And Prof. Frank Parsons, president of the National Referendum League, said: “The Winnetka System is clearly great in its possibilities—a bridge ready for immediate use to the promised land.”
Mr. Eltweed Pomeroy, president of the National Direct Legislation League, wrote: “I am also glad that you demonstrate that direct legislation is not only a great scheme which will be of inestimable value in its entirety, but that it is more than that, and can be applied on a small scale here and now, and that almost anyone can exercise influence enough to secure a first step.”
Mr. Louis P. Post, editor of The Public, visited Winnetka during August, 1901, and in his paper of September 7 described the system, saying in conclusion:
This Winnetka Plan of securing the advantages of direct legislation without waiting for party action, has special merit. It can, for one thing, be easily made the subject of effective non-partisan organization. For another, if the organization were to become influential, it would completely effect its purpose. Meanwhile, here and there locally the purposes would be effected even though balked and delayed in the larger government divisions. Moreover, the plan has been for years in actual and effective operation at Winnetka. Finally, it contemplates a spontaneous command from the people as to public servants, not a petition from them as to public masters.
The Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, at a meeting in Washington, D. C., September 20, 1901, considered briefly the Winnetka System, and the following is the published report:
It was decided to issue an address to all affiliated organizations, requesting them to endeavor to secure the passage of local ordinances and laws for the initiative and referendum on measures relating to local interests, and thus to secure the beginning of this system of direct legislation, with the view of subsequently enlarging the scope of that method of enacting laws in the interests of the people.
Thus the new system—the systematic questioning of candidates for the establishment of the people’s sovereignty—began and was endorsed throughout the land. During the four and a half years that have since elapsed the system has made steady and rapid progress.
In December, 1901, President Gompers, of the American Federation of Labor, in his annual message recommended the system, and the convention ordered that it be explained in the American Federationist, “in order that Trade Unionists may be able to study it as carefully as it deserves.” Accordingly it was published in an eighty page extra number and 20,000 copies were circulated in addition to the regular mailing list.
Gov. Altgeld wrote concerning this extra number: “It presents the subject of the initiative and referendum and representative government in the most lucid, striking, and comprehensive manner that I have ever seen.” He added: “Through the agency of the labor organizations it ought to get into every neighborhood, and in time it will create a sentiment that will be irresistible.”
Gov. Altgeld’s prediction is correct. The very first year after the issuance of the extra number of the Federationist the Winnetka System was established in Detroit, Mich., Toronto, Canada, and Geneva, Ill.; with the pledging of the Missouri Legislature for the submission of a constitutional amendment for the initiative and referendum; also the systematic questioning of candidates by organized labor in several other states, and the questioning of candidates as to the initiative and referendum by the granges in the state of Washington. The net result of questioning candidates was a majority vote for the initiative and referendum in six legislatures; also the pledging of nine of the sixteen congressmen of Missouri for a national system of advisory initiative and advisory referendum, and the pledging of the United States senators elected from Missouri and Illinois. During the course of the campaign the actions of four state conventions of the two great parties were reversed—the Republican state conventions in Missouri, California and Montana; and the Democratic state convention in Montana. The states where the majority vote in the legislature was secured were Missouri, Colorado, California, Montana, North Dakota and Massachusetts. In Illinois there was a two-thirds vote in the House, but the Senate refused to act. This Illinois vote was caused by an instruction from the voters through an advisory referendum taken under the 1901 act of the Legislature. The vote of the people was 5 to 1 for the establishment of the improved system.