es give with reference to the wisdom
of the referendum? At many elections candidates run at the same time
that questions are referred to the people, and what is the usual result
of the vote? In Oregon, where they have tried it most, and where the
people are best trained, they do sometimes get as much as 70 per cent of
those who vote on candidates to vote on the referendum; but generally,
as in Colorado, the vote at the same election upon the referendum
measures is not more than 50 per cent--sometimes as low as 25 or 20 per
cent--of those who vote for candidates. Why, in New York they were
voting as to whether they should have a constitutional convention, and
how did the total referendum vote compare with the total electorate? It
was just one-sixth of that total.

They have tried it in Switzerland. We get a good many of these new
nostrums from that country. They said in Switzerland, "These men vote
for candidates, they shall vote on referendums." What was the result?
The electors went up to the polls and solemnly put in tickets. When they
opened the ballots, they were blanks. What does that mean? It means that
the people themselves believe that they do not know how to vote on
those issues, and that such issues ought to be left to the agents whom
they select as competent persons to discuss and pass upon them in
accordance with the general principles that they have laid down in party
platforms. In Oregon, at the last Presidential election, the people were
invited to vote on thirty-one statutes, long, complicated statutes, and
in order to inform them, a book of two hundred and fifty closely printed
pages was published to tell them what the statutes meant.

I ask you, my friends, you who are studious, you who are earnest men who
would like to be a part of the people in determining what their policy
should be, I ask you to search yourselves and confess whether you would
have the patience to go through that book of two hundred and fifty
closely printed pages to find out what those acts meant? You would be in
active business, you would go down to the polls and say, "What is up
today?" You would be told: "Here are thirty-one statutes. Here are two
hundred and fifty pages that we would like to have you read in order
that you may determine how you are to vote on them." You would not do
it.

There was once a Senator from Oregon named Jonathan Bourne, who
advocated all this system of more democracy. He served one term in the
Sena