A STATE RULED BY ITS PEOPLE

...We do not know that we have done this in Oregon...

...1, the Corrupt Practices act, the Recall amendment to the constitution, the bill instructing members of the legislature to vote for and elect the people's choice for U. S. senator, were all proposed by Initiative petition and enacted by the people independent of the legislature...

...If the party pledge instead of the people's pledge plan should be generally adopted, I believe it would be even more difficult to amend the constitution of the United States than it is proving under the legislative auction-block plan, because there would be a semblance of fair play (it is said to be as fair for one party as for another), while in truth all the selfish interests of the members seated by the party pledge method would be enlisted against any change that would subject them to another campaign and the risk of defeat before the people, after having won the nomination...

...The election of U. S. senator by the people is important...

...1 plan by which the people may elect a legislature of one party and at the same time select a U. S. senator of another party, and compel the legislature to formally ratify and elect the people's choice...

...The plan of government of the people by political parties certainly would not be superceded or destroyed by anything less than a better plan...

...The people of Oregon won a very great victory on January 19, when fifty-three out of these ninety members, of whom thirty-eight were Republicans, obeyed the instructions of the people and elected the Democrat for U. S. Senator...

...This is certain, they could not get enough to accomplish their purpose and defeat the people's choice...

...We were brought face to face with this in actual practice in our last campaign, when the Republican candidates were practically all willing to take the party pledge, and both Cake and Pulton were satisfied with that...

...It is therefore perfectly clear, taking the state at large, that few if any Democrats were falsely registered or voted in the primaries as Republicans...

...It is really a direct election of U. S. senators by an indirect method...

...At the same time they elected seventy-five members of the legislature, and also by a vote of 69,668 ayes to 21,162 noes, they instructed the legislature for all time to come to always vote for and elect the people's choice for United States senator...

...In the contest between the parties and the interests, the grafters, and the Republicans who were temporarily blinded by partizan-ship, the enemies of the people's power resorted as far as they dared to the means usually employed in senatorial contests to defeat the people's will, and sought to induce Statement No...

...1 plan...

...If the party plan would be vicious in principle as a constitutional amendment, it is only less vicious as a voluntary pledge, and its use can only be justified on the theory that it is not quite so bad in its effects as the legislative auction-block method of disposing of the office...

...But Oregon's experience demonstrates that by far the most valuable one power th?.t the people of any state or of the United States can get is the Initiative power to propose and enact or reject a law and constitutional amendments, independent of the legislature or of Congress...

...This is as clearly the absolute election of United States Senators by the people as though the Constitution of the United States had been amended for that purpose, though the method is indirect...

...1 members to break their pledges...

...The voter may select his member of the legislature with an eye single to his capacity for that work, and regardless of his opinions on national issues or his personal or party preference for U. S. senator...

...It is because of this singleness of purpose in the men constituting our reform organizations in Oregon that all of the measures presented have been so drawn as to accomplish in a very great degree the things sought, and also that they have been prepared with such care that none of them have been declared unconstitutional in any particular...

...1 agreement of our Direct Primary Law, which reads as follows: STATEMENT NO...

...Some criticism has been offered on the Statement No...

...Every radical measure adopted in Oregon since 1902 has been proposed by Initiative petition and enacted by the people independent of the legislature...

...Almost as important as this is the fact that by the Initiative, students and men who believe in a principle may unite and draw a bill for the express and only purpose of getting definite results, and without the probability of some conservative or reactionary getting one or more niggers or injurious compromises into the measure...

...Some of the pledge-breakers' leaders said they could get some of the Statement No...

...Under the party pledge if the voter wants a Republican elected to the U. S. Senate he must vote for a Republican for the legislature, though the candidate may be and often is unfit for the position, or if he wants a Democrat he must vote that ticket for the legislature, though the Republican candidate might be very much better qualified for the latter office...

...Of this number probably 5,000 voted for the Democrat hoping to defeat him in the legislature by fair means or foul...

...Then the bill may be submitted to the people and adopted or rejected on its merits...

...Good Results for Initiative AS to the criticism of the Direct Primary laws that members of one party register as members of another party for the purpose of nominating a weak and unsatisfactory candidate on the opposite ticket, our election returns indicate that it is not true in Oregon...

...1 men, but they may have been lying...

...Offices not Prizes the office of U. S. senator is not a prize to be delivered to any political party...

...But if a reasonable plan for actual government of the people by the people can be produced, and such government promotes the greatest good of the greatest number more effectively than the party plan, this government by political parties as we know them will be thrown on the scrap-heap with other inventions that were useful in their day, like the ox-team for fast freight and the stage coach for express travel...

...Thus the progressive element among the people cannot be held back by ignorance or corruption in the legislative assembly, nor by having their important measures pigeon-holed and delayed until they become heartsick and weary of the strife...

...This would be shutting out a very large percentage of the voters (and in most states a very considerable majority) from any voice whatever in the choice of their U. S. senators...

...all but the latter of the above list had been rejected by the legislature one or more times...

...1. "I further state to the people of Oregon as well as to the people of my legislative district, that during my term of office, I will always vote for that candidate for United States Senator in Congress who has received the highest number of the people's votes: for that position at the general election next preceding the election of a Senator in Congress, without regard to my individual preference...

...The Secretary of State reports that 28,788 Democrats were registered for the June election and that only 28,706 votes were cast for representative in Congress...

...The Direct Primary law, including Statement No...

...In this work we have sought to be fair to all political parties and to propose laws that should at all times be fair to the people and make the officers realize that they are in truth servants of the people...

...The trouble with the party pledge is that it is wrong in principle, and evil results are as sure to follow its use as they are to result from any other application of a wrong principle...

...By WILIAM S. U'REN AT the general election in June last year, the people of Oregon by plurality vote selected George E. Chamberlain, a Democrat, to represent this state in the United States Senate...

...I have studied and analyzed very carefully the registration and election returns for our campaign last year, and I can find no reason to believe that one voter in a hundred in Oregon registered his party politics falsely...

...It is not necessary that any undesirable complications attend the Statement No...

...The People are Supreme THIS result in the contest of the people for power is a demonstration of the value of the people's initiative for proposing laws and constitutional amendments...

...This is certainly a wonderful advance in political morals over the system of a few years ago when mercenaries often voted in another party's primaries for the purpose of helping one faction or the other...

...If there had been such they would have betrayed the fact by voting for Democratic Congressmen in June...

...No man would propose to amend the constitution of the United States by requiring the political party which happens to have a majority of the members of the legislature to elect for United States senator the candidate of that party who had received a plurality of his party vote at the nominating election, or even a majority of the votes of his party...

...If any number worth mentioning had registered falsely as Republicans the Democratic vote for Congressman in June would have been much greater than the Democratic registration, but in fact it fell short 82 votes...

...The people are certainly taking a greater and much more direct share in the government and are taking a very much more personal interest in it under the method recently adopted than they ever did before...

...At the general election nearly 19,000 Republicans voted for Chamberlain, the Democrat, in preference to the Republican candidate...

...In this effort they were much hampered by the Corrupt Practices law enacted by the people last June...

...Of the fifty-three members obeying the people's instructions, fifty-one had subscribed to the Statement No...

...As a general rule the voters seem to be very much better satisfied with the results...

...The legislature consists of ninety members and seventy-five of these are Republicans...

...But in this matter our people have proceeded in all things on the theory that the people are and have a right to be supreme, and following this principle, the choice of United States senator should be decided by the vote of all the people and not by a plurality of that portion who happen for the day to constitute the dominant political party...