THE INITIATIVE AND THE REFERENDUM
Nicholas Longworth, when congratulated on his election to Congress,
is reported to have said: “Election! I wasn’t elected; I was
appointed.”[7] This contains a very real truth. As the power of the
extra-legal government has increased it has gained a large and in
some instances predominant influence in our legislative bodies and
particularly the state legislatures, through its power to appoint
members who would be loyal to it. Once obtained this influence may be
used to protect certain interests from legislation which they do not
want, but for which there may be a proper popular demand. It may be
used also to promote legislation which the electorate is against or
would be against if it understood the situation. When such a condition
of affairs exists and becomes widely known, we have a demand for the
initiative to compel the enactment of laws which the majority of the
electorate wants but which the legislature will not pass. We have also
a demand for the referendum to veto acts which the legislature has
passed but which the majority of the electorate does not want.
Of course, in extraordinary and unusual situations, when the electorate
is organized and led against some attempted act of the extra-legal
government, the initiative and referendum may be used to defeat and
discomfort the latter. But that is not a normal situation. It is the
extraordinary and unusual occurrence. The real effect of the initiative
and the referendum on the extra-legal government cannot be determined
with reference to abnormal circumstances. It must be looked at in
connection with normal everyday events. The usual and normal situation
is that of political quiet. The extra-legal government governs from
day to day and from election to election. The placing on the ballot
at any election of a number of acts to be initiated or approved on a
referendum adds more burdens to the already greatly overloaded voter.
He must now read over the acts, study their details, and understand the
ultimate effect or possibilities of certain clauses. The legislation to
be considered by the voter may be of relatively small importance to the
majority of the voters, or the desire of the majority for the general
object may be so great that the means are not to be considered. The
ballot may contain counter propositions and additional acts upon the
same subject. Some reformers might present one act and the extra-legal
government another on the same subject. When these occasions arise,
one thing we may be certain of: the average voter will be most densely
ignorant of what it is all about. Who, then, in the usual case will
have the privilege of directing him how to vote? Why, of course,
the same organization that directs the voter regularly how to cast
his ballot for candidates for office. The power of the extra-legal
government to advise and direct the politically ignorant voter how
to vote will be just as effective in the normal election to carry or
defeat an act on an initiative or referendum as it is to place men
loyal to it in the offices of the legal government.
The initiative and the referendum, then, while they may at times give
the righteous a desirable advantage, will in normal conditions place in
the hands of the extra-legal government the opportunity to secure the
passage of undesirable laws or to defeat good ones and to insist for a
time at least that this is “the judgment of the people”; just as for
years they have declared that when the system of frequent elections for
many offices produced undesirable officeholders, it was the result of
the will of the people.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] George Kibbe Turner, “The Thing above the Law,” _McClure’s
Magazine_, XXXVIII, 575.