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CHAPTER VI

FOURTH OBJECTION TO THE INITIATIVE-THAT IT WOULD RESULT IN UNSCIENTIFIC LEGISLATION

IN a modern community, with all its interwoven interests, the formulation of governmental policies is a complex and delicate process. The very highest type of ability, coupled with the widest and deepest knowledge of social conditions, is necessary for the proper exercise of the legislative function. It is often alleged that the Initiative, in its ordinary form, would throw the process of legislation into the hands of the mob, subject to the use of designing miscreants and of harebrained reformers alike. Such a proceeding, it is said, would be like leaving the most complex modern machinery, which can be operated only by intelligent mechanics after long and careful training, to be manipulated by any blundering hod-carrier or ditch-digger or even by any tramp that comes along. Concocted in the brains of agitators, not subjected to the impact of criticism during the process of its formulation, drafted in secrecy in profound disregard of expert knowledge, filled with iridescent promises which even the Almighty could not fulfill, measures proposed by the Initiative, it is alleged, would reduce government to chaos and in time overthrow democracy itself. Great stress is laid upon the advantages of the ex

perience of practiced law-makers, of discussion in legislative committees, of public hearings, of debate in the newspapers, of the compromises made necessary by conflict of opinion and of other factors in the ordinary process of legislative enactment by representative assemblies. It is alleged not only that Initiative measures will be unscientifically drafted, but that the people will be unable to understand them and thus will be wholly disqualified for discriminating between wise proposals and foolish ones.

This criticism, it seems to me, is guilty of a triple error. It overvalues the results obtained and the methods used in present practice. It undervalues the intelligence of the people and the probability of care and wisdom in bill-drafting under the Initiative. It ignores the fact that the Initiative is not designed to supplant the representative assembly entirely, but rather to supplement and correct the ordinary legislative process in exceptional cases.

That legislation produced by representative assemblies in America is often woefully deficient in scientific design as well as in accuracy of expression is a fact too well known to require proof. It only requires explanation.

Congress, the state legislatures, and city councils generally, except where the commission form of government has been adopted, are composed of men elected by and from districts. In the constitution of these bodies the aim has been, not to secure skillful law-makers or men with the widest knowledge of public affairs, but rather to get local representatives of the dominant public sentiment of every political subdivision. In

cities, where population is largely segregated according to occupation and social standing, the ward containing a large proportion of the men of experience, education and proven ability, has only the same representation in the city council as the slum ward occupied principally, so far as residence is concerned, by the unthrifty, the ignorant, the unassimilated foreigners and the transients who live in lodging houses. Though the slum ward may contain the business district with its skyscrapers, its unthinkable land values and its teeming day population, including the strongest and besteducated men in the city, no one who does not sleep in the ward is permitted to vote there or to be elected to represent the ward in the city council. Moreover, the constant movement of a growing city's population toward the outlying districts usually results in giving the down-town wards, with their least-fit citizenship, a disproportionate influence in the council. Almost always it is many years after the outlying wards, with their more enterprising citizenship, have outstripped the down-town wards, with their grog shops, their vice districts, and their lodging-house dwellers, before the ward boundaries are readjusted so as to equalize population. These faults are not inherent in the representative system, but they are characteristic of that. system as established in American cities. No doubt the English plan of allowing men to vote where their business is and of permitting the selection of nonresidents to represent the local subdivisions, would greatly improve the character of our city councils and, by the same token, improve the quality of the legislation produced by them.

Another reason for the inferior results obtained from the law-making bodies of American cities may be found in the nominating methods in vogue. With few exceptions, candidates for aldermen or councilmen are nominated by the local branches of the national political parties and without due reference to their fitness for the duties of their offices or for the representative character of their opinions on civic issues. There is a legitimate connection between municipal government and state and national government in so far as they are concerned with the same general problems from different viewpoints and in so far as the successful operation of the one is dependent upon the coöperation of the others. But the evil known as the prostitution of civic affairs to the interests of national and state politics has long been a real one, though it has been somewhat diminished in recent years by the growing pressure of local issues to be heard on their merits and by the increasing recognition in state and national politics of those issues that are closely related to municipal problems. In so far as municipal patronage is regarded as a pawn in the game of national politics, city councils cannot be expected to produce legislation of a high grade.

Still another cause of unscientific local legislation is the interference of special interests in the nomination, election and conduct of aldermen. The use of the city streets as locations for conducting private business, or for conducting public business for private profit, leads inevitably to organized efforts to control the city councils on behalf of interests inimical to the public welfare. The same thing results from the control of saloon licenses

by the local legislature and from its control of contracts for public improvements. Whenever a special interest seeks to dictate the nomination or election of an alderman, or to constrain him to act in a particular way after he is elected, it strikes a treasonable blow at the intelligence and efficiency as well as the honesty of the representative body. Special interests are found supporting the men whose actions they can control in the particular matters that affect themselves. Wherever a special interest dominates, the general interest is neglected even when it is not positively opposed. Scientific legislation can be had only as a result of single-mindedness in the public service. Any influence that tends to befog or corrupt the morals of a representative body also tends to confound its intelli

gence.

If we turn from the city councils to the state legislatures, we find similar causes at work on a larger scale. True, the population of a state is better distributed than the population of a city. There is less segregation of the more intelligent and less intelligent classes. But the influence of national politics is just as baneful, and often more so, especially in the years when United States senators are to be elected. Then the personal fitness of the candidates for the legislature and even their views on state issues are likely to be subordinated to their attitude toward various aspirants for the senatorship. Often the money contributed by a senatorial aspirant or his friends pays the election expenses of legislative candidates. Under these circumstances, what hope is there of getting honest and intelligent legislation from a pseudo-representative body? In

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