. Hence they can and do reject proposals which the legislature has assented to. Nor should it be forgotten that in a country where law depends for its force on the consent of the governed, it is eminently desirable that law should not outrun popular sentiment, but have the whole weight of the people's deliverance behind it."

The Initiative and Referendum in Labor Organizations.

The Referendum is well known to the Knights of Labor. For nine years past expressions of opinion have been asked of the local assemblies by the general executive board. The recent decision of the order to enter upon independent political action was made by a vote in response to a circular issued by the General Master Workman. The latter, at the annual convention at Toledo, in November, 1891, recommended that the Referendum form a part of the government machinery throughout the United States. The Knights being in some respects a secret organization, data as to referendary votings are not always made public.

For the past decade or longer several of the national and international trades-unions of America have had the Initiative and Referendum in operation. Within the past five years the institution in various forms has been taken up by other unions, and at present it is in more or less practice in the following bodies, all associated with the American Federation of Labor:

No. of No. of Members, National or International Union. Local Unions. December, 1891.

Journeymen Bakers 81 17,500 Brewery Workmen 61 9,500 United Broth'h'd of Carpenters and Joiners 740 65,000 Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners 40 2,800 Cigar-Makers 310 27,000 Carriage and Wagon Makers 11 2,000 Garment Workers 24 4,000 Granite Cutters 75 20,000 Tailors 170 17,000 Typographical Union 290 28,000 ------- Total 192,800

Direct legislation has long been familiar to the members of the International Cigar-Makers' Union. Today, amendments to its constitution, the acts of its executives, and even the resolutions passed at delegate conventions, are submitted to a vote by ballot in the local unions. The nineteenth annual convention, held at Indianapolis, September, 1891, provisionally adopted 114 amendments to the constitution and 33 resolutions on various matters. Though some of the latter were plainly perfunctory in character, all of these 147 propositions were printed in full in the "Official Journal" for October, and voted on in the 310 unions throughout America in November. The Initiative is introduced in this international union through local unions. When twenty of the latter have passed favorably on a measure, it must be submitted to the entire body. An idea of the financial transactions of the Cigar-Makers' International Union may be gathered from its total expenditures in the past twelve years and a half. In all, it has disbursed in that time $1,426,208. Strikes took $469,158; sick benefits, $439,010; death benefits, $109,608; traveling benefits, $372,455, and out of work benefits, $35,795. The advance of the Referendum in this great union has been very gradual. It began in 1877 with voting on constitutional amendments. The most recent, and perhaps last possible, step was to transfer the election of the general executive board from the annual convention to the entire body.

The United Garment Workers of America practice direct legislation under Article 24 of their constitution, which is printed under the caption, "Referendum and Initiative." It prescribes two methods of Initiative. One is that three or more local unions, if of different states, may instruct the general secretary to call for a referendary vote in the unions of the national organization. The other is that the general executive board must so submit all questions of general importance. The general secretary issues the call within two weeks after the petition for a vote reaches him, and the vote is taken within six months afterward. Eighteen propositions passed by the annual convention of this union at Boston, in November, 1891, were submitted to a vote of the local unions in December.

In 1890, the local unions of the International Typographical Union, then numbering nearly 290, voted on twenty-five propositions submitted from the annual convention. In 1891, fourteen propositions were submitted. Of the latter, one authorized the formation of unions of editors and reporters; another directed the payments to the President to be a salary of $1,400, actual railroad fares by the shortest possible routes, and $3 a day for hotel expenses; another rescinded a six months' exemption from a per capita tax for newly formed unions; another provided for a funeral benefit of $50 on the death of a member; by another an assessment of ten cents a month was levied for the home for superannuated and disabled union printers. All fourteen were adopted, the majorities, however, varying from 558 to 8,758.

Is Complete Direct Legislation in Government Practicable?

The conservative citizen, contented with the existing state of things, is wont to brush aside proposed innovations in government. To do so he avails himself of a familiar stock of objections. But have they not all their answer in the facts thus far brought forth in these chapters? Will he entertain no "crazy theories"? Here is offered practice, proven in varied and innumerable tests to be thoroughly feasible. He is opposed to foreign institutions? Here is a time-honored American institution. He holds that men cannot be made better by law? Here are facts to show that with change of law justice has been promoted. He deems democracy feebleness? Here has been shown its stalwart strength. He is sure workingmen are incapable of managing large affairs? Let him look to the cigar-makers--their capacity for organization, their self-restraint as an industrial army, the soundness of their financial system, the mastery of their employers in the eight-hour question. He believes the intricacies of taxation and estimates of appropriation beyond the average mind? He may see a New England town meeting in a single day dispose of scores of items and, with each settled to a nicety, vote away fifty thousand dollars. He fears state legislation, by reason of its complexity, would prove a puzzle to the ordinary voter? Why, then, are the more vexatious subjects so often shifted by the legislators to the people?

The conservative objector is, first, apt to object before fully examining what he dissents from, and, secondly, prone to have in mind ideal conditions with which to compare the new methods commended to him. In the matter of legislation, he dreams of a body of high-minded lawgivers, just, wise, unselfish, and not of legislators as they commonly are. He forgets that Congress and the legislatures have each a permanent lobby, buying privileges for corporations, and otherwise influencing and corrupting members. He forgets the party caucus, at which the individual member is swamped in the majority; the "strikers," members employing their powers in blackmail; the Black Horse Cavalry, a combination of members in state legislatures formed to enrich themselves by plunder through passing or killing bills. He forgets the scandalous jobs put through to reward political workers; the long lists of doubtful or vicious bills reviewed in the press after each session of every legislative body; the pamphlets issued by reform bodies in which perhaps three-fourths of a legislature is named as untrustworthy, and the price of many of the members given. The City Reform Club of New York published in 1887: "As with the city's representatives of 1886, the chief objects of most of the New York members were to make money in the 'legislative business,' to advance their own political fortunes, and to promote the interests of their factions." And where is the state legislature of which much the same things cannot be said?

The conservative objector may not know how the most important bills are often passed in Congress. He may not know that until toward the close of a session the business of Congress is political in the party sense rather than in the governing sense; that on the floor the play is usually conducted for effect on the public; that in committees, measures into which politics enter are made up either on compromise or for partisan purposes; that, finally, in the last days of a session, the work of legislation is a scramble. The second day before the adjournment of the last Congress was thus described in a New York daily paper: "Congress has been working like a gigantic threshing machine all day long, and at this hour there is every prospect of an all-night session of both houses. Helter-skelter, pell-mell, the 'unfinished business' has been poured into the big hopper, and in less time than it takes to tell it, it has come out at the other end completed legislation, lacking only the President's signature to fit it for the statute books. Public bills providing for the necessary expenses of the government, private bills galore having as their beneficiaries favored individuals, jobbery in the way of unnecessary public buildings, railroad charters, and bridge construction--all have been rushed through at lightning speed, and the end is not yet. A majority of the House members, desperate because their power and influence terminate with the end of this brief session, and a partisan Speaker, whose autocratic rule will prevail but thirty-six short hours longer, have left nothing unattempted whereby party friends and proteges might be benefited. It is safe to say that aside from a half dozen measures of real importance and genuine merit the country would be no worse off should every other bill not yet acted upon fail of passage. Certain it is that large sums of money would be saved to the Government." And what observer does not know that scenes not unlike this are repeated in almost every legislature in its closing hours?

As between such manner of even national legislation on the one hand, and on the other the entire citizenship voting (as soon would be the fact under direct legislation) on but what properly should be law--and on principles, on policies, and on aggregates in appropriations--would there be reason for the country to hesitate in choosing?

Among the plainest signs of the times in America is the popular distrust of legislators. The citizens are gradually and surely resuming the lawmaking and money-spending power unwisely delegated in the past to bodies whose custom it is to abuse the trust. "Government" has come to mean a body of representatives with interests as often as not opposed to those of the great mass of electors. Were legislation direct, the circle of its functions would speedily be narrowed; certainly they would never pass legitimate bounds at the urgency of a class interested in enlarging its own powers and in increasing the volume of public outlay. Were legislation direct, the sphere of every citizen would be enlarged; each would consequently acquire education in his role, and develop a lively interest in the public affairs in part under his own management. And what so-called public business can be right in principle, or expedient in policy, on which the American voter may not pass in person? To reject his authority in politics is to compel him to abdicate his sovereignty. That done, the door is open to pillage of the treasury, to bribery of the representative, and to endless interference with the liberties of the individual.

THE WAY OPEN TO PEACEFUL REVOLUTION.

What I set out in the first chapter to do seems to me done. I essayed to show how the political "machine," its "ring," "boss," and "heeler," might be abolished, and how, consequently, the American plutocracy might be destroyed, and government simplified and contracted to the field of its natural operations. These ends achieved, a social revolution would be accomplished--a revolution without loss of a single life or destruction of a dollar's worth of property.

Whoever has read the foregoing chapters has seen these facts established:

(1) That much in proportion as the whole body of citizens take upon themselves the direction of public affairs, the possibilities for political and social parasitism disappear. The "machine" becomes without effective uses, the trade of the politician is rendered undesirable, and the privileges of the monopolist are withdrawn.

(2) That through the fundamental principles of democracy in practice--the Initiative and the Referendum--great bodies of people, with the agency of central committees, may formulate all necessary law and direct its execution.

(3) That the difference between a representative government and a democracy is radical. The difference lies in the location of the sovereignty of society. The citizens who assign the lawmaking power to officials surrender in a body their collective sovereignty. That sovereignty is then habitually employed by the lawgivers to their own advantage and to that of a twin governing class, the rich, and to the detriment of the citizenship in general and especially the poor. But when the sovereignty rests permanently with the citizenship, there evolves a government differing essentially from representative government. It is that of mere stewardship and the regulation indispensable to society.

The Social Forces Ready for Our Methods.

Now that our theory of social reform is fully substantiated by fact, our methods shown to be in harmony with popular sentiment, our idea of democratic government clearly defined, and our final aim political justice, there remains some consideration of early possible practical steps in line with these principles and of the probable trend of events afterward.