About this product

Product Information

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ...man who was president of a great railroad could not give the name of his member of Congress, although he had probably voted for him for ten years, if he had voted at all. Such instances are by no means rare, and intelligent people of that sort who neglect their public duties often become the easy victims of every ism and dum. We are so engrossed in our private business that many of us give no attention to public questions, or we too frequently bestow upon the latter such superficial study that our action becomes the dangerous thing that is based upon little knowledge. This condition of indifference, even under our present system, produces nothing but an evil effect upon the character of laws; and this evil effect would be greatly intensified under the Initiative and Referendum. Legislation may be expected to represent in the long run the fair average of the information and the study of the body which enacts it, whether that body be composed of four hundred legislators or one hundred millions of people. A reform that is most needed is one that will make difficult the passage of laws, unless they repeal existing statutes. The mania of the tune is too much legislation and the tendency to regulate everybody and everything by artificial enactments. The Referendum would not be likely to furnish the cure for this evil, but would tend to increase the number of questionable statutes that would be referred to the people; and some of them would doubtless be enacted. If those who are chosen and paid to do the work, and upon whom the responsibility is placed, are sometimes found to enact vicious laws, what would be the result if legislation were enacted by all of us when we had made no special investigation of details, when we should be quite too...