n is or should be
to devise or to help in the devising of means, necessary to accomplish a
predetermined policy. Its members have little or no initiative and
little or no independence. Legislative projects are imposed upon them
either by party leaders, by special interests, or at times by the
executive and public opinion. Their work is at best that of
committee-men and at worst that of mercenaries, paid to betray their
original employers. A successful attempt to bestow upon legislative
bodies, composed of such doubtful material and subject to such equivocal
traditions anything resembling complete governmental responsibility,
would be a dangerous business. Legislatures have degenerated into the
condition of being merely agents, rather than principals in the work of
government; and the strength and the propriety of the contemporary
movement in favor of the initiative and the referendum is to be
attributed to this condition.

The increasing introduction of the referendum into the local political
organization is partly a recognition of the fact that the legislatures
have ceased to play an independent part in the work of government. There
is every reason to believe that hereafter the voters will obtain and
keep a much more complete and direct control over the making of their
laws than that which they have exerted hitherto; and the possible
desirability of the direct exercise of this function cannot be disputed
by any loyal democrat. The principle upon which the referendum is based
is unimpeachable; but a question remains as to the manner in which the
principle of direct legislation can be best embodied in a piece of
practical political machinery; and the attempt to solve this question
involves a consideration of the general changes in our system of local
government, which may be required, as a result of the application of the
new principle.

The necessary limits of this discussion forbid any exhaustive
consideration of the foregoing questions; and I must content myself with
a brief summary of the method in which the principle of direct
legislation can be made the part of an efficient local political system.
The difficulty is to find some means of distinguishing that part of the
legislative responsibility which should be retained by the people and
that part which, in order to be effectively redeemed, must be delegated.
Obviously the part to be retained is the function of accepting or
rejecting certain general proposals resp