Page:The Atlantic Monthly, volume 97.djvu/810

796 ratified by the people in 1904, admits of the amendment of the constitution by the initiative of the people, but is more severe in its requirements than the Oregon amendment. Ten per cent of the electors may, by signed petitions, require the legislature to submit to a referendum any measure which it may have enacted; fifteen per cent may propose any law or the amendment or repeal of any law, and require a referendum on its proposal; and twenty per cent may propose any amendment to the constitution, and demand its submission to the vote of the people. It is required further in each case that the designated proportion of electors shall be recorded in the petitions from each congressional district. This is a provision in the interest of conservatism; for, before the condition can be met, it is necessary that any proposal shall find favor with ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent of the voters in each district, and lack of interest in any congressional constituency cannot be offset by enthusiastic support in others. Only a desire widely diffused among the people would be able to overcome this obstacle.

The present is an off-year in state legislation. In most of the states, the legislatures meet biennially, in the odd-numbered years. In most of the legislatures in session this year, however, the initiative-referendum in some form has been under consideration. In one state, Maryland, the proposal has taken the extreme form of intrusting the initiative, not only in the enactment of laws, but in the amendment of the constitution, to only five per cent of the electors. It is perfectly safe to predict that, in the thirty-five or forty legislatures which will be in session next year, advocates of the initiative-referendum will hold the centre of the stage. Woman suffragists, prohibitionists, single-taxers, socialists, and other groups of voters who despair of getting their special propositions through the legislatures, will combine to press the system of direct legislation and constitution - mending, which gives each of them a chance; and they will be reinforced by amiable theorists who are attracted by the idea of securing for the people a larger measure of power.

In some quarters, it is treated as a kind of treason to popular government to express doubt of the wisdom of such proposals. "Cannot the people be trusted? " it is asked. Doubtless they can. But it is for the interest of the people that proposals for new laws, and, still more, for changes in the fundamental law, should be scrutinized, sifted, and debated before they are put upon the statute-books or incorporated in constitutions. Under our system of government, no real demand of the majority of the people can go long unsatisfied. What the people really want, sooner or later they will get. But they will be no worse off if the concession of their demands is deferred long enough to allow time to consider whether the thing that is offered is really the thing that they want. If existing processes for the amendment of constitutions are slow and sometimes disappointing, they are at least safer than a system which allows only four months' time for so radical a change as that proposed in Oregon. Half unwittingly, we are drifting upon conditions which threaten revolutionary changes in our institutions. At the risk of whatever odium, conservative-minded folk should pull themselves together and inquire whether the time to resist these changes is not at the beginning rather than later on. If the extension of the initiative may not be checked, the provisions for its exercise may at least be safeguarded, and its operation may be made more orderly and deliberate.