Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/385

Rh of our legislative assemblies have not been uncommon. As a result, there has long been a tendency to shackle our legislatures with more stringent constitutional restrictions. Numerous statutory enactments have been written into the organic law of many of the states which the legislature can not change. Provisions in the statutes of some states are often found in the constitutions of other states. The referendum and the initiative are another device to prevent an abuse of legislative power.

President Woodrow Wilson says:

Our legislative bodies sometimes yield to the passions of the hour, but the cowardice and irresponsibility which lead to this result are to some extent induced by the fact that the courts may set aside what the legislature enacts. The contention that the referendum will lower the standing of our legislatures is open to question, but there can be no doubt that judicial control has promoted trifling on the part of our legislative bodies and undermined their authority. So long as the Interstate Commerce Commission was not clothed with the substance of power, the railways occasionally treated it with contempt by waiting to present their side of a controversy until it was taken up by the courts. In like manner, judicial control lessens the reliance of property owners upon political action and causes undue reliance upon the judiciary. It seems probable that many members of our legislatures would treat the railway interests with more consideration if they knew that legislative indiscretion would not have to run the gauntlet of the courts.

Notwithstanding the undermining influence of judicial control upon legislative authority, the railways have found political action by no means unavailing. It is notorious that the legislatures of many states have done the bidding of the railways in practically everything that has concerned the railway interest. Likewise, our municipal governments