Willard French

“ That a nation cannot exist without some kind of a sovereign head, even Socialists and Anarchists must admit. But unless the sovereign head is so restricted that it must be subservient to the welfare of the whole people, it is pure and simple despotism. That, too, we all admit. Americans understand this perfectly in its application to foreign nations. We approve the necessity and appreciate the value of every law curbing the power of kings. If we could only understand the application of the same principle at home, we should realize the cause, the quality, and the value of the Constitution. ”

“ The Constitution is a declaration of general principles, mutually agreed upon, and of the method by which the will of the whole people shall be deliberately crystallized into law, and the law be impartially enforced. It is a pledge which we made with one another at the start, that, whatever happens, the lives, the liberty, and the possessions of the whole people and the rights of every individual shall be sacred, under law. ”

“ Why do stockholders in banks and large corporations meet once a year and elect high-salaried officials to conduct the business, and a board of directors to sit in oversight, then drop the matter, satisfied that they have done their best for good dividends? That is representative government. It is the only way in which the affairs of a corporation or a nation can be successfully conducted. ”

“ We are accustomed to feel that we have demonstrated to the world that self-government is practical and productive of unparalleled prosperity. As a matter of fact, with the phenomenal surface riches of her vicinage, up to the present our country would have been phenominally prosperous under any reasonable form of government. But it is to the Constitution, preventing our becoming a despotism of fluctuating majorities, that we owe our dignity abroad, and the fact that at home we have remained "one and inseparable." ”

“ The Constitution already provides for the initiative, the referendum, and the recall, only under restrictions which insure deliberation and tend to secure justice. The direct result of the new method is to obliterate these safeguards of the minority. Every evil which has crept into our system can be eradicated under the Constitution as it stands, or if it is desirable to change it, there is but one clause of the Constitution which is not itself subject to recall or amendment, if it is the concerted and deliberate wish of the people. ”

“ Shall we turn from the way we have been following so successfully into a bypath which through all history has led only to anarchy and chaos? Shall we barter a birthright for a mess of pottage? Shall we permit History to repeat its saddest pages to pamper a few personal ambitions? ”

“ They are older than Christianity, and every effort to introduce them has resulted—as it will result with us—in the unrestrainable despotism of any temporary majority which can be roused by the strident voice of a successful agitator. It means nothing less than anarchy. It means that instead of being a free and independent people, we shall be hopelessly ignored, without even a court of justice to defend us in our human rights, whenever we happen to be in the minority. ”

“ Since the dawn of history, popular agitation has been a remunerative occupation; and increasing throngs of followers have in turn inspired the leaders, till their claims and promises have overtaken and outstripped even Nihilists and Socialists; drawing them into the new faith that the initiative, the referendum, the recall, placing us in direct control of every function of government will make us kings and princes all. ”

“ Under this new system, however, we must be ready to trust every man who is able to slip through our lax registration laws to answer every question which can be proposed; and we must abide by a majority of one, without the power of appeal. Many questions can be and will be put which it will be utterly impossible for an honest, intelligent man to answer with an unqualified yes or no. And yet the ballot-box is the supreme legislative instrument wherever unrestricted initiative, referendum, and recall are introduced. ”

“ Very few of us ever studied the Constitution. Probably not one in ten thousand of the legal voters of the United States ever read the document intelligently or has more than the vaguest notion of how it came to be and what it really is. And when we are told that it is only a set of regulations prepared for three million simple farm-folk, long before steam and electricity and other modern notions were heard of, it seems reasonable to believe that it can hardly be minutely applicable and helpful to ninety millions of people in the midst of the twentieth century. ”

“ It is a curb which we voluntarily placed upon ourselves, directly intended to preclude a temporary majority from abusing the sovereign power which is equally vested in us all. It is an arrangement of governmental machinery devised for the express purpose of preventing impulsive, ill-considered, hasty action from overruling the real will of the people and ignoring the rights of the minority. ”

“ But the great majority of matters referred to the people has met a response from only a decided minority of the people for whom they speak. The condition will not improve as the novelty wears off; but a small majority of a constantly dwindling minority of the registered voters will govern this country, absolutely in the interests of those in a position to instigate legislation—in the interests of bosses and machines improved and perfected by the new system. ”

“ There have always been those who, with Alexander Hamilton, doubted the invulnerable stability of a republican form of government, for the simple reason that the people, being the sovereign power, could unmake as easily as they made the saving compact, surrendering their sovereignty to the unrestricted tyranny of majorities, thereby signing their own death-warrant. ”

“ The sovereign power will no longer be the people, but any and every apparent majority at the polls. The ballot will no longer be restricted to the selection of representatives upon whom must rest the responsibility of legislation, but it will be in absolute command, making and repealing laws, freed even from the possibility of veto or appeal. ”

“ Restrained and protected by its limitations, the people rule to-day more truly, more justly, and much more wisely than can be possible in a direct government by majorities disclosed by the ballot-box. ”

“ The science of human duty does not change, and the better we study the new proposition, the more sinister its features seem; while the more we consider the Constitution, the better we are convinced that it was more than a temporary prop to federate a few colonies of victorious revolutionists ”

“ Wherever the system has been tested, thus far, the results show that those interested in the legislation will secure the mass of ignorant votes, and that those not interested will simply remain away from the polls, leaving those who are opposed in a small minority. Exceptional questions—broad questions of prohibition, for example—questions in which people generally are interested and upon which most people have a preconceived opinion, have secured fairly large votes. ”

“ It is a compact made in advance, by which we agree that when moments of passion come, moments of excitement, moments of bitter prejudices, we will then restrain ourselves, ignoring the temptation which will always present itself to the party numerically in power to indulge in drastic measures for the benefit of the majority. ”

“ We earnestly advocate such a compact between nations, because we know that the result will be world-peace, in perpetuity; yet we are deliberately abrogating the theory among ourselves when, just as surely, the result can be only disorder and chaos. ”

“ Men worthy of office will not stump for themselves through a preferential primary campaign, begging the populace to put their names in nomination. It is reasonable when a man has been nominated by his party and has the obligation thrown upon him to defend its interests ”

“ A great corporation, doing an intricate and complicated business all over the world, with thousands of stockholders scattered over the entire country, the great majority, numerically, being very small investors, from among the poor and illiterate. This corporation announces that every shareholder is to have one vote, irrespective of the amount of this holding; that any one has the privilege, whenever he will, of proposing any change in existing methods of doing business, or new regulations, or what he will ”

“ They have always failed, and their failures have carried nations to destruction. Every one of them is and always has been at war with all that is best and sound and preservative in every governmental policy on earth. ”

“ Observing a few preliminary regulations, any one who will may present to the people any problem which the ingenuity and ambition of interested individuals may devise, or any complicated question which shrewd politicians can construct. ”

“ Under the new system, especially in large cities, they will frequently be the effective power at the polls—the sovereign power, by producing a majority—making and administering our laws and regulating our courts by their ballots ”