Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/336

 with anybody else. Having the parties pledged, he set about making them keep their promises. He lighted a lire behind them.

U'Ren went to the people. They were ready for him. The year was 1893. Discontent was widespread. Agitation had taken the form of a demand that the Legislature to be elected in 1894 should call a constitutional convention to rectify all evils, and U'Ren was one of the many workers who went about pledging candidates. But he and the Luellings concentrated on the "I. & R.," as they called the initiative and referendum. As secretary of the Direct Legislation League he got up a folder stating simply the democratic principle underlying the initiative and referendum and the results to be expected from it. Direct legislation was an acknowledgment of the right of the people to govern themselves and a device to enable them to do so. The I. & R." would put it in the power of the voters to start or stop any legislation, just like a boss. In other words, it would make the people boss; the legislators would have to represent the voters who elected them, not radroads and not any other "interest." Nobody could object (openly) to this; at least, nobody would out there in that Western state where the failures of democracy were ascribed, not as in the East, to the people,