For a
peaceful revolution these masses found the means in the working
principles of their communal meetings--the Initiative and
Referendum,--and these principles they are applying throughout the
republic as fast as circumstances admit.[D]

[Footnote D: While the reports of the Secretary of State and "The
History of the Referendum," by Th. Curti, will bear out many of the
statements here made as to how the change from representative to direct
legislation came about, the story as I give it has been written me by
Herr Carl Buerkli, of Zurich, known in his canton as the "Father of the
Referendum."]

The great movement for democracy in Europe that culminated in the
uprising of 1848 brought to the front many original men, who discussed
innovations in government from every radical point of view. Among these
thinkers were Martin Rittinghausen, Emile Girardin, and Louis Blanc.
From September, 1850, to December, 1851, the date of the _coup d'etat_
of Louis Bonaparte, these reformers discussed, in the "Democratic
pacifique," a weekly newspaper of Paris, the subject of direct
legislation by the citizens. Their essays created a sensation in France,
and more than thirty journals actively supported the proposed
institution, when the _coup d'etat_ put an end to free speech. The
articles were reprinted in book form in Brussels, and other works on the
subject were afterward issued by Rittinghausen and his co-worker Victor
Considerant. Among Considerant's works was "Solution, ou gouvernement
direct du peuple," and this and companion works that fell into the hands
of Carl Buerkli convinced the latter and other citizens of Zurich ("an
unknown set of men," says Buerkli) of the practicability of the
democratic methods advocated. The subject was widely agitated and
studied in Switzerland, and the fact that the theory was already to some
extent in practice there (and in ancient times had been much practiced)
led to further experiments, and these, attaining success, to further,
and thus the work has gone on. The cantonal Initiative was almost
unknown outside the Landsgemeinde when it was established in Zurich in
1869. Soon, however, through it and the obligatory Referendum (to use
Herr Buerkli's words): "The plutocratic government and the Grand Council
of Zurich, which had connived with the private banks and railroads, were
pulled down in one great voting swoop. The people had grown tired of
being beheaded by the office-holders after every el