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INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM In Its Relations to the Political and Physical Health of the Nation. ADDRESS OF HON. ROBERT L.OWEN UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM OKLAHOMA. Under the auspices of the Society for Ethical Culture, at Carnegie Hall, March 20, 1910. PRINTED IN THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD OF MARCH 14, 1911. WASHINGTON An Address by R O BE R T L. O W E N , United States Senator from Oklahoma, under the auspices of the Society for Ethical Culture, at Carnegie Hall, March 20, 1910, on the IN ITIATIVE AND R F R N U EEEDM In Its Relations to the Political and Physical H ealth of the Nation. A nation is in a condition o f good political health when its representatives are the free choice o f the people and represent the best ideals o f the people in the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Departments o f the Government. When these officials are nominated by corrupt machine methods, are con trolled by selfish interests, by mere self-preferment, by bribery, or by other sinister influence, the political health o f that nation is bad, and in need o f curative process. Such Government needs restoration to a condition o f sound political health where every official shall be responsive to the best ideals o f the people. Where it has free expression the majority o f the people will always stand for the principles o f righteousness; for honest and economic government; for the control of. sordid ambition and avarice; for the abatement o f commercial piracy, and for the control o f conspiracies in restraint o f trade, and for the higher ideals o f the enlightened conscience, and for a more equitable distribution o f the proceeds o f human labor than is possible under a government corrupted and controlled by machine methods. The political health o f the Nation is distinctly bad in many o f the States where corrupt machine politics operating as an agent o f selfish interests, both political and commercial, has obtained control o f party government, nominating machine men committed to selfish interests at the precinct, in county conventions and in State conventions, nominating officials from constable to governor by machine methods. The people appear to rule through party machinery, but do not rule in fact, because the party machinery is in the hands o f corrupt machine men, controlled in the interest o f the few and against the interest o f the many. The remedy is to restore popular government and to overthrow machine government, and the Initiative and Referendum is the open door by which this can be done, by which it has been gloriously done in Oregon. Machine control o f party government, among other evil results, makes impossible the passage o f laws needed for the protection o f the physical health o f the Nation, notwithstanding the urgent demand o f the people expressed 3 4* through medical and sanitary associations from the Atlantic to the Pacific for twenty years. . The physical health o f the Nation depends upon the prevention o f epidemics, upon purity o f water supply, upon clean air, pure foods, sanitary conditions, reasonable hours o f labor, protection o f children and infancy from exposure. The people o f the United States lose 600,000 people annually from preventable causes. These lives could be saved by good laws; they are lost because o f bad laws. In a letter o f Charles A. L. Reed, Chairman o f the Legislative Committee o f the American Medical Association o f March 10th— ten days ago he said to m e: “ Suppose our entire native Army and Navy were swept off o f the earth, not once, but three times in a year. W ould the Congress do anything about it? There are nearly five millions needlessly ill every year. Suppose that every man, woman and child in all New York, with Boston and Washington added, were similarly stricken, would the Congress inaugurate an inquiry? Our losses from these causes amount to a billion and a half dollars every year.” “ Our health agencies are uncorrelated and unorganized. Suppose that our monetary system were looked after by a dozen or more bureaus in almost as many departments and that it were responsible for a billion and a half dollars loss every year, would Congress be disposed to think that there was possible relationship between the lack o f organization and the deficit?” The fact is the United States Government has no organized Department of Public Health, no proper publicity o f matters affecting the public health, no proper co-operation with the States. The annual mortality in the United States is sixteen and five-tenths per thousand, in New Zealand, with no better climate, it is between nine and ten to the thousand, a loss o f nearly seven human beings to the thousand for the United States in excess o f New Zealand, where they have controlled monopoly and established proper sanitary safeguard. Seven persons to the thousand means in ninety millions o f people an annual loss o f six hundred and thirty thousand people, whose lives might be saved by proper conduct o f Government. What is the trouble? Have the people never requested any improvement in this respect? O, yes, through all the great societies relating to the health o f the people petitions and prayers, and demands, have gone up to Congress and have remained unheeded, unobserved, uncared for, because the members o f the House and Senate are three degrees removed from the people under the convention machinery o f party-government. This is not true as to all members, but it is true as to the majority. Observe how a precinct delegate is sent by a machine boss on an obscure call, at an unsuitable place packed with his partisans to the county convention, how a county convention o f machine delegates from the pre cinct nominates a machine candidate for the legislature, where the legislature o f machine men elects a machine man for the United States Senate. Under the pretext o f a necessity for organization, this method has developed. A t first, it worked well, but becoming perverted and corrupted it now works injuriously as an agency o f selfish interests. The people are beginning to correct these evils o f government in various States o f the Union by various processes such as demanding the right o f direct nomination o f candidates through the direct primary, by insisting on publicity o f campaign contributions, by forbidding excessive campaign contributions, by demanding the Initiative and Referendum, restoring to the people the right to make their own laws and the right to vet® acts o f legislature not approved by the people. From the days o f Jefferson as President, the right o f the people to instruct their representatives was freely recognized, but gradually the growth o f party nominations by the delegate system took the power out o f the hands o f the people and put it in the hands o f machine men who made a profession o f politics r 4 until finally the rule o f the people was taken away from them ; until the extreme condition o f machine rule o f party Government has been d&eloped in the United States against which there is now going on a universal protest. The questioning o f candidates, the direct primary, publicity o f campaign contributions, the Initiative and Referendum, the advisory initiative are being agitated throughout the United States. The foundation stone o f the control o f Government by the people will be found in the Initiative and Referendum. I wish to point out to you the relation between the Initiative and Referen dum and the political and physical health o f the Nation. Ben Lindsay, o f Denver, a man o f great ability, o f great patriotism, and o f intense activity in the cause o f civic righteousness, has recently, in Everybody's Magazine, painted a most instructive picture in detail o f the triumphant corrup tion and control o f the legislative, executive, and judicial authority o f the State o f Colorado by corporate rascality. In discussing a remedy he said, in effect: It is useless to talk about controlling the trusts by Government so long as the Government itself is controlled by the trusts. The political health o f the Nation and the physical health o f the Nation can not be raised to its highest efficiency until the people o f the Nation and o f each State in reality and in sober truth actually control their own Government. So long as machine politicians make the nominations for both parties, patriotic citizens register their votes for such nominees in vain. They have only a choice o f evils. The doctrine o f Boss Tweed in New York might be expressed in these words, “ let me select the candidates, I care not who elects.” Selection is more vital than election. When the insurance companies and the gigantic corporations raise millions o f money to corruptly influence the elections; when they use the huge strength o f financial authority with its far-reaching power to effect votes in an intensely commercial Nation, you may expect while machine methods prevail that the nominations in both parties, will be favorable to the selfish commercial interests and that such interests will exercise corrupt and sinister influence over those chosen to administer government in the legislative, executive and judicial branches o f the Government. In vain the people demand election o f Senators by direct v o te : in vain do the people clamor for an abatement o f one man power in the House o f Repre sentatives ; in vain do they seek publicity o f campaign contributions; in vain do they demand laws forbidding corrupt practices and other reforms o f govern ment. In vain do they demand control o f monopoly, reduction o f tariff, and lower prices. The people are appealing to the nominees o f machine politics committed against them. These nominees are too often political mercenaries playing politics for profit. You can never control commercial conspiracy or ambition by your Government until you have taken your Government out o f the hands o f commercial conspiracy and out o f the hands o f purely selfish political ambition. And how will you do this ? Bv the Initiative and Referendum. Has it ever been done? Without the shadow o f a doubt; it has been done; it has been excellently well done. Is it difficult to do this? N o ; it is easy to be done. It only requires that you, the people, shall understand^ how to do it and have your interest in regaining control o f your government maintained with sufficient persistence to change each State constitution that stands in the way. Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Maine have already acted and established the Initiative and Referendum. Many other States are actively considering it. Many o f the State constitutions have been intentionally made difficult to change bv'those who. under the plea o f conservatism, believe it should 5 be made difficult for the will o f the people to register itself in constitutional forms, for fear, forsooth, the people might on impulse misgovern themselves by passing bad laws. For fear that some o f this great audience may not be familiar with the improved methods o f making effective Lincoln’s great idea o f “ A Government o f the people by the people, for the people,” I wish to explain more clearly the Initiative and Referendum, the Mandatory Primary, the Corrupt Practices Act. The Initiative means that a small percentage o f the voters, usually 8 per cent, can initiate any law they please, and require it to be submitted at ihe next regular election for a vote o f the people o f the whole State for their acceptance or rejection. It is sometimes provided that the legislature may submit a com peting measure with, the measure proposed by initiative petition. By the initiative, the people o f N ew .York State might initiate a mandatory, direct primary law, a corrupt practices act, and compel a vote in spite o f the failure o f a legislature to pass such a law as the people wanted. It has been said o f the Pennsylvania legislature that in a former time a member o f the House arose and said: “ I move, if Tom Scott have no further use for the legislature, that it do now adjourn.” A mandatory direct primary puts in the hands o f the members o f each party the direct power to nominate their own candidates. The power o f selection is more important than the power o f election. The people elect in vain if corporate power by machine manipulation nominates the candidates in each party or by control o f machinery of government can stuff the ballot-box. The nomination o f machine men is absurdly easy. It is done by the con vention system. A State convention is called to nominate a Democratic or Republican candidate for Governor, the State Chairman issues the call announcing that each county is entitled to so many delegates; the county delegates to be elected by a county convention; the county convention to be composed o f dele gates selected at the precinct; the precinct has a machine man or two who controls the local patronage, and has some local advantages— he is the precinct boss; he calls a precinct meeting on short notice, obscure advertisement at an inconvenient place, perhaps a small room over a saloon, packs the meeting with his own henchmen, has a cut and dried program. The meeting immediately nominates a candidate, or candidates to the county convention, their names selected in advance. The candidates are elected immediately, viva voce, and the first step has. been taken. The county convention composed o f such machine delegates, send machine-men chosen in advance or men at all events acceptable to the machine, and the machine delegates to the State convention are thus elected. When the State convention meets, composed o f such machine-chosen delegates, what can you expect? Did the people select the precinct delegates? No, certainly not! 'D id the people select the county delegates? No, certainly not! Did the people select the State delegates? No, certainly not! The people did not select the Governor! They only elected the choice o f a corrupt machine. It is enough to make a patriot weep who understands it thoroughly. It sometimes happens that even the machine men are compelled, in order to abate suspicion, and to elect the State ticket to nominate a man absolutely above suspicion, but if they do, you can depend upon it that his power for public service is sufficiently handicapped by his environment that he can not accomplish much substantial constructive service. It has been interesting to observe Gov ernor Hughes o f New York trying to establish one o f the ten Commandments, a Direct Primary, in vain. Has not this audience intelligence enough to know why? It is because the right o f the people to directly nominate, by a direct primary, the right o f the people to select, means the people’s rule and the over throw o f one o f the agencies o f organized commercialism, and o f organized political 6 ambition. The machine politicians fatten on the public treasury, on official favoritism, on State franchises, on municipal contracts. W e do not need the present exposures at Albany as evidence o f what it means. Everybody knows who is not imbecile. W e do not need Tom Platt’s alleged contribution o f $300,000 to the Harrison campaign as evidence, nor did we need the exposures o f the insurance companies by Governor Hughes to tell us what this grossly corrupt system means. W e all know. There is no intelligent man in the country who does not know enough o f the evils o f machine politics to agree that the time has come in the United States for the correction o f these evils in both parties and to restore to the people o f this country the right to directly nominate their own politicaj servants by direct primary, the right to initiate their own laws by the initiative petition and the right o f veto o f any act o f their servants in the legislature by the Referendum. The Referendum provides that when the legisalture passes an act not accept able to the people o f the State, a petition within ninety days after the passage o f the Act, signed by five per cent o f the voters, will operate to suspend the law until the next regular election, at which the people will vote upon the law whether it shall become a Statute or whether it shall not. Is it possible that any man o f sound mind and good character will say that a hundred men in the legislature shall pass an act and make it effective over the people o f the State against the direct vote o f a million men! The right o f the people to veto an A ct o f Legislature by the Referendum is as self-evident as my right to veto the act o f my servant, who proposes to commit me to an offensive proposition. The Americans are still a free people, in theory at least, and the general establishment o f the Initiative and Referendum is o f the highest importance for the preserva tion o f that freedom and the full enjoyment o f their liberties. The Referendum will rarely be used, because it will rarely happen that the American traction company will buy franchises worth forty millions from the local legislature or city council for eight hundred and thirty-seven dollars when both the rascal legislator and the traction company know that a Referendum vote will veto their rascality. No money in advance will be paid on such a transaction, with the power o f the Referendum hanging over it like the Sword o f Damocles. With the Initiative in force a Corrupt Practices Act and a pure ballot can be •secured. Oregon has the best Corrupt Practices Act in the United States. There a candidate for the Senate is limited to an expense o f ten per cent o f one year’s salary as the maximum expense o f making his campaign, and so with other State officials. Every dollar o f expenditure must be set forth under oath, to include every person who directly or indirectly expends any money in the interest o f such candidate. The Secretary o f State mails each voter in the State a small pamphlet in which the claims for and against each candidate for nomination is set forth. A like pamphlet is issued before the election; a like pamphlet covers the met its and demerits o f every measure initiated by the Initiative, or opposed by the Referendum. The candidates pay a hundred dollars a page and are limited to four pages. N o solicitation or bringing o f voters to the polls is allowed on election day The election is as peaceful and as honest as a Sunday School. I wish we might say as much o f New Y ork or o f Philadelphia or Boston. Under the Initiative and Referendum the Oregon Legislature tries to meet the will o f the people. They are not subject to temptation by every corruption or ambition. . I f they fail to pass the laws the people want the people pass their own laws with the Initiative. If they pass a law the people don’t want, the people veto it through the use 7 of the Referendum. This system of Government is called the People’s Rule, and what citizen, when he understands it, will vote against the Initiative and Referendum; will vote against his own right to rule his own State by his own vote; will vote to deny himself the right to select and nominate the standard bearer of his own party? Is it difficult to establish this system? Not at all.In the last few years, since the matter is understood, it has been adopted by Oregon, South Dakota, and Maine, by Oklahoma, Montana, and Missouri, and is being actively pushed in a large number o f other States, and will be adopted throughout the United States in a very few years. The agency by which it is accomplished is another device of good government, called “ The Questioning of Candidates.” This is most conveniently done by the organization of a legislative committee represent ing large groups o f voters. For instance, the National Grange, the American Federation of Labor,, the Initiative and Referendum Leagues. Each organization appoints its chairman of a legislative committee, and all the chairmen sign a common letter addressed to each candidate of all parties, demanding a plain answer in a given number of days of the question: “ Will you, if elected, use your full influence to establish the Initiative and Referendum?” If he fail to answer in two weeks his failure is advertised as opposition and general advertise ment given of his position, and all those favoring the Initiative and Referendum vote and work to defeat such candidate. An Initiative and Referendum League ought to be established in every pre cinct, in every county, in every State in the Union, all members belonging to each party having for their object the restoration to the people of the right of self-government through the Initiative and Referendum, thus taking the powers of Government out of the hands of the machine politician, the corrupt selfseeker, and freeing Government from the influence of gross commercialism. Let this joint legislative committee be organized in every State and address a circular letter to every candidate for office, especially the legislature, the gover nor, the executive officers, and the judicial officers, and ask them the plain question— “ If elected, will you use your best efforts to establish the Initiative and Referendum and the Direct Primary? Your failure to answer will be taken as a negative.” What will his answer be? When a man is a candidate running against another candidate, he is in a plastic condition of mind. When he needs votes he is very respectful to the voters. After he is elected, he is often more difficult to talk to. We are entering upon the new campaign of 1 9 1 0 , and if this proposed plan is actively followed, throughout the States of the Union, as I hope it will be, every candidate for every legislature in the United States will have to meet this issue. Will you, or will you not support the Initiative and Referendum? When the Initiative and Referendum shall have been established it is the open door to the passage of any law the people have the intelligence and patriotism to devise. The sword of the State will no longer be in the hands of an arrogant, despotic commercialism that is now shaking the foundations of this country and making a spectacle of itself in Philadelphia. When the people can pass the laws they need, uninterrupted by the corrupt ing sinister influence of sordid selfishness, it will be possible in this country to prevent the spread of the bubonic plague, which is now making widespread insidious progress on the Pacific Coast, and was not promptly eradicated because of the suppression of the truth by the commercialism of San Francisco and California. We will then be able to pass pure food laws and have those laws executed, which are now almost nullified by commercialism operating through 8 political agencies. I call as a witness the triumphant success of benzoate of soda over Dr. Wiley’s protest. * We can then prevent the deliberate pollution of our streams and water supplies; we can then abate the smoke nuisance; we can then control monopoly and high prices, and we can abate the evils of unrestrained greed, grinding the life out of women and children in sweat-shops, and we can establish sanitary precautions, which shall control in greater degree the charnel houses of tuber culosis, known as lower New York City. My fellow-citizens, in eight years we have made an annual increase in our appropriations for the Army and Navy over the average of the years just preceding, of over a thousand millions of dollars, our patriotism being played upon in large measure by those concerned in selling us materials of w ar; and how much have we spent for the National Health? Are we indeed in league with Death, that we spend a thousand millions on an increase in expenditure for war purposes and rely on Nathan Straus to abate the killing of babies with infected milk in New York. The cost of one battleship would build a macadam road of improved construction between the cities of Chicago and New York which would pa)' a splendid interest on the investment, while a battleship costs eight hundred thousand a year for expenses and goes to the junk-heap in twenty years. The pension roll of the United States o f over a hundred and fifty millions a year, which is pointed to as the evidence of patriotism, is in fact the crowning example of the terrible cost of bad government for the reason that three-fourths o f the deaths and disabilities afflicting our pensioned soldiers was due to preventable disease and exposure and was not due to the projectiles or missiles of war. Over three-fourths of these deaths and disabilities, due to such disease,, were preventable and will be prevented in future under a wise and virtuous administration o f government, only possible when the powers of the government are restored to and capable of being exercised by the people them selves. Seventy per cent of our national expenditures are due either to the wars of the past, through the pension roll, o f wars in anticipation through the Army, Navy, etc. If we, the people o f the United States, follow the great example of the Australian states, adopt the Initiative and Referendum, we can then adopt improved methods of self-government, we can abolish monopolies and com mercial oppression, we can then restore the political and physical health of the Nation. Our example will become the standard for the civilized world and will lead to universal peace; will lead to the brotherhood o f man; the peaceful federation of the world, where under beneficent law, unwilling and unmerited poverty shall be abolished, every raan be fed and clothed in comfort, decently housed, and afforded reasonable recreation for himself and his family; where men may learn under these better conditions to love each other and to know that crime itself is due to poverty, to ignorance, to temptation, to mental or physical defect born of conditions growing out o f bad government; then the human race will take care of its criminals and restore them to society by humane treatment; by kind treatment; then society will only find it necessary to restrain those who are imbecile and insane, among whom should be classed the perverted and habitual criminal. There is an abundance in this world to supply all men with every necessity of food, clothing, shelter, leisure, education, and happiness, and to furnish every luxury for those who care to seek it. It remains for the highminded intelligent patriotism of the people of the United States to set an example to the whole world that shall give our great Republic its place in history as the leader of the world in establishing the divine doctrine of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. L
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