THE ROLL CALL

...Many of us do not even vote on the selection of officers who are to ad-minister this government and whose official acts for the time being constitute this government which is of such vital importance,, to us...

...Our government was established and continues to be a government of the people in the sense that it governs the people...

...Big Business does not neglect our public affairs...

...We know now that they have been doing this thing for a long time, doing it continuously and systematically and more or less openly, somewhat less openly of late, but doing it none the less and doing it in every department, administrative, judicial and legislative, in city, state, and nation...

...We may have government by the people through agents, through representation, just as truly as though the people take the conduct of their government into their own hands, provided that we establish a means of securing faithful representation and a means of securing in government the true expression of the will of the people...

...In our private affairs, which seem so much more important to us, we have been going ourselves...

...The need for this intervention, for collective action by the people through their duly constituted government to preserve and promote their own welfare, is a need that is growing more and more important and imperative to meet the rapidly growing power of commerce, industry and finance, centralized and organized in the hands of a few men...

...With the exception of members of the state legislature, who may be removed at any time after five days from the beginning of the first session for which they are elected, no petition can be circulated against an official until he has held office at least six months...

...The votes cast on the measures were about equal to one-half of the total vote cast for Governor...

...Big Business "Finds Time" for Politics NOTWITHSTANDING the vast importance to us of our own government, through which alone we can present any effective organized effort of self-protection, how few of us give to it even a tithe of the attention and consideration which it properly demands of us...

...Many of the state constitutions have long required a referendum vote on all measures relating to certain questions, such as taxation, education, etc...

...It is our own fault that the thing has gone on so long...

...These seem to us the merest truisms, the application to the conduct of public business of practices which have been found indispensable safe-guards in the conduct of private business...

...The Growing Importance of Government WITH the growing complexity of our social and business relations, a great extension of governmental functions has been necessary...

...Direct Legislation in Practice THE Initiative is the right of voters by petition to initiate or propose laws, ordinances, or constitutional amendments...

...South Dakota voted by referendum on woman suffrage and rejected it, while Washington by referendum vote adopted an amendment to its constitution providing for woman suffrage...

...In the legislative branch this breach of public trust has been most common, most flagrant, simply because here the opportunities for it have been more frequent and responsibility less certain...

...At the present time Delaware is the only state in which a referendum vote is not required to amend the constitution...

...We reserve the right to do it, and the fact that we have this right and may exercise it keeps the agent faithful and diligent and attentive to our business...

...The imposition upon the people of the duty of giving more study and consideration to their public affairs, which we have seen urged against direct legislation, is not the least of its everlasting benefits...

...Of these 9 were adopted and 23 rejected by the voters...

...How few of us give to our public affairs the measure of attention which would be dictated by the merest considerations of intelligent self-interest...

...In Missouri all referendum measures went down before a terrific campaign made to defeat one of them, which was prohibition...

...so in our public business we should provide that laws made by our city councils and our legislatures, laws which affect OUR interests in important matters, shall be submitted to and approved by us before they shall become laws binding upon us and governing us in our political and economic relations...

...How Insure Popular Government NOR does this mean that we must change our form of government...

...we discharge him...

...And, more especi-ally still, do we think so where we find our accredited public agents conducting our government to enrich System business AT OUR EXPENSE...

...Government of the people, by the people and for the people" has perished from the earth in the United States of America...

...The People do not Rule THIS thing has gone on and on in city, state and nation, until today the paramount power in our land is not a Democracy, not a Republic, but an Autocracy of centralized, system-ized business, industrial and financial...

...The petition must state the reason for which the official is recalled and if he does not resign within five days after the filing of the petition, a special election must be held to determine whether he shall be compelled to surrender his office...

...This is notably so in Oregon, where they have been in force long enough to be fairly tried and where they have the general support and approval of the people...

...So in our public affairs, instead of appointing our agents irrevocably for a term of years and retaining them in office to the end of the term, regardless of their incompetence or faithlessness, we should reserve by law the right to terminate their authority to act for us, and to recall them from office...

...Both the Initiative and the Referendum are American institutions older .nan the Federal Constitution The state-wide initiative for constitutional amendments was provided for in the constitution of Georgia as early as 1777, and the General Court of Massachusetts submitted a constitution to a referendum vote of the people as eaily as 1778...

...Among these are South Dakota (1898), Utah (1900), Oregon (1902...

...How different from the course which we, the people, pursue in neglecting our public affairs, is the course and conduct of Big Business, of the System...

...The judgment rests with those who are to be bound by his conduct as their agent...

...The agent is entitled to submit his case to the whole body of those whom he represents and the claims on both sides are presented directly to the voters and to each of them upon his ballot...

...Hence, our important problems of government are no longer) political, but economic problems...

...Within recent years a number of States have adopted constitutional amendments providing for the initiative or referendum, or both, in matters of general legislation...

...The authority of state and nation reaches out in numberless and hitherto unknown forms affecting and regulating directly and indirectly our daily lives, our occupations, our earning power and our cost of living...

...As in our private business, when we use an agent, we customarily reserve and exercise in important matters the right to subject his acts done in our name and in our behalf to our consideration and approval before they shall become binding upon us...

...Our public affairs affect us as directly, or at least as certainly and in many ways much more potently than do many of our private enterprise!.' Indeed, our success in our private enterprises, nay even equality of opportunity to engage in private enterprises, is coming more and more to depend upon the measure of protection which we may receive through our government from the unjust encroachments of the power of centralized Big Business...

...It is interested in politics for business reasons and for these reasons has made politics a department of its business...

...In Wisconsin, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, California, North Dakota, Massachusetts, and perhaps also in other States, an initiative and referendum amendment to the state constitution was promised by both leading parties in the late campaign, and the legislature is bound to pass a law submitting the necessary amendment to the people at the coming session...

...To make this government of the people in truth a government for the people it must be made in fact a government by the people...

...For upon our physical well-bsing are largely dependent our moral, social and intellectual conditions...

...They are problems that havei to do, primarily, with the production and distribution of those things which make directly for our physical well-being...

...The fanciful "arguments" that have been heard against it have disappeared in the face of fair trial and experiment like snow before the noon sun...

...Thus far, no instance has arisen in which it has been seriously contended that there has been any abuse or unjust harassment of public officials through the recall...

...The movement for direct legislation was unaccountably slow in starting, but once started it is bound to spread with great rapidity...

...It appreciates the strategic importance of the control of our government in effecting and maintaining its control of the commercial, financial, industrial and transportation business of the country...

...In the cities of Des Moines, Iowa, and Los Angeles, California, the recall has served to preserve valuable public interests from the wrongful omissions or acts of public officials, who would otherwise have been irresponsive to the will of the people...

...Especially do we think this is so in view of what we know of the failures and shortcomings of our agents whom we have entrusted from time to time with the business of running our government for us...

...The people's agent is properly confronted with the charges against him...

...The System, whose business affairs are vastly larger, the System, which deals in millions when we deal in hundreds, can find time to be interested in politics...

...The Referendum may be defined as the right of the voters by petition to have measures passed upon by the legislature referred to popular vote for approval or disapproval...

...If it was good advice in the days of Ben Franklin, it is good today, and if it is good advice for our private errands it is good also to apply to our public business...

...It is the obvious, common-sense method of insuring responsibility and responsiveness in the conduct °f public business in all cases where it is necessary or desirable to commit our public business to agents and representatives to act for us...

...And, when we have sent an agent, we have watched him closely and held him strictly to account, discharging him if he proved unfaithful and ever looking sharply to save ourselves harmless, if possible, from the consequence of his misdeeds...

...It was intended, also, to be a government for the people, that is, a government in the interest of the people, but it has ceased in large measure to be a government for the people, because it was established as a government only indirectly BY the people and because the people themselves have not extended their direct control over it and their direct participation in it...

...But, "we, the people," are so busy with our private affairs, in this new and growing country of ours, that we haven't properly taken care of our interests in our own government...

...In our private business, if we use an agent and he is unfaithful to his trust or negligent in the performance of his duty...

...This provision, then, embodies practices substantially such as are found in any well ordered business...

...The Recall IN THE State of Oregon, the people by a vote of nearly two to one in 1908, adopted a constitutional amendment providing that any public officer in that State may be recalled by filing a petition signed by twenty-five per cent, of the number of the electors who voted in his district in the preceding election...

...to discharge our errands, at least our important errands...

...Of those of us who vote, many do not take the trouble to inform themselves upon the character or affiliations of the men for whom they vote, or of their past records, of the good faith and ability with which they may or may not have discharged the public trusts heretofore committed to them...

...The charges must come from a responsible and representative source: namely, twenty-five per cent, of the voters themselves...

...In Maine, where direct legislation was given its first trial in the fall election, three propositions were passed upon and all were rejected...

...In the last election 32 measures were submitted to the voters of Oregon...

...On the ballot each side may print a statement for or against the recall, in not to exceed two hundred words...

...While in some of those States in which they have been provided, the initiative and referendum provisions are too imperfect to be of great value, and in one instance the legislature, by failing to enact legislation to provide the necessary machinery, has rendered the provision nugatory, in a majority of them the initiative and referendum are efficient and highly satisfactory...

...We could put an end to it if we would...

...As in our private business, though we may act by agent, we reserve the right and in important matters take the conduct of our business into our own hands...

...Nevada (1904), Montana (1906), Oklahoma (1907), Maine (1908), Missouri (1908), Arkansas (1910), and Colorado which adopted the initiative and referendum amendment to its constitution at the recent election by a vote of four to one...

...We have failed, heretofore, to appreciate the growing importance to us individually of having our government in city, state and nation conducted with a sole regard to the highest welfare of all of US, THE PEOPLE...

...In the Initiative, the Referendum and the Recall, as now well known in foreign countries and in some American States and cities, we have worked out in detail the appropriate machinery for putting these principles into practical operation in our public affairs...

...By making our public agents its private agents, our representatives in government its representatives in business, it makes our government, which should be our bulwark against its unlawful encroachments upon our political and industrial rights, its instrument for our oppression and exploitation...

...In Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota, Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington such an amendment was promised by one of the leading parties in the last campaign...

...Thus, the importance to us of our government is greater and different than it has ever' been before in the history of mankind...

...so in our public business of making laws which are to govern us, we should reserve and exercise the right to act for ourselves whenever for any reason we can not depend upon our agent in the city council, or state or federal legislature to enact legislation required in the public interest...