persuasions to convince the legislators of the infinite superiority of private enterprise over public husbandry. To these influences the electorate is more nearly immune, and for that reason the Referendum would tend to prevent the alienation of public property.

At various times and in varying degrees representative bodies have attempted to parcel out the prerogatives of government to private interests and by contract to strip the state of some of its powers. Railroad, telegraph, pipe line and water companies, and other public service agencies have been clothed with the sovereign power of condemnation. Efforts have been made to contract away the state's power of taxation. Contracts have been entered into abrogating the state's continuing authority to regulate rates. These attempts of the legislators temporarily occupying the seats of power to curtail the prerogatives of their successors do not always succeed, owing to the unwillingness of the courts of justice to give judicial sanction to them. Yet, in many cases they do succeed in large measure, and the state finds its action handicapped by previous acts that have taken on the nature of contracts and are held to be sacred against the future touch of government. That the Referendum would operate as a check upon these tendencies cannot be doubted. The people, who are compelled to live continuously subject to the laws, cannot regard with favor the attempt of this year's board of aldermen, this year's state legislature or this year's Congress to hamstring its successors, and deprive the people of the future benefits arising from a government fully armed and continuously free to exercise all its legitimate functions.

The Referendum has long been applied in many American communities as a check upon legislative indifference to the public credit. The issuance of state or municipal bonds is often made conditional upon the approval of the electorate, sometimes even by a twothirds affirmative vote. Sometimes it seems as if the people's usual conservatism in regard to public debt had been displaced by a careless liberality in the use of the public credit. But observation tends to prove that the people are not so much concerned about the amount of public indebtedness as they are about the use made of the proceeds of bond sales and the extent and value of the public property on account of which the debt was incurred. For example, the people do not manifest alarm at the bulk of debt incurred for public utility purposes, where interest and sinking fund charges are to be met out of the revenues of the undertaking. The people are not slow to approve bond issues for parks and playgrounds or for other public improvements for which there is a pressing need or which promise to be of benefit to the community generally. They are most likely to reject bond issues where they have reason to expect that the money will be squandered by corrupt or inefficient government in extravagant contracts, or that it will be diverted in whole or in part from the uses for which the bond issues are asked. Who can deny that precisely here lies the chief danger of increasing debt? If the city has permanent improvements to show for every dollar of debt incurred, if outstanding bonds are secured by great and profitable municipal undertakings, a large debt does not impair the city's credit. It is a well-known paradox of business

life that the more a man borrows the better his credit is, for the habit of borrowing cannot be maintained except as a companion to the habit of paying debts when due. Capital runs to meet the man or the city that puts it to profitable use.

Conservation of the state's resources is not merely a doctrine of negation. It often demands the adoption of a bold, aggressive policy of development. Conservation both in its obstructive and in its constructive applications is a policy that affects the welfare of the whole people in a peculiarly intimate way and that vividly appeals to popular interest and imagination. For this reason, it is especially fitting that the people should hold the reins on the legislature in all conservation matters, for they are pretty sure to tighten them against reckless driving on a dangerous road and to slacken them again when the road is clear and safe.

CHAPTER XVIII

THIRD ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF THE REFERENDUM-THAT IT WOULD SERVE TO KEEP LEGISLATION IN LINE WITH PUBLIC SENTIMENT

DISRESPECT for law is fatal to democracy. The dead letter marks a partial paralysis of popular government. The statute-books need to be alive in every section. They should present a well-knit, vital body of rules that are actually in force, unencumbered with obsolete or unenforceable legislative dicta. Clearly, the Referendum will not of itself help to remove from the statutebooks provisions that originally were in line with public sentiment, but that have ceased to express the popular will by reason of changed conditions. To get rid of these out-of-date laws, the Initiative is needed. But there are many cases where laws are enacted which do not at the time of their enactment represent effective public sentiment and which are dead letters or halfdead letters from the beginning. Some unenforced laws are kept on the statute-books and some unenforceable ones are put there out of deference to formal respectability. There is a strong element of hypocrisy in American law-making. The legislatures, and even the people, are sometimes more anxious to have laws written in the books than in the hearts of men. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the Referendum

would often prevent the enactment of unenforceable legislation, and so tend to maintain the integrity of the state. Sometimes petitions would be filed against new restrictive legislation of a controversial nature, but if the Referendum vote showed a strong preponderance of public sentiment in favor of the measures voted on, this fact would tend to give them stability and to induce the minority to accept them as the established law of the state. A restrictive measure overwhelmingly ratified at the polls would not be subjected to the persistent efforts that are now often directed toward the emasculation of reform laws passed without the specific sanction of the people. In other words, the Referendum not only would tend to prevent the enactment of unpopular and meddlesome legislation, but would also give stability to new legislation that is in accord with public sentiment. While the Referendum would not prevent laws from becoming obsolete, it would hinder the enactment of measures that are in advance of public sentiment and would hinder the repeal or the weakening of legislation that is abreast of the times. The clamor of loud-voiced minorities would have less effect upon the people at large than it now has upon their representatives. From the eye of the legislator at the state capital prevailing sentiment is often hidden by the mist arising from the fierce breath of the militant few who fill the corridors either insisting that all men shall conform to their standards of life or demanding that they themselves shall be exempted from the necessity of conforming to the general standards of the community. The Referendum removes the ultimate control of legislation from the artificial storm center