l secretary issues the call within two weeks after the petition
for a vote reaches him, and the vote is taken within six months
afterward. Eighteen propositions passed by the annual convention of this
union at Boston, in November, 1891, were submitted to a vote of the
local unions in December.

In 1890, the local unions of the International Typographical Union, then
numbering nearly 290, voted on twenty-five propositions submitted from
the annual convention. In 1891, fourteen propositions were submitted. Of
the latter, one authorized the formation of unions of editors and
reporters; another directed the payments to the President to be a salary
of $1,400, actual railroad fares by the shortest possible routes, and $3
a day for hotel expenses; another rescinded a six months' exemption from
a per capita tax for newly formed unions; another provided for a funeral
benefit of $50 on the death of a member; by another an assessment of ten
cents a month was levied for the home for superannuated and disabled
union printers. All fourteen were adopted, the majorities, however,
varying from 558 to 8,758.

_Is Complete Direct Legislation in Government Practicable?_

The conservative citizen, contented with the existing state of things,
is wont to brush aside proposed innovations in government. To do so he
avails himself of a familiar stock of objections. But have they not all
their answer in the facts thus far brought forth in these chapters? Will
he entertain no "crazy theories"? Here is offered practice, proven in
varied and innumerable tests to be thoroughly feasible. He is opposed to
foreign institutions? Here is a time-honored American institution. He
holds that men cannot be made better by law? Here are facts to show that
with change of law justice has been promoted. He deems democracy
feebleness? Here has been shown its stalwart strength. He is sure
workingmen are incapable of managing large affairs? Let him look to the
cigar-makers--their capacity for organization, their self-restraint as
an industrial army, the soundness of their financial system, the mastery
of their employers in the eight-hour question. He believes the
intricacies of taxation and estimates of appropriation beyond the
average mind? He may see a New England town meeting in a single day
dispose of scores of items and, with each settled to a nicety, vote away
fifty thousand dollars. He fears state legislation, by reason of its
complexity, would prove a puzz