CHAPTER XX THE RECALL EXPLAINED THE Initiative and the Referendum are instruments of pure democracy. In so far as they are put into actual use, they supplement representative government by the direct participation of the people in the legislative function, either by complete legislative action under the Initiative or by the exercise of the veto power under the Referendum. The Recall is a procedure of an entirely different order. It is the complement of popular election of representatives. It does not involve direct participation by the people in the exercise of governmental functions. It is simply the guaranteed right of the people to discharge their public servants when these public servants cease to be satisfactory to them. While the Recall does not involve the direct participation of the people in the primary functions of government, and therefore is less radical than the Initiative and the Referendum, it nevertheless has a wider application than either of these institutions. It is not limited to the legislative department. It affects the entire field of government, legislative, executive, judicial. It is as wide in its application as the representative system, and it may even be extended beyond the scope of popular elections to office. It may be made to apply to judges and administrative officials appointed by the executive or the legislature, and to executive and legislative officers chosen by indirect election. The Recall introduces us to a great theoretical controversy about the nature of representative government. It has been held in some quarters that the principle of representative institutions does not involve popular sovereignty at all, but merely the right of the people to elect their rulers at stated intervals. According to this theory the President is a monarch with a limited term, and governors and mayors are temporary princes and potentates of subordinate jurisdictions. The people do not rule, but they select representatives to rule over them. To be sure, if they are not pleased with their rulers, they can select others at the expiration of the stated terms of office, but during those terms public officials hold irrevocably the prerogatives of government. Under this theory, the people are regarded as incapable of self-government, as not qualified to express or have an opinion on specific governmental policies, but only to pass upon the efficiency of their government in a general way. Are they happy? Are they prosperous? Are crops good? Do the burdens of government feel light? Do war and pestilence keep at a safe distance? Is the community free from famine, fire, and flood? If so, the people, naturally, will be satisfied with their rulers and reëlect them. If not, they will try others. But the people are not supposed curiously to examine into causes; they are to judge by general effects. The Recall does not accept this theory of the underlying principle of the representative system. It holds that a representative is a servant, an agent, not a master. To be sure, like an ambassador plenipotentiary, he is a servant with power, but he has had his specific instructions or is presumed to be acquainted with his master's will, and if he fails to recognize his responsibility or if he misinterprets his instructions, he may be recalled at any time. He holds an indetermi-✔ nate franchise, or what is sometimes called a tenure during good behavior, within the limits of a maximum fixed term. The Recall does not necessarily involve the lengthening of terms of office, but it naturally leads to that, or even to the entire abandonment of the fixed-term idea. It is a continuing control, calculated to preserve at all times the relation of master and servant between the people and their representatives. While the avowed purpose of the Recall is to preserve in the people the right to discharge faithless, inefficient or insubordinate servants at any time, the natural obverse of this purpose would be the reserved right to keep a good servant indefinitely in order that the people may profit by his experience. As applied to elective officers the Recall takes several forms. It may simply involve the automatic submission to the people, in the midst of an established term of office, of the question as to whether or not there shall be a Recall election at that time. Under this very limited application of the principle, the people do not enjoy the right to initiate Recall proceedings by petition, but simply to vote in the middle of a fixed official term upon the question of shortening the term. If they vote to have a new election, the effect is the same as if the official involved had been elected for the shorter term in the first instance. He may stand for reëlection if he |