CHAPTER VIIITHE 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 forthe 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 referendumadds 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 orreferendum 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.
[7]George Kibbe Turner, “The Thing above the Law,”McClure’s Magazine, XXXVIII, 575.
[7]George Kibbe Turner, “The Thing above the Law,”McClure’s Magazine, XXXVIII, 575.