Representative Government means government by representatives elected by the people, but independent of the people after election and empowered to ignore or overrule the people’s will.
Popular Government, or democracy, means government of, for and by the people. It will be possible only when all officeholders are honest or when the people’s representatives are made subject to the people’s will by the adoption of the referendum. History proves that permanent popular government without direct legislation is impossible.
There is a radical difference between a democracy and a representative government. Whenever a people are qualified for self-government no power on earth can prevent them from exercising that right. The American people have been too busy “making money” to study their real economic needs, and the result is that irresponsible demagogues have made laws which have plunged the nation into almost hopeless debt, paralyzed its business and impoverished most of the people. The voters have several times of late risen in their wrath and “turned the rascals out,” but it was only to elect another set of rascals, of different political complexion, perhaps, but equally dishonest and equally irresponsible. The so-called “landslides” in recent elections, while they have resulted in no real reform, indicate that the people have begun to think. Soon they will realize that they can control their own government only by keeping the legislation in their own hands—that they must not delegate their sovereignty to representatives or servants, by whatever name they may be known. It is only by means of the initiative and the referendum that the people can maintain their supremacy. The general adoption of this system is the next step in the world’s progress.
The initiative and referendum will take the element of partisanship out of the settlement of economic questions, and this alone is sufficient reason why it should be adopted. Suppose the question of tariff were submitted to the people to vote on. Members of all parties would vote for it and against it, and the majority would decide. It would become a question of economics, not a partisan issue, and would be settled on its merits. The same with the free coinage of silver, paper money, public ownership of railroads, prohibition, and every other great question which the old political parties have straddled or evaded.
But the principal advantage of the referendum is that it would do away entirely with the lobby—“the third house.” There would be no inducement for any one to bribe the lawmakers. They might sell their individual votes, but these would be worthless, as only the people could “deliver the goods.” The people would be quick to see the value of the franchises and privileges which are now being practically given away, to be used by corporations to still further enslave the masses.
Switzerland is the home of the referendum. It is commonly believed that that republic has existed for six hundred years. The fact, however, is that it is the youngest of republics. The characteristic features of the government, those which make it a republic in fact as well as in name, were instituted by the present generation. It is the only country in the world to-day which has overthrown its plutocracy and which has made it impossible for corrupt politicians to rule the people through the representative system. To the principle of direct legislation, as carried out by the initiative and referendum must be ascribed the happy conditions which surround its politics. Mr. W. D. McCrackan, author of “The Rise of the Swiss Republic,” who has made a special study of the subject, has published in the Arena his observations of Swiss politics. He finds that, as a result of the referendum, jobbery and extravagance are unknown, and that politics, as there is no money in it, has ceased to be a trade. Officeholders are taken from the ranks of citizenship and are invariably chosen because of their fitness for the work. The people take an intelligent interest in the legislation, local and federal, and are fully imbued with a sense of their political responsibilities. The Westminster Review, speaking of the referendum, expresses this opinion:
“The bulk of the people move more slowly than their representatives, are more cautious in adopting new and trying legislative experiments and have a tendency to reject propositions submitted to them for the first time.... The issue which is presented to the sovereign people is invariably and necessarily reduced to its simplest expression and so placed before them as to be capable of an affirmative or negative answer. In practice, therefore, the discussion of details is left to the representative assemblies, while the public express approval or disapproval of the general principle or policy embraced in the proposed measure. Public attention being confined to the issue, leaders are nothing. Collective wisdom judges of merits.”
In some of the cantons of Switzerland the referendum has been in practice since the sixteenth century. As it is now employed it was adopted by the canton of St. Gallen in 1830, and in 1848 it was incorporated in the Swiss federal constitution. It has been so extended since then that it is now in operation in all the Swiss cantons except Freiburg.
According to the Swiss constitution all amendments thereto must be ratified by the Swiss electors before they become effective. Other measures, like ordinary enactments, must be submitted to a popular vote if a demand is made for such submission, written ninety days after their publication. This demand must be made by 30,000 voters or by the government of eight of the nineteen entire and six half cantons. In Switzerland the referendum has proved to be entirely satisfactory as a check upon hasty or class legislation.
In his valuable book, “Direct Legislation,” J. W. Sullivan thus recounts what the Swiss have done by direct legislation: