Page:The Atlantic Monthly, volume 97.djvu/807

Rh the amendment, therefore, would have required an affirmative vote of 40,976.

If the friends of equal suffrage in Oregon were working now under the old system, they could not, under the most favorable conditions, achieve their end before June, 1910. Their proposal would have to run the gauntlet of the legislature convening in January, 1907, and again of that convening in January, 1909, and could not be submitted to the people until the general election in June, 1910. Contrast with this the speed attained under the initiative-referendum. All that is required to set the machinery of amending the constitution in motion is a petition signed by qualified electors to a number equal to eight per cent of the vote cast at the last preceding general election for justice of the Supreme Court. In the present instance, this number was 9,904. The petitioners, under the constitution, had until February 4 to file their petitions; and the whole process, from that date to the day of the general election (after which, if a majority of those voting on the proposition vote in the affirmative, the amendment becomes immediately effective), requires only four months. This, certainly, is headlong speed in constitution-mending, and even those Americans who are not ultra-conservative may be pardoned if they feel a little nervous over the possibilities which it involves.

The initiative was applied to the direct enactment of laws in Oregon two years ago. The same number of voters are required as signers to the petitions as in the case of an amendment to the constitution. Three measures were thus brought before the people in June, 1904. One was a proposal for a direct-primary law; another, for a local-option law; and a third for the payment of a salary to the state printer instead of fees. The first two measures had been repeatedly defeated in the legislature; but they were enacted by the people at the polls, the first by a vote of more than 5 to 1, and the second by a vote of nearly 4 to 1. The third proposal was defeated.

The constitutionality of the initiative-referendum was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Oregon in December, 1903. The case was that of Kadderly vs. Portland, and the decision of the court may be found in the 44th volume of the Oregon Reports. The court dismissed summarily certain contentions which had been raised regarding the conditions under which the vote upon the ratification of the initiative-referendum amendment to the constitution had been taken; and, with regard to the contention that it was in violation of the provision of the Federal Constitution which guarantees a republican form of government to the states, it ruled that, under the amendment, the people had simply reserved to themselves a larger share of legislative power, but they had not overthrown the republican form of the government, or substituted another in its place. Incidentally, the court delivered itself of two opinions, which have attracted little attention, but which materially restrict the operation of the amendment, and suggest the possibility of interesting complications in the future. These opinions relate to the application of the initiativereferendum to the enactment of laws. The court ruled, first, that laws proposed and enacted by the people under the initiative clause of the amendment "are subject to the same constitutional limitations as other statutes, and may be amended or repealed by the legislature at will;" and, second, that the provision in the amendment to the effect that "the veto power of the governor shall not extend to measures referred to the people " must necessarily "be confined to the measures which the legislature may refer, and cannot apply to acts upon which the referendum may be invoked by petition." The court went on to say that, unless the governor has a right to veto any act submitted to him, except such as the legislature may specially refer to the people, "one of the safeguards against hasty or ill-advised legislation which is everywhere regarded as essential is removed