Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/382

378 upon our constitutional conventions. The personnel of these conventions is far superior to that of our state legislatures. While many of the latter have gained a reputation as fountains of political debauchery and have declined in influence, the former have remained in high repute. A seat in a constitutional convention is still an honor.

The best men in the community are still willing to serve in it, no matter at what cost to health or private affairs. I can not recall one convention which has incurred either odium or contempt. . . . In looking over the list of those who have figured in the conventions of the State of New York since the Eevolution, one finds the name of nearly every man of weight and prominence; and few lay it down without thinking how happy we should be if we could secure such service for our ordinary legislative bodies.

The demand for the referendum is the result of the deterioration which our state legislatures have already undergone.

Most of the objections to a larger measure of popular rule are merely notes of caution. The proper metes and bounds can only be determined in the light of further experience. In the mean time, it is the place of every intelligent man to keep an open mind. No plan of government is a finality. Our direct primary laws are still in the experimental stage. Some of them have been enacted by machine politicians with a view to discrediting them and are capable of great improvement. Even the fundamental guaranties of our federal and state constitutions need to be adapted to changing conditions either by interpretation or by formal amendment. The constitutional prohibition in Pennsylvania which prevents a law requiring wages to be paid in money may have once conserved the liberty of the individual, but such a prohibition to-day secures the form without the substance of liberty. Whether a given guaranty is fundamental or not is a matter upon which there may easily be differences of opinion. To hold that constitutional guaranties are immutable and that the majority after due deliberation has not the moral right to change them is to take them outside the realm of reason and discussion.

On constitutional matters practically no one questions the referendum. On local matters, such as the liquor question, increasing the bonded debt of a city and granting franchises, where the issues are "simple and familiar to the voters," it has an acknowledged field of usefulness. The extension of the referendum to state-wide legislative acts is at the present time the bone of controversy. A century ago, however, the ratification of state constitutions by popular vote was viewed with similar misgivings. It was not till 1840 that this practise was generally recognized. At the outset, the state legislatures called