Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/738

 722 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

It will educate the people, intellectually and morally.

It will stop class legislation and give labor her rights Farmers and

artisans are not fairly represented in legislative bodies, but at the polls they will have their due preponderance and can pass such laws as they please.

Direct legislation (i. e., the initiative) tends to stability, .... acting as a safety-valve for discontent.

It favors wealth-diffusion by depriving the wealthy of their enormous overweight in government, and giving preponderance of legislative power to the common people whose interests are opposed to the vast aggregation of private capital.

The income tax will have a chance, and the nationalisation of railways and telegraphs.

All private monopolies will become public property or have their horns sawed off.

Experience here and in Switzerland has proven the measureless value of direct legislation, and the utter futility of all objections raised against it.

It is worth while to examine in some detail the assertions so confidently made. It will shed much light upon the real objects which it is hoped may be gained through the direct legislation scheme, as well as indicate the character of the forces that are being marshaled in favor of it.

Not much time need be spent on the claim that it will perfect the representative system. Logically, if the people are to make the laws, what difference does it make to them whether or not the legislatures are more perfect than now? Also the question may be asked here, as in connection with almost every other point involved : What reason is there to assume that, if the people are too incompetent or too negligent to select reliable representatives, they will be competent and watchful enough to frame and pass meritorious laws ? The claim that better men would be attracted to political life is an assumption entirely impossible of demonstra- tion or denial. But the next assertion, that the obligatory refer- endum and popular initiative system would simplify elections and separate the popular judgment on men from the judgment on issues, is a solecism so obvious that it almost creates admiration for the audacity of the utterance. The claim is more than absurd. Under any such scheme elections would be multiplied, and men and measures would be infinitely more confused than now. This has been proved by the mere effort to obtain such a law. It can-