Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/734

 718 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

tions only of public policy to be voted on, and only to ascertain the sentiment of the voters on such questions. The vote decides nothing. It leads to nothing definite. It simply gives the people, or rather the persons who circulate the petition, some basis to claim, should the vote be affirmative, that the legislature is in duty bound to pass laws in accordance therewith. This is the case at the present time. The questions of state and local initia- tive were voted on at the election of November, 1902. They did not receive a majority of all the votes cast, but they received a large majority of the votes cast on the questions. This was the basis for the Referendum League of Illinois demanding that the legislature submit the question of a constitutional amendment to establish the popular initiative in this state. The legislature (1903) refused to do so.

At the election in November, 1904, the Referendum League, under an alleged petition of 137,000 signatures, had submitted to the voters of the state three "direct" propositions, the first for direct primaries, the second for the " people's veto," the third for "home- rule in taxation." The first and second received a bare majority of all the votes cast in the state, the third a trifle less than a majority. All, however, had very large majorities of the votes cast on the questions, and their sponsors declare all to be the expressed will of the people, and that they should become laws.

At the city election in Chicago in April, 1904, the question of immediate municipal ownership of the street railways was voted on, under the Public Policy Law. The affirmative vote was 121,957; negative, 50,807; the total vote cast being 236,000 out of a registration of 400,000. Yet on this vote the loud and per- sistent claim has since been made that the council should "obey the will of the people " and proceed to acquire the street-railway properties, in the face of the absolute impossibility of its doing so on account of complex litigation and financial incapacity.

The Public Policy Law is useless and mischievous. It is deceptive in its objects and results, and used as a weapon by agitators.

As for the referendum, it has been in use in every state in the