These prudential measures
have not served to improve the legislative output, and the reformers are
now crying for more drastic remedies. In the West the tendency is to
transfer legislative authority from a representative body directly to
the people. A movement in favor of the initiative and the referendum is
gaining so much headway, that in all probability it will spread
throughout the country much as the Australian ballot did over a decade
ago. But the adoption of the initiative and the referendum substitutes a
new principle for the one which has hitherto underlain American local
institutions. Representative government is either abandoned thereby or
very much restricted; and direct government, so far as possible, is
substituted for it. Such a fundamental principle and tradition as that
of representation should not be thrown away, unless the change can be
justified by a specific, comprehensive, and conclusive analysis of the
causes of the failure of the state governments.
The analysis upon which the advocates of the initiative and the
referendum base their reform has the merit of being obvious.
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