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 readersneither can nor ought to spend their time in following all the minutiae of legislation. 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. There was a curious instance of this trait at the recent elections in Cincinnati. Aside from the regular nominees, there was in one district a man nominated on petition. He had enough names put on the petition to insure his running, but at the election he got only about one-seventh as many votes as there were names on the petition. A much larger proportion of men should be required to petition for an initiative than for a referendum, but in each case the regulations both as to the number of names required and as to additional guarantees where necessary should be such as to forbid the invocation of this method of securing popular action unless the measure is one of real importance, as to which there is a deep-rooted popular interest. Oregon has already tried the principle of the initiative and the referendum, and it seems to have produced good results-certainly in the case of the referendum, and probably in the case of the initiative. This, of course, does not necessarily mean that the principle would work well in all other communities, and under our system it is difficult to see at present how it could normally have more than a State-wide application. In Switzerland it has been applied both in the Cantons, or States, and in the Federal or National Government, and it seems on the whole to have worked fairly well. Those who anticipate too much from the new system, however, would do well to study its workings in Switzerland. There have now and then been odd results. Recently by the use of the initiative a certain bill was proposed to the Federal Legislature. There was such a strong demand for its passage, as shown by the vote on the initiative, and by the general popular agitation, that the Legislature passed it with but one dissenting vote. At the ensuing election the representative who had cast the dissenting vote was, because of having done so, beaten; but on the referendum the people defeated the measure itself! They demanded it on the initiative, all their representatives in the Legislature with one exception voted for it on its passage, they beat the one man who had voted against it, and then on the referendum they defeated the bill itself. Unquestionably an ideal representative body is the best imaginable legislative body. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 a real and vital split on a matter of principle occurs, as in the case of a man who believes in the gold standard but finds that his constituents believe in free silver, the representative's duty is neither to abandon his own belief nor to try to beat his constituents by a trick, but to fight fairly for his convictions and cheerfully accept defeat if he cannot convert his constituents to his way of thinking exactly the attitude that the late Senator Lamar, of Mississippi, took once on this very question, and triumphed, and exactly the attitude that the late Congressman Dargan, of North Carolina, took, at the price of his political life. 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; while a minority, on the other hand, will not tolerate adverse action. In such cases the temptation to the ordi nary 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. 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. 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. Moreover, the opponents, and, for the matter of that, the adherents likewise, of the proposed change, when they speak, whether in praise or in blame, of its radicalism, would do well to remember that in one of the oldest and most conservative sections of the country there has existed throughout our National life, and now exists, a form of local self-government much more radical where it applies than even the initiative and referendum. 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. The initiative and referendum represent merely the next stage. The town meeting has been proved to work admirably as regards certain governmental units where the citizens are of a certain type. The initiative and referendum have been shown to work well as regards certain larger constituencies of a different type. The men living in States where the town meeting has flourished for centuries should be the last to feel that the initiative and referendum are in and of themselves revolutionary propositions. adopted generally in the States of the Union, and personally I am sorry that the New England town meeting has not spread throughout the Union. But I certainly do On the other hand, the advocates of the not intend to part company from other initiative and referendum should, in their Progressives who fail to sympathize with turn, remember that those measures are in me in either view, and I do intend to insist themselves merely means and not ends; with all the strength I have that each that their success or failure is to be de- device is a device and nothing more, is a termined not on a priori reasoning but by means and not an end. The end is good actually testing how they work under vary- government, obtained through genuine ing conditions; and, above all, that it is popular rule. Any device that under foolish to treat these or any other devices given conditions achieves this end is for obtaining good government and popu- good for those conditions, and the value lar rule as justifying sweeping condemna- of each device must be tested purely tion of all men and communities where by the answer to the question, Does other governmental methods are pre- it or does it not secure the end in ferred. There is probably no class of view? One of the worst faults that can men who ought to study history as care- be committed by practical men engaged fully as reformers-except reactionaries, in the difficult work of self-government for whom the need is even greater. A is to make a fetish of a name, or to careful study of eighteenth-century France confound the means with the end. The ought to show the reactionary that the rejec- end is to secure justice, equality of tion, by the beneficiaries of special privilege, opportunity in industrial as well as in of wise and moderate progressiveness, like political matters, to safeguard the interthat of Turgot, inevitably tends to produce ests of all the people, and work for a the most calamitous explosion; and, on the system which shall promote the general other hand, the ultra-reformers will do well diffusion of well-being and yet give ample to ponder the harm done in their turn by rewards to those who in any walk of life the Jacobins, the inevitable reaction pro- and in any kind of work render excepduced by their excesses, and especially by tional service to the community as a whole. the queer attitude they assumed when they We do not want to produce a dead level first deified the people and demanded the of achievement and reward; we want to absolute rule of the people and then de- give the exceptional rewards, in the way clined to submit to the judgment of the of approbation or in whatever other fashion very people they had just deified because may be necessary, to the exceptional men, that judgment was not sufficiently favor- the Lincolns, Grants, Marshalls, Emersons, able. Longfellows, Edisons, Pearys, who each in his own line does some special service; but we wish so far as possible to prevent a reward being given that is altogether disproportionate to the services, and especially to prevent huge rewards coming where there is no service or indeed where the action rewarded is detrimental instead of beneficial to the public interest. 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 that is their affair, and the genuinely Progressive leader will no more ostracize and read out of the company of Progressives a New England State which thinks it can achieve popular government without the referendum than he would read out some State in another part of the country because it has never adopted the town meeting. Personally, I should like to see the initiative and referendum, with proper safeguards, 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. The difference was not in the laws or the institutions, for they were the same. 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. 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. So with the initiative and the referendum. Vermont has neither; Oregon has both. In whichever State there is the less corruption and greater justice, in whichever State the elected representatives of the people are more upright, clean, and able, in whichever State the people are themselves wiser in action, more prompt to recognize and reward good service and fearlessness and independence in judge, Governor, Senator, or Congressman, why, in that State we shall find the best government, wholly without regard to the particular device by which the government is obtained. 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; and if we are convinced that it is a better instrument, then we should endeavor by reason and argument to get our neighbors to adopt it; but it is also folly to refuse to work with good men who are striving for the same progressive ends as we are, merely because these good men prefer older instruments than those which we believe to be best fitted for the purpose. I believe in adopting every device for popular government which is in theory good and when the practice bears out the theory. It is of course true that each is only a device, and that its worth must be shown in actual practice; and it is also true that where, as with us, the people are masters, the most vital need is that they shall show self-mastery as well as the power to master their servants. 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. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. THE CASE OF ALONZO BAILEY some Some are born to renown; achieve renown; some have renown thrust upon them. In the latter class belong Onesimus, Dred Scott, and Alonzo Bailey. These three men were alike in one respect they all tried to escape from servitude. Two of them failed; the third succeeded. The first secured his reputation from the Apostle Paul; the other two from the United States Supreme Court. They stand together as human algebraic symbols in humanity's problem. of liberty. In the time of Onesimus, slavery was an unquestioned institution; and Onesimus was a token of that sense of human brotherhood that was inevitably to render slavery unbearable. In the time of Dred Scott slavery was an issue that was shaking this Nation, almost its last refuge in Christendom, and Dred Scott was a token of that irreconcilable conflict between freedom and bondage which was about to show itself in war. Now, in 1911, slavery AIMBOLIAD THE OUTLOOK is an outlawed thing, and Alonzo Bailey is the token of the Nation's intolerance of anything that bears to it even a remote resemblance. As a result of the Civil War, the people of the United States adopted three amendments to the Federal Constitution. In the Thirteenth Amendment they declared that involuntary servitude, "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted," should not exist "within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction;" and by the Fourteenth Amendment, that all persons "born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," were citizens of the United States; that no State should "abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens," or " deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," or "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." One method of attempted evasion of the Constitutional prohibition of slavery was that of peonage. This is not uncommon in Mexico. It is the holding of a person to involuntary service or labor in liquidation of a debt or obligation. Under this system the taskmaster does not undertake to hold slaves arbitrarily; he rather lends or advances money to those whose labor he wishes to use; then, when they cannot repay him, he sets them to work and keeps them in restraint until they return to him in service an amount equal to the sum he has paid them. Since those whom he can secure in this way are likely to be poor and ignorant, he can usually manage to keep them in debt, and thus keep them in restraint and at work for him. To meet such conditions the Congress of the United States passed a measure abolishing "peonage," and it later buttressed that action by providing, as a punishment for any one who should hold another as a peon, a fine, or imprisonment, or both. For violation of the Federal law against peonage men have been punished. Only the other day one of these men, once powerful and wealthy, and still able to command great influence on his behalf, learned that President Taft had no intention of weakening this law by granting him Executive clemency. To this case we refer 21 January more at length on another page. The criminal prosecutions for open violations of the peonage law, thus reinforced by the President's firm insistence that the rich and powerful shall not go unpunished, have done much to stamp out the most flagrant forms of this survival of slavery. Other forms, however, have appeared under the guise of law. In Alabama, interests that wished to make sure of their hold upon laborers succeeded in persuading the Legislature to pass a series of enactments which made, to all intents and purposes, the breaking of a labor contract on the part of a laborer a criminal offense. In other words, the sanction of the law was given to a labor system which, outwardly at least, was identical with peonage. The law did this by the simple expedient of providing that the mere act of quitting work on the part of a contract laborer was in effect conclusive evidence that the laborer was guilty of a crime. Of course it was not put as simply as this. A number of apparently legitimate provisions were ingeniously dovetailed into one another; but their total result was about as we have stated it. How was this dovetailing done? The experience of Alonzo Bailey will indicate that. Alonzo Bailey was engaged by a corporation as a farm hand, and signed a contract to work for a year at twelve dollars a month. To bind the contract the company paid Lonzo Bailey (as he is called in the contract) fifteen dollars in advance, so that the actual monthly wages that he was to receive thereafter would be $10.75. After working a month he was presumably paid $10.75; then, three or four days later, he quit work. Under ordinary laws the company might have sued him for breach of contract and tried to get damages from him; but, of course, it would have had its trouble for its pains. Instead the company had him arrested for intent to injure or defraud. Of course receiving money, whether by contract or not, with intent to defraud, is punishable, as any action to obtain money under false pretense would be. In the case of Alonzo Bailey, however, there was no direct evidence-not a syllable of direct evidence to show that he intended to defraud. Unfortunately for |