business' has
been poured into the big hopper, and in less time than it takes to tell
it, it has come out at the other end completed legislation, lacking only
the President's signature to fit it for the statute books. Public bills
providing for the necessary expenses of the government, private bills
galore having as their beneficiaries favored individuals, jobbery in the
way of unnecessary public buildings, railroad charters, and bridge
construction--all have been rushed through at lightning speed, and the
end is not yet. A majority of the House members, desperate because their
power and influence terminate with the end of this brief session, and a
partisan Speaker, whose autocratic rule will prevail but thirty-six
short hours longer, have left nothing unattempted whereby party friends
and proteges might be benefited. It is safe to say that aside from a
half dozen measures of real importance and genuine merit the country
would be no worse off should every other bill not yet acted upon fail of
passage. Certain it is that large sums of money would be saved to the
Government." And what observer does not know that scenes not unlike this
are repeated in almost every legislature in its closing hours?

As between such manner of even national legislation on the one hand, and
on the other the entire citizenship voting (as soon would be the fact
under direct legislation) on but what properly should be law--and on
principles, on policies, and on aggregates in appropriations--would
there be reason for the country to hesitate in choosing?

Among the plainest signs of the times in America is the popular distrust
of legislators. The citizens are gradually and surely resuming the
lawmaking and money-spending power unwisely delegated in the past to
bodies whose custom it is to abuse the trust. "Government" has come to
mean a body of representatives with interests as often as not opposed to
those of the great mass of electors. Were legislation direct, the circle
of its functions would speedily be narrowed; certainly they would never
pass legitimate bounds at the urgency of a class interested in enlarging
its own powers and in increasing the volume of public outlay. Were
legislation direct, the sphere of every citizen would be enlarged; each
would consequently acquire education in his role, and develop a lively
interest in the public affairs in part under his own management. And
what so-called public business can be right in principle, or