Page:Address of Frederick V. Holman at Oregon Bar Association annual meeting.djvu/51

 by the initiative is one of the strongest reasons against its use. If the voters will not seriously, carefully, intelligently and conscientiously act, then it must continue to be a failure and, at the same time, a menace to the stability of government as it has heretofore prevailed in the United States.

Consider the vote by which this amendment was adopted! Initiative amendments do not require a majority of all the voters, merely a majority of the votes cast for or against the amendment. The total number of votes cast for Governor, which was less than the number of registered voters, at the election November 8, 1910, when this amendment was adopted, was 117,690. The vote in favor of the adoption of this amendment was 44,545, and against its adoption 39,307. The affirmative votes were 14,301 less than a majority, a proportion of votes cast for the amendment as compared with the total votes for Governor of less than thirty-eight per cent. There were 33,738 voters for Governor who did not vote on the amendment at all. The total number of voters who voted against this amendment, and those who did not vote on it, is 73,045, as against 44,545 who voted for it. And thus a Constitution is amended in Oregon and the vital principles of American institutions and the precedents of law, and the safeguards of liberty and of a republican form of government, may be set aside.

It may be that my conclusions as to the effect of this amendment are wrong, but I believe I am right. In any event, a radical change has been made in Oregon's fundamental law. It is true, the Oregon Supreme Court may, by its decisions, amend this initiative amendment of Article VII, and say that its effect must be as the Supreme Court decides. It was held in Straw v. Harris, 54 Ogn. 424 (103 Pacific Reporter, 777), that "the language used in the amendment considered would appear to give" certain powers, and that "whatever may be the literal import of the amendment, it cannot be held that the Oregon Constitution can be so amended." But this is a limitation on the power of the voters of Oregon to amend the Constitution, and is a limitation that is not now in the Constitution itself. What then of this sacred right of the initiative? And what of the doctrine, by which it is upheld—that the people are never wrong? And thus