public regulation of franchise utilities. It does not by a stroke of the ballot do away with a protective tariff, or a beet sugar subsidy, or railway mail contracts. It does not drive the fruit-stands from the side-walk, slice off the bow-windows that project into the street or compel the Hebrew merchant to keep within the property line when he solicits patronage. The Referendum simply withdraws from the legislative body the final authority to grant these privileges, making its action subject to review by the electorate, on the theory that if a special privilege is improvidently bestowed or if in its nature it runs counter to the public interest, the people will veto it. It is obvious, as a general proposition, that the majority cannot benefit by special favors. It is only the minority, and usually a very small minority, that benefits from them. The interest of the mass of the people lies in a government of equal justice to all, of special privileges to none. It is, therefore, assumed that where the Referendum is invoked, the use of government for private ends will be vetoed. If privilege-seekers should attempt to corrupt the electorate, they would not only find them too many but would find the cost too great. The value of the privilege sought would not be sufficient to compensate the majority of the people for the disadvantages they would suffer from its being granted, and still leave enough profit to the privilege-seekers to finance their motives. The Referendum, therefore, is a natural check upon the legislation that runs counter to the general interest and can ordinarily be secured from the legislature only by corruption, including in that term the whole array of improper influences which give leg

islators what may be called a double eye. It cannot be claimed for the Referendum that it will directly cure the corruption of inaction. For that, the Initiative and the Recall are needed.

In so far as the Referendum would have the effect of stopping the grant of valuable special privileges, it would remove the motive to corruption at both ends. The privilege-seekers would see the futility of spending money and favors upon legislators who could not give good title to the privileges sought. With the rewards for legislative treason withdrawn, would-be traitors would be less forward in their candidacy for legislative honors. With corruption eliminated or greatly diminished, the field would be left open to men with normal and honorable ambitions for public service. Secretly corrupt men would not be so anxious to go to the legislature, and secretly weak men would be better able to keep their secret when there. Until the lesson of the Referendum had been learned, there might be some confusion in the legislature and some desperate attempts to revive the failing fortunes of corruption. But in the end the result would be a higher quality in legislators and a better spirit in legislation. Under existing conditions, there is nothing quite so baffling about a legislative body as the fact that its members do not keep their minds on their work. They are thinking of something else. For where their treasure is, there will their hearts be also. By cutting off the hope of illegitimate rewards, the Referendum would encourage single-mindedness in representative assemblies.

CHAPTER XVII

SECOND ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF THE REFERENDUMTHAT IT WOULD CONDUCE TO THE CONSERVATION OF PUBLIC RESOURCES

THE resources of the state-what are they? First of all comes a healthy, intelligent, self-restrained citizenship. But let us pass this item. The resources that the Referendum will tend to conserve may be classed as the property, the prerogatives and the credit of the government. Public property includes the public domain, with its mines, its forests, its water powers, its reservoirs of oil and natural gas, its harbor and terminal facilities. It includes the country highways and the city streets, the parks and boulevards, the public buildings, the municipal utility plants and all the varied holdings of the city, state, and federal governments. The prerogatives of government include the right of eminent domain, the power of taxation, the right to regulate the rates of common carriers and all public utilities, the right to protect the lives and limbs of citizens in all industrial pursuits, and many other powers not rightfully possessed by private individuals. The credit of the government is its ability, within the limits fixed by constitution or statute, to borrow money for public improvements and to sell its bonds at a reasonable rate of interest. Public credit is based on public prop

erty, public prerogatives and faith in public integrity. All of these things are well worth conserving. How will the Referendum help?

In early colonial days the corporation of the City of New York was given title to all the unoccupied land on Manhattan Island. The city sold off this land from time to time for small sums which were used to pay the expenses of the municipal government. If a leasing system had been adopted the rentals from the city's real estate might now be sufficient to make local taxation unnecessary. Philadelphia owned a gas plant which was nearly wrecked by corrupt officials and then turned over to a company to be operated for private profit. When the city's legislative body was ready to extend the company's lease on extravagant terms a few years later, the resistance of the people would have been futile except for the unexpected conversion of the mayor to the reform point of view. They had to pray to God for help, being unable to help themselves. Luckily the unfamiliar sound pierced the portals of Heaven, and they were succored. In St. Louis not many years ago, the enterprising members of the municipal assembly put a secret price on everything the city had to bestow. They even plotted to sell the courthouse. Their activities were finally checked by the circuit attorney and yawning prison doors. At an earlier date Congress bestowed untold riches upon the transcontinental railroads in the form of land grants from the public domain. Now the railroads seek to compel the public to pay dividends on the present value of these gratuities. We have seen in most recent times by what a tiresome and unseemly struggle the United

States government has been prevented from alienating the best resources of Alaska. And so it has been throughout the period of our national history. Representative assemblies, whether city councils, or state legislatures, or Congress itself, have seemed eager to despoil the people of their heritage and turn it over to private individuals for development and exploitation. The streets of many cities have been mortgaged with perpetual franchises. The property of the nation and the states has been frittered away. Undoubtedly, some of these legislative extravagances have been popular at the time and would not have been prevented by the Referendum. The people themselves have not been fully awake to the necessity of the conservation policy until recently, and yet there have been many occasions when the Referendum would have saved the people's property. The usefulness of this check is already recognized in the numerous provisions of constitution and statute requiring the submission of franchise grants and the alienation of municipal utilities to popular vote. For some reason, representative assemblies seem to be more deeply impressed with the impotence of government to retain and develop public property and more strongly convinced of the necessity of encouraging private enterprise by public gifts so long as there remains anything to give than the people themselves are. Perhaps this is due in part to a consciousness on the part of legislators of their own unfitness for the management of public business. It is certainly in part due to the sinister influence of special pleaders who raise a chorus of defamation against the state and under cover of their own clamor use more material