Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/317

286 steered us; sent drafts of bills and pamphlets containing arguments. I can’t recall his name.”

“U’Ren?”

“That’s it; that’s the man.”

They are getting good laws in the State of Washington, also. I asked in Seattle where they came from. Very few knew, but those that did said: “U’Ren of Oregon.”

The first time I heard this name was in Rhode Island. Ex-Governor Garvin, the advocate of democratic legislation for that law-bound state, knew about U’Ren. After that I used to come upon his influence in many states and cities where men were tinkering with the sacred constitutional machinery that won’t let democracy go. But my last encounter with the mysterious ubiquity of this singular man’s influence was amusing. Spreckels, Heney, and the other fighters for San Francisco thought of going to the people on a certain proposition and, seeing thus the uses of the referendum, wanted it. I suggested writing to U’Ren. They never had heard of him, but they wrote, and he came. And he heard them out on their need of the referendum.

“But I think,” said U’Ren, “that you have it in your city charter.” Everybody looked incredulous. “Where is the book?” U’Ren asked. “I think I can find it. I certainly had