Theodore Roosevelt

“ The difference was in the men who made up the community, in the men who administered the laws, and in the men who put in power the administrators.
If we choose Senators by popular vote instead of through the Legislatures, we shall not thereby have secured good representatives; we shall merely have given the people a better chance to get good representatives. If they choose bad men, unworthy men, whether their unworthiness take the form of corruption or demagogy, of truckling to special interests or of truckling to the mob, we shall have worked no improvement. ”

“ The end is to secure justice, equality of opportunity in industrial as well as in political matters, to safeguard the interests of all the people, and work for a system which shall promote the general diffusion of well-being and yet give ample rewards to those who in any walk of life and in any kind of work render exceptional service to the community as a whole. ”

“ Incidentally the referendum is certain to be of great use in a particular class of cases which very much puzzle the average legislator—where a minority of his constituents, but a large and influential minority, may demand something concerning which there is grave doubt whether the majority does or does not sympathize with the demand. In such a case the minority is active and determined; the majority can be roused only if the question is directly before it. In other words, the majority does not count it for righteousness in a representative if he refuses to yield to a minority ”

“ I believe that it would be a good thing to have the principle of the initiative and the referendum applied in most of our States, always provided that it be so safeguarded as to prevent its being used either wantonly or in a spirit of levity. In other words, if the legislature fails to act one way or the other on some bill as to which there is a genuine popular demand, then there should unquestionably be power in the people through the initiative to compel such action. ”

“ If there is any worse form of government than that of a plutocracy, it is one which oscillates between control by a pluvtocracy and control by a mob. It ought not to be necessary to point out that popular rule is the antithesis of mob rule; just as the fact that the Nation was in arms during the Civil War meant that there was no room in the country for armed mobs. Popular rule means not that the richest man in the country is given less than his right to a share in the work of guiding the government ”

“ Special interests which would be powerless in a general election may be all-powerful in a legislature if they enlist the services of a few skillful tacticians; and the result is the same whether these tacticians are unscrupulous and are hired by the special interests, or whether they are sincere men who honestly believe that the people desire what is wrong and should not be allowed to have it. Normally a representative should represent his constituents. ”

“ The opponents of the referendum and initiative, therefore, would do well to remember that the movement in favor of the two is largely due to the failure of the representative bodies really to represent the people. There has been a growing feeling that there should be more direct popular action as an alternative, not to the action of an ideal legislative body, but to the actions of legislative bodies as they are now too often found in very fact to act. ”

“ I refer to the New England town meeting, at which all purely town matters are decided without appeal by the vote of the townspeople in meeting assembled. In no other part of the world, save in two or three cantons of Switzerland, and perhaps in certain districts of Norway, is there any form of government so absolutely democratic, so absolutely popular, as the New England town meeting. ”

“ On the other hand, the surest way to bring about mob rule is to have a government based on privilege, the kind of government desired not only by the beneficiaries of privilege, but by many honest reactionaries of dim vision; for the exasperation caused by such a government is sure in the end to produce a violent reaction and accompanying excesses. The Progress-"ives, in fighting for sane and steady progress, are doing all they can to safeguard the country against this kind of unhealthy oscillation, of government by convulsion. ”

“ This work they ought to delegate to the legislators, who are to make it their special business; and if scores of bills are habitually presented for popular approval or disapproval at every election, it is not probable that good will come, and it is certain that the percentage of wise decisions by the people will be less than if only a few propositions of really great importance are presented. It is necessary to guard not only against the cranks and well-meaning busybodies with fads, but also against the extreme laxity with which men are accustomed to sign petitions. ”

“ If on any point of real importance he finds that he conscientiously differs with them, he must, as a matter of course, follow his conscience, and thereby he may not only perform his highest duty, but also render the highest possible service to his constituents themselves. But in such case he should not try to achieve his purpose by tricking his constituents or by adroitly seeking at the same time to thwart their wishes in secret and yet apparently to act so as to retain their good will. ”

“ But it is often impossible to establish genuine popular rule and get rid of privilege, without the use of new devices to meet new needs. I think that this is the situation which now confronts us in the United States, and that the adoption in principle of the programme on which the Progressives, especially in the West, are tending to unite offers us the best chance to achieve the desired result. ”

“ Every one is agreed that there must be a popular referendum on such a fundamental matter as a Constitutional change, and in New York State we already have what is really a referendum on various other propositions by which the State or one of its local subdivisions passes upon the propriety of action which implies the spending of money, permission to establish a trolley line system or something of the kind. ”

“ Ours is a government of laws, but every one should keep always before him the fact that no law is worth anything unless there is the right kind of man behind it. In tropical America there are many republics whose constitutions and laws are practically identical with ours, yet some of these republics have, throughout their governmental career, alternated between despotism and anarchy, and have failed in striking fashion at every point where in equally striking fashion we have succeeded. ”

“ He should never put holding his office above keeping straight with his conscience, and if the measure as to which he differs with his constituents is of sufficient importance, he should be prepared to go out of office rather than surrender on a matter of vital principle. Normally, however, he must remember that the very meaning of the word representative is that the constituents shall be represented. ”

“ There is a constantly growing feeling also in favor of the election of United States Senators by direct popular vote. On this point, as indeed on most of these points, there is room for honest divergence of opinion, but I believe that the weight of conviction is on the side of those who would elect the Senators by popular vote, and that the general feeling is inclining this way. The arguments made against such method of election are practically the same as the arguments originally made against the election of President by popular vote ”

“ Any device that under given conditions achieves this end is good for those conditions, and the value of each device must be tested purely by the answer to the question, Does it or does it not secure the end in view? One of the worst faults that can be committed by practical men engaged in the difficult work of self-government is to make a fetish of a name, or to confound the means with the end. ”

“ Herbert Croly's "Promise of American Life," the most profound and illuminating study of our National conditions which has appeared for many years, especial emphasis is laid on the assertion that the whole point of our governmental experiment lies in the fact that it is a genuine effort to achieve true democracy—both political and industrial. ”

“ The movement for direct popular government in Oregon, for instance, was in part the inevitable consequence of the gross betrayal of their trust by various representatives of Oregon in the National and State legislatures, and by the men put in appointive office through the exertions of these representatives. ”

“ There are plenty of cases in which, on a given issue of sufficient importance, it is better that the people should decide for themselves rather than trust the decision to a body of representatives— and our present-day acceptance of this fact is shown by our insistence upon a direct vote of the State when the State adopts a new Constitution. But ordinary citizens n private life—such as the present writer, and most of his readers— neither can nor ought to spend their time in following all the minutiae of legislation. ”

“ There have been in the past plenty of unworthy Governors and Congressmen elected, just as there have been plenty of bad Senators elected. Similarly, if the direct primary merely means additional expense without compensating advantage in wise and just action, the gain will be nil. At present there are cities where the direct primary obtains, in which, as far as I can see, the boss system is about as firmly rooted as in those cities where the direct primary has not been introduced. ”

“ Unfortunately, however, in actual practice, too many of our legislative bodies have not really been representative; and not a few of the ablest and most prominent men in public life have prided themselves on their ability to use parliamentary forms to defeat measures for which there was a great popular demand. ”

“ There is probably no class of men who ought to study history as carefully as reformers—except reactionaries, for whom the need is even greater. A careful study of eighteenth-century France ought to show the reactionary that the rejection, by the beneficiaries of special privilege, of wise and moderate progressiveness, like that of Turgot, inevitably tends to produce the most calamitous explosion ”

“ The initiative and the referendum are devices for giving better and more immediate effect to the popular will. If in any given State—Vermont, for instance, or Massachusetts, or New Hampshire, or New Jersey, or New York—the people are not now ready to adopt either, or even if they never become ready—why! ”

“ In such cases the temptation to the ordinary legislator is very great to yield to the demand of the minority, as he fears its concrete and interested wrath much more than the tepid disapproval of the majority. In all such questions the referendum would offer much the wisest and most efficient and satisfactory solution. ”

“ Such a body, if composed of men of unusual courage, intelligence, sympathy, and high-mindedness, anxious to represent the people, and at the same time conscientious in their determination to do nothing that is wrong, would so act that there would never come the slightest demand for any change in the methods of enacting laws. ”

“ Moreover, where popular interest is sufficiently keen, as it has been in the case of certain amendments to the National Constitution at various times in the past, we see what is practically the initiative under another name. ”

“ Similarly, on any bill important enough to arouse genuine public interest there should be power for the people to insist upon the bill being referred to popular vote, so that the constituents may authoritatively determine whether or not their representatives have misrepresented them. ”

“ We do not want to produce a dead level of achievement and reward; we want to give the exceptional rewards, in the way of approbation or in whatever other fashion may be necessary, to the exceptional men, the Lincolns, Grants, Marshalls, Emersons, Longfellows, Edisons, Pearys, who each in his own line does some special service ”

“ Nominal republics with a high aggregate of industrial prosperity, and governed normally by rich traders and manufacturers in their own real or fancied interest, but occasionally by violent and foolish mobs, have existed in many previous ages. ”

“ If both States show equally well in these matters, why, it means that each has devised the instrument best suited for its own needs. It is folly not to adopt the new instrument if experience shows it to be an instrument which usually produces better results ”

“ It is his duty to try to lead them to accept his views, and it is their duty to give him as large a latitude as possible in matters of conscience, realizing that the more conscientious the representative is the better he will in general represent them ”

“ But if it is rendered too easy to invoke either process, the result can be only mischievous. The same considerations which are more and more tending to make thoughtful people believe that genuine popular control is best exercised through the Short Ballot have weight here also. ”