Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum Part 5

A fair idea of the proceedings at all town meetings may be gained through description of one. For several reasons, a detailed account here of what actually happened recently at a town meeting is, it seems to me, justified. At such a gathering is seen, in plain operation, in the primary political a.s.sembly, the principles of direct legislation. The departure from those principles in a representative gathering is then the more clearly seen. In many parts of the country, too, the methods of the town meeting are little known. By observing the transactions in particular, the reader will learn the variety in the play of democratic principle and draw from it instructive inference.

The town of Rockland, Plymouth county, in the east of Ma.s.sachusetts, has 5,200 inhabitants; a.s.sesses for taxation 5,787 acres of land; contains 1,078 dwelling houses, 800 of which are occupied by owners, and numbers 1,591 poll tax payers, who are therefore voters.

At 9 a.m., on Monday, March 2, 1891, 819 voters of Rockland a.s.sembled in the opera house for the annual town meeting, the "warrant" for which, in accordance with the law, had been publicly posted seven days before and published once in each of the two town newspapers. A presiding officer for the day, called a moderator, was elected by show of hands, after which an election by ballot for town officers for the ensuing year was begun. The supervisors of the voting were the town clerk and the three selectmen (the executive officers of the town), who were seated on a platform at one end of the hall. To cast his ballot, a voter mounted the platform, his name was called aloud by the clerk, his ballot was deposited, a check bell striking as it was thrown in the ballot-box, and the voter stepped on and down. The ballot was a printed one, its size, color, and type regulated by state law. When the voters had cast their ballots, five tellers, who had been chosen by show of hands, counted the vote. In this balloting for town officers, there was no division into Republicans and Democrats, although considerable grouping together through party a.s.sociation could be traced. The officers elected were a town clerk and treasurer; a board of three, to serve as selectmen, a.s.sessors, overseers of the poor, and fence viewers; three school committeemen; a water commissioner; a board of health of three members; two library trustees; three auditors, and seven constables.

A vote was also taken by ballot--"Yes" or "No"--on the question: "Shall licenses be granted for the sale of intoxicating liquors in this town?"

The yeas were 317; nays, 347. The form of ballot used in this case was precisely that invariably employed in the Referendum in Switzerland.

After a recess of an hour at midday, the business laid out in the "warrant" was resumed. There were present 700 to 800 voters, with, as on-lookers on the same floor, a large number of women, the princ.i.p.al and pupils of the high school, and the teachers and children of the grammar schools.

The "warrant" (the schedule for the meeting) consisted of forty-four "articles," each representing a matter to be debated and voted on--that is to say, a subject for legislation. These articles had been placed in the warrant by the selectmen, either on their own motion or on request of citizens. The election of moderator had taken place under article 1; that of town officers under article 2; the license vote under article 3.

The voting on the rest of the articles now took place by show of hands.

Article 4 related to the annual reports of the town officers, printed copies of which were to be had by each citizen. These were read and discussed. Article 5 related to the general appropriations for town expenses for the ensuing year. The following were decided on, each item being voted on separately:

For highway repairs $3,800 For military aid $500 For removing snow 300 For guideboards 50 For fire department 1,200 For abatement of taxes and For police service 500 collector's fee 500 For night watch 600 For support of poor 5,500 For town officers 2,200 For library, etc 1,000 For town committees, and For schools, proper 11,300 Abingdon records 50 For school-incidentals 1,000 For miscellaneous expenses 1,200 For school books 1,000 For interest 1,000 For hydrants 2,300 For memorial day 100 For water bonds, etc 2,500

Article 6, which was agreed to, authorized the town treasurer to borrow money in antic.i.p.ation of the collection of taxes; article 7 related to the method of collecting the town taxes. It was decided these should be farmed out to the lowest bidder, and, on the spot, a citizen secured the contract at sixty-eight cents on the hundred. Article 8 related to the powers of the tax collector; 9, to a list of jurors reported by the selectmen, which was accepted; 10, to methods of repairing highways and sidewalks; 11, to appropriating money for memorial day. Articles 10 and 11 were pa.s.sed over, having been covered in the general appropriations, and the selectmen were instructed to enforce in highway work the nine-hour law. Article 12, which was adopted, provided for a night watch; 13, relating to copying the records of Abingdon, had been pa.s.sed upon in the general appropriations; 14, providing for widening and straightening a street, was pa.s.sed, and $350 appropriated for the purpose; 15, providing for concrete sidewalks, excited much debate, and $300 was appropriated in addition to material on hand. Articles 16, appropriating $350 for draining a street, and 17, requesting the selectmen to lay out a water course on another street, were adopted.

Article 18, which was carried by a large majority, appropriated, in five items, discussed and voted on separately, $7,250 for the fire department. Article 19 appropriated $100 for a town road, 20 $200 for another, and these were adopted, but 21, by which $325 was asked for another road, was laid on the table. Articles 22 and 23, appropriating $75 and $25 for bridges, were pa.s.sed. Article 24, proposing the graveling of a sidewalk, was referred to the selectmen. Articles 25, 26, 27, and 28, proposing the laying of sidewalks, were adopted, with appropriations of $150, $125, $150, and $150; but 29, also proposing a new sidewalk, was laid on the table. Article 30, proposing a new sidewalk, was adopted, with an appropriation of $300, but 31, proposing another, was laid on the table. Articles 32, proposing to change the grading of two streets, with an appropriation of $500; 33, appropriating $300 for a highway roller; 34, providing for a public drinking fountain, and appropriating $200; 35, providing for a new bridge, and appropriating $75, were all adopted. Articles 36, 37, and 38, providing for extensions to the water mains, were laid on the table. Article 39, appropriating $300 for relocation of a telephone line, was adopted; but articles 40, providing for a memorial building, 41, providing for a town hall, and 42, providing for a soldiers' memorial, were laid on the table. Lastly, articles 43 and 44, providing for changes in street names, were accepted as reported by the selectmen.

After finishing the "warrant," the meeting appropriated $10 to pay the moderator, fixed $3 a day as the rate for the selectmen, and directed the latter not to employ as constable any man who had been rejected by a vote of the town. It was 10.45 p.m. when the a.s.semblage broke up, a recess having been taken from 5.30 to 7.30.

The proceedings at this meeting were characterized by democratic methods. When the town officers handed in their reports, they were questioned and criticised by one citizen and another. A motion to refer the general appropriation list to a committee of twenty-five met with overwhelming defeat in the face of the expressed sentiment that about all left of primitive democracy was the old-fashioned town meeting. One of the speakers on the town library appropriation was a lady, and her point was carried. On the question of buying new fire extinguishing apparatus, there were sides and leaders, with prolonged debate. As to roads and bridges, each matter was dealt with on its own merits and separately from other similar propositions. In the election for officers, women voted for school committeemen.

The only officials of Rockland under annual salary are the treasurer and town physician. Selectmen receive a sum per diem; constables, fees; school committeemen make out their own bills. The others serve for nothing.

Rockland, politically, is a typical New England town. What is to be said of its manner of town meeting may, with little modification, be said of all. Each citizen present at such a meeting may join in the debate. From the printed copy of the officers' reports he may learn what his town government has done in the year past; from the printed warrant he may see what is proposed to be done in the year coming. He who knows the better way in any of the business is sure to receive a hearing. The pockets of all being concerned, whatever is best and cheapest is insured. Bribery, successful only in the dark, has little or no field in the town meeting.

Provision usually exists by which a town may dispose of any urgent matters springing up for legislation in the course of the year: as a rule a special town meeting may be called on pet.i.tion of a small number of citizens, commonly seven to eleven.

In a study of the town meeting system of today, in "Harper's Monthly,"

June, 1891, Henry Loomis Nelson brought out many convincing facts as to its superiority over government by a town board. Where the cost for public lighting in a New England town had been but $2,000, in a New York town of the same size it had amounted to $11,000. The cities of Worcester, Ma.s.s., and Syracuse, New York, each of about 80,000 inhabitants, were compared, with the New England city in every respect by far the more economically governed. Towns in New England are uniformly superior to others in other parts of the country with regard to the extent of sewers and paved streets. The aggregate of town debts in New England is vastly less than the aggregate for a similar population in the Middle States. The state const.i.tutions of New England commonly relate to fundamental principles, since each district may protect itself by the town meeting; but outside New England, to a.s.sert the rights of localities, state const.i.tutions usually perforce embody particulars. In their fire and police departments, and public school and water supply systems, New England towns lead the rest of the country.

"The influence," says Mr. Nelson, "of the town meeting government upon the physical character of the country, upon the highways and bridges, and upon the appearance of the villages, is familiar to all who have traveled through New England. The excellent roads, the stanch bridges, the trim tree-shaded streets, the universal signs of thrift and of the people's pride in the outward aspects of their villages, are too well known to be dwelt upon." In every New England community many of the men are qualified by experience to take charge of a public meeting and conduct its proceedings with some regard to the forms observed in parliamentary bodies. But elsewhere in the Union few of the citizens have any knowledge of such forms and observances. "In New England there is not a voter who may not, and very few voters who do not, actively partic.i.p.ate in the work of government. In the other parts of the country hardly any one takes part in public affairs except the office-holder."

John Fiske, in "Civil Government in the United States," (1890), says that "the general tendency toward the spread of township government in the more recently settled parts of the United States is unmistakable."

The first western state to adopt the town meeting system was Michigan; but it now prevails in four-fifths of the counties of Illinois; in one-sixth of Missouri, where it was begun in 1879; and in one-third of the counties of Nebraska, which adopted it in 1883; while it has gone much further in Minnesota and Dakota, in which states it has been law since 1878 and 1883, respectively.

"Within its proper sphere," says Fiske, "government by town meeting is the form of government most effectively under watch and control.

Everything is done in the full daylight of publicity. The specific objects for which public money is to be appropriated are discussed in the presence of everybody, and any one who disapproves of any of these objects, or of the way in which it is proposed to obtain it, has an opportunity to declare his opinions." "The inhabitant of a New England town is perpetually reminded that 'our government' is 'the people.'

Although he may think loosely about the government of his state or the still more remote government at Washington, he is kept pretty close to the facts where local affairs are concerned, and in this there is a political training of no small value."

The same writer notes in the New England towns a tendency to retain good men in office, such as we have seen is the case in Switzerland. "The annual election affords an easy means of dropping an unsatisfactory officer. But in practice nothing has been more common than for the same persons to be re-elected as selectmen or constables or town-clerks for year after year, as long as they are willing or able to serve. The notion that there is anything peculiarly American or democratic in what is known as 'rotation in office' is therefore not sustained by the practice of the New England town, which is the most complete democracy in the world." In another feature is there resemblance to Swiss custom: some of the town officials serve without pay and none receive exorbitant salaries.

_The Referendum in States, Cities, Counties, Etc._

Few are aware of the advances which direct legislation has made in state government in the United States. Many facts on this subject, collected by Mr. Ellis P. Oberholtzer, were published in the "Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science," November, 1891.

Condensed, this writer's statement is as follows: Const.i.tutional amendments now go to the people for a vote in every state except Delaware. The significance of this fact, and the resemblance of this vote to the Swiss Referendum, are seen when one considers the subject matter of a state const.i.tution. Nowadays, such a const.i.tution usually limits a legislature to a short biennial session and defines in detail what laws the legislature may and may not pa.s.s. In fact, then, in adopting a const.i.tution once in ten or twenty years, the voters of a state decide upon admissible legislation. Thus they themselves are the real legislators. Among the matters once left entirely to legislatures, but now commonly dealt with in const.i.tutions, are the following: Prohibiting or regulating the liquor traffic; prohibiting or chartering lotteries; determining tax rates; founding and locating state schools and other state inst.i.tutions; establishing a legal rate of interest; fixing the salaries of public officials; drawing up railroad and other corporation regulations; and defining the relations of husbands and wives, and of debtors and creditors. In line with all this is a tendency to easy amendment. In nearly all the new states and in those older ones which have recently revised their const.i.tutions, the time in which amendments may be effected is as a rule but half of that formerly required. Where once the approval of two successive legislatures was exacted, now the consent of one is considered sufficient.

In fifteen states, until submitted to a popular vote, no law changing the location of the capital is valid; in seven, no laws establishing banking corporations; in eleven, no laws for the incurrence of debts excepting such as are specified in the const.i.tution, and no excess of "casual deficits" beyond a stipulated sum; in several, no rate of a.s.sessment exceeding a figure proportionate to the aggregate valuation of the taxable property. Without the Referendum, Illinois cannot sell its state ca.n.a.l; Minnesota cannot pay interest or princ.i.p.al of the Minnesota railroad; North Carolina cannot extend the state credit to aid any person or corporation, excepting to help certain railroads unfinished in 1876. With the Referendum, Colorado may adopt woman suffrage and create a debt for public buildings; Texas may fix a location for a college for colored youth; Wyoming may decide on the sites for its state university, insane asylum and penitentiary.

Numerous important examples of the Referendum in local matters in the United States, especially in the West, were found by Mr. Oberholtzer.

There are many county, city, township, and school district referendums.

Nineteen state const.i.tutions guarantee to counties the right to fix by vote of the citizens the location of the county seats. So also usually of county lines, divisions of counties, and like matters. Several western states leave it to a vote of the counties as to when they shall adopt a township organization, with town meetings; several states permit their cities to decide when they shall also be counties. As in the state, there are debt and tax matters that may be pa.s.sed on only by the people of cities, boroughs, counties, or school districts. Without the Referendum, no munic.i.p.ality in Pennsylvania may contract an aggregate debt beyond 2 per cent of the a.s.sessed valuation of its taxable property; no munic.i.p.alities in certain other states may incur in any year an indebtedness beyond their revenues; no local governments in the new states of the West may raise any loans whatever; none in other states may exceed certain limits in tax rates. With the Referendum, certain Southern communities may make harbor improvements, and other communities may extend the local credit to railroad, water transportation, and similar corporations. The prohibition of the liquor business in a city or county is often left to a popular vote; indeed, "local option" is the commonest form of Referendum. In California any city with more than 10,000 inhabitants may frame a charter for its own government, which, however, must be approved by the legislature. Under this law Stockton, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Oakland have acquired new charters. In the state of Washington, cities of 20,000 may make their own charters without the legislature having any power of veto. Largely, then, such cities make their own laws.

In fact, the vast United States seems to have seen as much of the Referendum as little Switzerland. But the effect of the practice has been largely lost in the great size of this country and in the loose and unsystematized character of the inst.i.tution as known here.

In the "American Commonwealth" of James Bryce, a member of Parliament, there is a chapter ent.i.tled "Direct Legislation by the People." After reciting many facts similar in character to those given by Mr.

Oberholtzer, Mr. Bryce inquires into the practical workings of direct legislation. He finds what are to his mind some "obvious demerits." Of these demerits, such as apply to details he develops in the course of his statements of several cases of Referendum. In summing up, he further points out what seem to him two objections to the principle. One is that direct legislation "tends to lower the authority and sense of responsibility of the legislature." But this is precisely the aim of pure democracy, and from its point of view a merit of the first order.

The other objection is, "it refers matters needing much elucidation by debate to the determination of those who cannot, on account of their numbers, meet together for discussion, and many of whom may have never thought about the matter." But why meet together for discussion? Mr.

Bryce here overlooks that this is the age of newspaper and telegraph, and that through these sources the facts and much debate on any matter of public interest may be forthcoming on demand. Mr. Bryce, however, sees more advantages than demerits in direct legislation. Of the advantages he remarks: "The improvement of the legislatures is just what the Americans despair of, or, as they would prefer to say, have not time to attend to. Hence they fall back on the Referendum as the best course available under the circ.u.mstances of the case and in such a world as the present. They do not claim that it has any great educative effect on the people. But they remark with truth that the ma.s.s of the people are equal in intelligence and character to the average state legislator, and are exposed to fewer temptations. The legislator can be 'got at,' the people cannot. The personal interest of the individual legislator in pa.s.sing a measure for chartering banks or spending the internal improvement fund may be greater than his interest as one of the community in preventing bad laws. It will be otherwise with the bulk of the citizens. The legislator may be subjected by the advocates of women's suffrage or liquor prohibition to a pressure irresistible by ordinary mortals; but the citizens are too numerous to be all wheedled or threatened. Hence they can and do reject proposals which the legislature has a.s.sented to.

Nor should it be forgotten that in a country where law depends for its force on the consent of the governed, it is eminently desirable that law should not outrun popular sentiment, but have the whole weight of the people's deliverance behind it."

_The Initiative and Referendum in Labor Organizations._

The Referendum is well known to the Knights of Labor. For nine years past expressions of opinion have been asked of the local a.s.semblies by the general executive board. The recent decision of the order to enter upon independent political action was made by a vote in response to a circular issued by the General Master Workman. The latter, at the annual convention at Toledo, in November, 1891, recommended that the Referendum form a part of the government machinery throughout the United States.

The Knights being in some respects a secret organization, data as to referendary votings are not always made public.

For the past decade or longer several of the national and international trades-unions of America have had the Initiative and Referendum in operation. Within the past five years the inst.i.tution in various forms has been taken up by other unions, and at present it is in more or less practice in the following bodies, all a.s.sociated with the American Federation of Labor:

No. of No. of Members, National or International Union. Local Unions. December, 1891.

Journeymen Bakers 81 17,500 Brewery Workmen 61 9,500 United Broth'h'd of Carpenters and Joiners 740 65,000 Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners 40 2,800 Cigar-Makers 310 27,000 Carriage and Wagon Makers 11 2,000 Garment Workers 24 4,000 Granite Cutters 75 20,000 Tailors 170 17,000 Typographical Union 290 28,000 ------- Total 192,800

Direct legislation has long been familiar to the members of the International Cigar-Makers' Union. Today, amendments to its const.i.tution, the acts of its executives, and even the resolutions pa.s.sed at delegate conventions, are submitted to a vote by ballot in the local unions. The nineteenth annual convention, held at Indianapolis, September, 1891, provisionally adopted 114 amendments to the const.i.tution and 33 resolutions on various matters. Though some of the latter were plainly perfunctory in character, all of these 147 propositions were printed in full in the "Official Journal" for October, and voted on in the 310 unions throughout America in November. The Initiative is introduced in this international union through local unions. When twenty of the latter have pa.s.sed favorably on a measure, it must be submitted to the entire body. An idea of the financial transactions of the Cigar-Makers' International Union may be gathered from its total expenditures in the past twelve years and a half. In all, it has disbursed in that time $1,426,208. Strikes took $469,158; sick benefits, $439,010; death benefits, $109,608; traveling benefits, $372,455, and out of work benefits, $35,795. The advance of the Referendum in this great union has been very gradual. It began in 1877 with voting on const.i.tutional amendments. The most recent, and perhaps last possible, step was to transfer the election of the general executive board from the annual convention to the entire body.

The United Garment Workers of America practice direct legislation under Article 24 of their const.i.tution, which is printed under the caption, "Referendum and Initiative." It prescribes two methods of Initiative.

One is that three or more local unions, if of different states, may instruct the general secretary to call for a referendary vote in the unions of the national organization. The other is that the general executive board must so submit all questions of general importance. The general secretary issues the call within two weeks after the pet.i.tion for a vote reaches him, and the vote is taken within six months afterward. Eighteen propositions pa.s.sed by the annual convention of this union at Boston, in November, 1891, were submitted to a vote of the local unions in December.

In 1890, the local unions of the International Typographical Union, then numbering nearly 290, voted on twenty-five propositions submitted from the annual convention. In 1891, fourteen propositions were submitted. Of the latter, one authorized the formation of unions of editors and reporters; another directed the payments to the President to be a salary of $1,400, actual railroad fares by the shortest possible routes, and $3 a day for hotel expenses; another rescinded a six months' exemption from a per capita tax for newly formed unions; another provided for a funeral benefit of $50 on the death of a member; by another an a.s.sessment of ten cents a month was levied for the home for superannuated and disabled union printers. All fourteen were adopted, the majorities, however, varying from 558 to 8,758.

_Is Complete Direct Legislation in Government Practicable?_

The conservative citizen, contented with the existing state of things, is wont to brush aside proposed innovations in government. To do so he avails himself of a familiar stock of objections. But have they not all their answer in the facts thus far brought forth in these chapters? Will he entertain no "crazy theories"? Here is offered practice, proven in varied and innumerable tests to be thoroughly feasible. He is opposed to foreign inst.i.tutions? Here is a time-honored American inst.i.tution. He holds that men cannot be made better by law? Here are facts to show that with change of law justice has been promoted. He deems democracy feebleness? Here has been shown its stalwart strength. He is sure workingmen are incapable of managing large affairs? Let him look to the cigar-makers--their capacity for organization, their self-restraint as an industrial army, the soundness of their financial system, the mastery of their employers in the eight-hour question. He believes the intricacies of taxation and estimates of appropriation beyond the average mind? He may see a New England town meeting in a single day dispose of scores of items and, with each settled to a nicety, vote away fifty thousand dollars. He fears state legislation, by reason of its complexity, would prove a puzzle to the ordinary voter? Why, then, are the more vexatious subjects so often shifted by the legislators to the people?

The conservative objector is, first, apt to object before fully examining what he dissents from, and, secondly, p.r.o.ne to have in mind ideal conditions with which to compare the new methods commended to him.

In the matter of legislation, he dreams of a body of high-minded lawgivers, just, wise, unselfish, and not of legislators as they commonly are. He forgets that Congress and the legislatures have each a permanent lobby, buying privileges for corporations, and otherwise influencing and corrupting members. He forgets the party caucus, at which the individual member is swamped in the majority; the "strikers,"

members employing their powers in blackmail; the Black Horse Cavalry, a combination of members in state legislatures formed to enrich themselves by plunder through pa.s.sing or killing bills. He forgets the scandalous jobs put through to reward political workers; the long lists of doubtful or vicious bills reviewed in the press after each session of every legislative body; the pamphlets issued by reform bodies in which perhaps three-fourths of a legislature is named as untrustworthy, and the price of many of the members given. The City Reform Club of New York published in 1887: "As with the city's representatives of 1886, the chief objects of most of the New York members were to make money in the 'legislative business,' to advance their own political fortunes, and to promote the interests of their factions." And where is the state legislature of which much the same things cannot be said?

The conservative objector may not know how the most important bills are often pa.s.sed in Congress. He may not know that until toward the close of a session the business of Congress is political in the party sense rather than in the governing sense; that on the floor the play is usually conducted for effect on the public; that in committees, measures into which politics enter are made up either on compromise or for partisan purposes; that, finally, in the last days of a session, the work of legislation is a scramble. The second day before the adjournment of the last Congress was thus described in a New York daily paper: "Congress has been working like a gigantic threshing machine all day long, and at this hour there is every prospect of an all-night session of both houses. Helter-skelter, pell-mell, the 'unfinished business' has been poured into the big hopper, and in less time than it takes to tell it, it has come out at the other end completed legislation, lacking only the President's signature to fit it for the statute books. Public bills providing for the necessary expenses of the government, private bills galore having as their beneficiaries favored individuals, jobbery in the way of unnecessary public buildings, railroad charters, and bridge construction--all have been rushed through at lightning speed, and the end is not yet. A majority of the House members, desperate because their power and influence terminate with the end of this brief session, and a partisan Speaker, whose autocratic rule will prevail but thirty-six short hours longer, have left nothing unattempted whereby party friends and proteges might be benefited. It is safe to say that aside from a half dozen measures of real importance and genuine merit the country would be no worse off should every other bill not yet acted upon fail of pa.s.sage. Certain it is that large sums of money would be saved to the Government." And what observer does not know that scenes not unlike this are repeated in almost every legislature in its closing hours?

As between such manner of even national legislation on the one hand, and on the other the entire citizenship voting (as soon would be the fact under direct legislation) on but what properly should be law--and on principles, on policies, and on aggregates in appropriations--would there be reason for the country to hesitate in choosing?

Among the plainest signs of the times in America is the popular distrust of legislators. The citizens are gradually and surely resuming the lawmaking and money-spending power unwisely delegated in the past to bodies whose custom it is to abuse the trust. "Government" has come to mean a body of representatives with interests as often as not opposed to those of the great ma.s.s of electors. Were legislation direct, the circle of its functions would speedily be narrowed; certainly they would never pa.s.s legitimate bounds at the urgency of a cla.s.s interested in enlarging its own powers and in increasing the volume of public outlay. Were legislation direct, the sphere of every citizen would be enlarged; each would consequently acquire education in his role, and develop a lively interest in the public affairs in part under his own management. And what so-called public business can be right in principle, or expedient in policy, on which the American voter may not pa.s.s in person? To reject his authority in politics is to compel him to abdicate his sovereignty.

That done, the door is open to pillage of the treasury, to bribery of the representative, and to endless interference with the liberties of the individual.