Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/730

 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The referendum proper, in its different forms, may mean one thing or another : ( i ) the voluntary, or optional, referendum, by which legislatures or councils may submit laws which they have passed for adoption or rejection; (2) the obligatory referendum, under which certain laws (usually those affecting public policy or large expenditures of public money) must be so submitted; (3) what may be termed the sentimental referendum, generally referred to as the " Public Policy Law," which requires the elec- tion officials, whenever petitioned by a certain percentage of voters, to place upon the ballot questions of public policy merely for the purpose of ascertaining the sentiment of those who vote thereon. The obligatory referendum and the popular initiative have been advocated for years by national and state leagues, and of late nowhere more persistently than in Illinois. The senti- mental referendum is already in use in this state, and will be reverted to.

Thus the radical difference between the two, and the decep- tion of constantly yoking them together, is readily seen. By the initiative it is proposed that the people may directly control legislation, upon a petition of a certain percentage of the voters, from 5 to 15, according to different times and places ; this petition making it obligatory to place the question desired upon the ballot, " the action of the majority of electors to be final." Should it be a question affecting a whole state, the petition must be a per- centage of the voters in the state, the majority of the same. Should the question affect only a political subdivision, the petition and the majority apply only to such subdivision. But in either case there is to be no appeal from the majority voting on the question.

In spite of occasional protests to the contrary, the popular initiative is founded upon the general theory that representative government in this country is a failure. It implies also that con- stitutional government is a failure. Assuming this, it proposes to give the people en masse law-making powers independent of and superior to legislatures and councils; and laws thus enacted must stand as final, in defiance of constitutions or supreme courts. It proposes legislation without deliberation, lodges all veto power