Hon. John P. St. John, ex-Governor of Kansas, candidate of Prohibition party for Presidency:

I might write page after page on direct legislation, and at last the whole of it could be boiled down in the simple statement that I am fully convinced that the initiative and referendum will be the final solution of the question, How can reformers be gotten together? In view of the brutal, unprovoked murder of those poor, unarmed, defenseless miners at Hazleton, Pa., it is possible that the one great question which will over. shadow all others in 1900 will be the preservation and perpetuation of human liberty. This is a day of murder, suicide, robbery, hunger and starvation, the legitimate fruits of government controlled by monopolies and trusts, and direct legislation would give back to the people control of the govern

ment.

BOLTON HALL.

Bolton Hall, of New York:

The vast volume of legislation is at present the main obstacle in the way of liberty. Even to know what laws are passed in one legislature would occupy more than all a man's leisure time. Nearly all these laws are in somebody's special interest and as no one can have a special privilege except at the expense of the rest, nearly every such act has some advocates more or less informed and active.

That six to eight hundred laws, nevertheless, go through the New York Legislature each year is due to the improbability and futility of opposition by the many who have a small interest in each matter, to the few who have a great interest in it.

By puting a weapon in the hands of the leaders of the inert majority, direct legislation, especially the referendum, would make opposition to private laws easy and

effective. Combined with proportional representation it seems to me it would reduce legislation to the minimum, which is necessary for the public interest.

not worth the pains, and thus about the worst, most selfish, corrupt and demoralizing phase of our political system will be at once removed. Men will then divide on inatters of principle. Much of our difficulty in advancing popular reforms has been due to the impossibility of adopting any new system except as the result of a party fight which has invariably resulted and must invariably result in many men following their party and defeating their principles.

In my opinion you cannot leave too much power directly in the hands of the people as a whole.

Rev. John L. Scudder, pastor First Congregational Church (the People's Tabernacle), Jersey City, N. J.:

I regard direct legislation through the initiative and referendum by all means the most important and far-reaching reform of our day. The curse of our land is purchasable legislation, the disposition of our law

GOV. ANDREW E. LEE.

Hon. Andrew E. Lee, Governor of South Dakota:

It should take no argument to convince anyone not by birth, interest and instinct a royalist, that the people, being the source of all power in a representative government, should exercise that power. This should follow naturally in all matters of legislation and in the settlement and adjustment of public policies. The State is a great corporation, and every citizen is a stockholder, entitled to one vote and no more in the shaping of the policy of that corporation, no matter how great or wealthy or influential he may be. This is the State as it should be and will be under direct legislation.

I can see that the occupation of the lobbyist will be gone under direct legislation. When he is compelled to appeal his case directly to the voters of the State and submit his designs to the scrutiny of public discussion, he will conclude that his game is

REV. JOHN L. SCUDDER.

makers to sell out the people to the highest bidder. Under direct legislation bribery will cease and the sovereignty of the people will be something more than an empty name

and pleasing delusion. This reform is the basis and prerequisite of other popular reforms. It is bound to win. I will fight for it as long as I live.

Charlotte Perkins Stetson, author of "In This Our World" and other poems:

The proportion of voters necessary to a just exercise of the initiative and referendum is open to discussion, but the principle itself is not only just and simple, but wholly in line with the basic principle of our de

mocracy. Moreover, any abuses which may suggest themselves to the critic are easily seen to fall of their own weight, for 'the people are as open to the force of interest and inertia' as any legislature, and will not be stirred to take action save in matters which are of sufficient crucial importance to force themselves on popular attention. And when the people are roused to action in their own interest it seems modestly reasonable that they should have their own way.

I have no idea that the interests, feelings and opinions of three or four millions of people, especially as touching internal taxation, can be collected in such a house (House of Representatives). In the nature of things, nine times out of ten, men of the elevated classes only can be chosen.

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Should the United States be taxed by a House of Representatives of two hundred members, still the lower and middle classes of people could have no great show in fact in taxation.-Richard Henry Lee.

In the House of Representatives there is not the substance but the shadow of representation. -George Mason.

All the powers of government, legislative, executive and judiciary, result to the legislative body. The concentrating of these in the same hands is precisely the definition of a despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be

There are five main reasons why representation does not and cannot represent. (1) Whole classes of the people are not and cannot be represented (and these classes embrace more than half of the people) by men of their own class and condition, who are the only ones who can fully understand their wants and needs.

(2) Political parties are not properly represented and other parties not at all. All we have is geographical representation and though that may have been useful a century ago, it is useless now, because of changed conditions.

(3) From its very nature representation can only roughly approximate the wishes of the community. Only a few great interests can be thus determined; where many issues

exercised by a plurality of hands and not by a single one; one hundred and seventy-three despots will surely be as oppressive as one. An elective despotism was not the government we fought for. -Thomas Jefferson.

The minority, the educated men, embodies knowledge not possessed to the same extent by the majority, the men of the people, but the majority embodies wants and needs not felt to the same degree by the minority.-Emile De Girardin.

True representation does not exist. We have a sham representation. It gives a show of fairness, but it is crude and essentially unfair. It does not represent the people. It represents the politicians. We are a law-abiding people. Yet our laws are made by a minority of the people. and by an irresponsible oligarchy more dangerous than that our fathers revolted against.-Prof. John R. Commons.

are before the people it breaks down completely.

(4) Representation fails because of the weakness of human nature and the concentration of corruption.

(5) The size of the country has necessitated the building up of great political machines managed by bosses and the elected representative owes his nomination to the machine and its boss, and so renders first allegiance to him and not to the people.

The first of these reasons was very clearly seen by the founders of this country, as is shown by the first three quotations at the head of this article, and seventeen out of the fifty-five members of the constitutional convention refused to sign the report of that convention referring the constitution to the

people for adoption, mainly for this reason. It was not democratic enough; it did not afford a mouthpiece for the people. What were their remedies? They were men of great constructive ability.

Alexander Contee Hanson, Chancellor of Maryland, said: "The perfection of political science consists chiefly in providing mutual checks among the several departments of power, preserving at the same time the dependence of the greatest on the people."

John Dickinson said: "It has been unanimously agreed by the friends of liberty that frequent elections of the representatives of the people are the sovereign remedy of all the grievances in a free government."

Many other quotations might be given, but all their plans centered on these two methods of checks and frequent elections. These methods are efficient, but not sufficient.

Every one recognizes that the House of Representatives, whose members are elected every two years, comes nearer to truly representing the people than the Senate, whose members are chosen for six years and not directly by the people. Frequent elections do bring the representatives closer into touch with the people. But if the elections were so frequent that the people had complete control of their representatives, they would occur before every vote, and that would be absurd. But the more frequent the elections, the shorter time does the representative have in office. He cannot get acquainted with its duties till his term is nearly over. During this term he must manage for re-election; he cannot attend in an efficient manner to the work he is sent to do. This is the great advantage which the Senator has over the member of the House. His term is so long that he can become acquainted with his work, does not need to at once manipulate for re-election, and can show whether he is a really able man. Hence, in proportion to the number, more Senators are re-elected, despite their three times as long term, than members of the House. There are two sides to this question of frequent elections. Then there is the question of expense and also the stubborn. fact that if the elections are frequent, many people won't vote, though this is mainly due to the uselessness of voting. While fre

quent elections may be efficient to a certain extent, they are not sufficient.

The system of checks is good also. It is more difficult and tedious for any large interest to control the law-making power. Only the strongest attempt it. But it also makes it more difficult for the people to enforce their wishes when they want a change. The system of checks is like the fortifications around a city. It requires a long and difficult siege to get possession of them. The smaller, roving bands of marauding freebooters cannot attempt such a siege. Often an alarm may be raised by a patriotic official inside and help gained before the forts are taken. But when once a powerful enemy has made this siege and come into possession of all or nearly all these checks, it is equally difficult to dislodge him and, like Boss Tweed, he may stick his finger to his nose and say, "What are you going to do about it?" There are two sides, also, to checks, and while they are efficient in securing due deliberation in the passage of laws, they often prevent the passage of good laws and are instruments for thwarting the wishes of the people. They, too, are efficient, but not sufficient.

Having cleared the ground by giving the proper value to the methods of our constitution builders, let us analyze the five reasons why representation does not represent. When Lee said that men only of the "elevated classes" could be chosen, he spoke of a people of three or four million, and not of one of seventy million and of a people prac tically homogeneous and with a far nearer equality of economic and social conditions. Since his day, our people have been dividing into classes, the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the weak and the strong, and while the Anglo-Saxon element is still dominant, we have Irish-Americans, German Americans, Italian - Americans, French-Americans, Bohemian-Americans, Polish-Americans, and many others. Deplore these as you may, they are facts which must be recognized, and men of the "elecated classes only" can be chosen. Our middle classes are only partially represented in our legislatures and our lower classes not at all. In certain sections of the country it is almost as difficult for a poor man to get into a legislature as for a camel to go

through the eye of a needle, and in all sections it is growing increasingly difficult. Though the rich man may be educated and well-disposed and have superior knowledge, he does not know and cannot know from his very position the wants and needs of the lower classes; he cannot efficiently legislate for them.

In Lee's time, too, the educated classes considered it an honor to serve the people. They were elected to the legislatures and city councils, and usually did their work well. At present a man has got to go through so much political muck that few of the really elevated classes attempt it. Honest men dɔ not attempt it. This has gone so far that the office of an Alderman or City Councilor is almost looked on as a disgrace. We do not have a government of the "elevated classes," but one of the people, by the politicians who are in it for the money they can make from it, and so are in the pay of corporations, and so it is a government for the corporations.

Here are some facts to show this overrepresentation of the "elevated classes" and almost complete non-representation of the lower classes. In the Senate of the Fifty-third Congress, 64 or over 70 per cent. of the 86 members were lawyers, 6 bankers, 10 manufacturers or merchants, I a doctor, I a farmer and 4 are classed as miscellaneous. In the House, with 346 members, 245, or over 70 per cent., were lawyers, 14 bankers, 21 manufacturers or merchants, 5 doctors, 25 farmers, 8 editors and 28 miscellaneous. According to the census of 1880, out of 17,392,000 persons with occupations, .37 of 1 per cent. were lawyers, and yet they numbered over 70 per cent. of the legislators. Over 18 per cent. of the people are farm laborers and 25 per cent. are farmers and others engaged in agricultural work, making, with the laborers, 44 per cent., and they had one Senator and twenty-five members in the House, or about I per cent. of the legislators. Domestic laborers number 6 per cent., and other laborers over 10 per cent. Perhaps they are represented in the miscellaneous? Nearly 10 per cent. are engaged in trade and transportion. Where do they come in? The bankers number .09 of 1 per cent., and they have over one hundred times the representatives

they are entitled to in the six bankers in the Senate and the fourteen in the House. While there are doubtless enough railroad attorneys in both houses to amply represent the .38 of 1 per cent. of railroad officiais, where do the 236,000 of railroad employes come in, and the 204,000 draymen, and the 100,000 sailors, and the 381,000 clerks, and the 120,000 bookkeepers? These number over 7 per cent. of the working population. Doubtless the 487,000 traders and the 44,000 manufacturers, numbering 3 per cent., are represented by the ten manufacturers and merchants in the Senate and the twenty-one in the House. But how about the rest of those engaged in manufacturing? They are nearly 22 per cent. of our population.

The same is true of our local legislatures. During the decade from 1880 to 1890 the iawyers numbered nearly 60 per cent. of the Massachusetts legislatures. Of the fifteen cities producing the largest values in manufactured products, Newark, N. J., has the largest proportion of wage-workers to population, and yet not one of her eleven representatives in the State legislatures of the last four years is a wage-worker and most of them have been lawyers.

It is true of foreign law-making bodies. Four hundred and fifty railroad shareholders in England have twenty-two members of Parliament, while 380,000 railread employes have none. Eight hundred thousand agricultural laborers have one, and the land-owners have 130, besides the House of Lords, and they are fewer in propcrtion to the population than in this country. Ship-owners have twenty-five representatives, and 220,000 seamen have one. Mine owners have twenty-one and 655,000 miners have seven. There are fifteen millowners in Parliament, and not one operative; twenty-four iron-masters, and not one worker. This is true of all law-making bodies. The classes are not represented.

Many of these legislators are noble, patriotic men. But the best of them cannot help being biased by his training, occupation and associates. He will see his needs clearer than those of other walks of life. It is a truism that one-half of the people do know how the other half live, and if the lawmakers are taken so completely from