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The Commoner.
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THE COMMONER, Lincoln, Neb.
MR. TAFT'S BLUNDERS
The republican progressives are pursuing an
aggressive campaign. They possess organiza
tion and a supply of funds. They have a card
system of enrolling actual and possible con
verts, borrowed from that master of personal
detail in politics the progressive leader from
Wisconsin whose absorption in high principles
for the public welfare is apparently so com
plete. President Taft's friends now believe the time
has come for counter-organization and action.
Card index will be met by card index. As the
army of progressives crosses the Mississippi in
its eastward march it will be fought with its
own weapons.
It will not prove an impressive course of
action. What strength the progressive move
ment has is the gift of the president rather
than the creation of the La Follettes.
When Mr. Taft allowed Aldrich and Payne
to "reform" the tariff for him and pronounced
their work "the best tariff ever enacted," he
started tho progressive revolt.
When he closed the patronage to the seceders
and made public admission of the fact, he
armed them with a measure of public sympathy.
When he repeated the Payne-Aldrlch blun
der in tho vetoes of the extra-session tariff bills,
he further strengthened the conditions of party
revolt.
And when he now repudiates his own coura-'
geous hostility to the Cox regime in Cincinnati
and travels far to support it with his vote, he
destroys a distinction that hUd won him wide
admiration and addB again to the power of his
opponents.
The president is his own worst enemy as
against the progressives. Card indexes will be
of little use. Tho one way to defeat the pro
gressives is to give the country a more con
sistently progressive administration. New York
World.
MAYOR HUNT'S LETTER
Cincinnati, 0., Nov. 21, 1911. To the Editor
of the Denver News, Denver Colo: My atten
tion has been called to an editorial recently
appearing in your paper, commenting on the
Ohio municipal elections, wherein I was quoted
as having Baid regarding Governor Harmon, the
following: "During the Cox crusade Hunt con
tinually made the charge that Governor Har
mon was rendering all aid and sustenance to
the Cox-controlled machine."
I wish to emphatically deny ever having made
such statement or entertained such belief. On
the contrary I wish to say that in the prolonged
fight that has been waged to overthrow the
Cox machine, Governor Harmon, both as an
official and as a private citizen, has borne a
conspicuous part. H
In justice to both Governor Harmon and my
self I would respectfully ask that "this refuta
tion be published In a prominent place in your
paper. HENRY HUNT,
Mayor-elect of Cincinnati.
Direct Legislation Before Supreme Court
George Fred Williams of Massachusetts has
filed an interesting and instructive brief in the
direct legislation case now before tho United
States supreme court.
The .first installment of this brief was printed
in Tho Commoner of November 10. The fifth
and final installment appears in this issue.
The fifth installment of Mr. Williams' brief
follows:
C. THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM
1. Necessity: Not a Principle
Historians are agreed that where democratic
forms have prevailed they have yielded to rep
resentative or delegate forms only from the
necessities arising from extension of population
and territory. It has been pointed out (supra
III, B. 4, a.) that this was true of the Teutonic
institutions of England.
Concerning the Plymouth colony, "The gov
ernment was first a pure democracy; the whole
body of the people often met and divided upon
affairs both executive and legislative. As their
numbers increased, this was found inconvenient;
and in 1639 a house of representatives was
established, and representatives elected from
the several towns."
Pitkin's History United States, p. 34.
Bancroft's History of United States, Vol VIII,
p. 370, says:
"The republics of the ancient world had
grown out of cities, so that their governments
were originally municipalities; to make a re
public possible in the large territories embraced
in the several American colonies where the
whole society could never be assembled, power
was to be deputed by the many to the few, who
were to be elected by suffrage, and were in
theory to be a faithful miniature portrait of the
people."
The charter of "the governor and company
of Massachusetts bay, granted 1629 by -Charles
I, provided that
"The freemen of the company were to hold a
meeting four times a year; and they were em
powered to choose a governor, etc.:"
"After their arrival in Massachusetts, their
numbers increased so rapidly that it became
impossible to have a primary assembly of all
the freemen, and so a representative assembly
was devised after the model of the Old English
county court."
John Flske's "Civil Government in the
United States," pp. 161, 162. (Cam
bridge Press Edition, 1902.)
"As a republican, sir, I think that the security
of the liberty and happiness of the people from
the highest to the lowest, being the object of
government, the people are consequently the
fountain of all power. They must, however,
delegate it to agents because from their num
ber, dispersed situation and many other cir
sumstances, they can not exercise it in person."
Edmund Pendleton, Elliot's Debates, Vol.
3, 298.
Mr. Wilson, a Swiss official, says of the initia
tive and referendum in Switzerland that
"They have given back to the people the
right they once possessed to take part in the
legislation of their respective cantons. The
right was surrendered when the people became
too numerous to assemble together for law
making, and so representatives were chosen
to make the laws."
ThOyConception, of a general assembly of the
state is involved in tho address of the Massacha
sotts "Convention for framing a new Constitu
tion of government" to their constituents,
March 2, 1780.
"Could the whole body of the people have'
convened for the same purpose, there might
have been equal reason to conclude that a per
fect unanimity of sentiments would have been
an object not to be obtained."
Journal of Mass. Convention Appx., p. 216.
John Adams in Thoughts on Government,
Vol. IV, p, 194, says:
"As good government is an empire of laws,
how shall your laws bo made? In a large so
ciety, Inhabiting an extonsive country, it is im
possible that the whole should assemble to make
laws. The first step, then, is to depute power
from the many to a few of the most wiso and
good," and at p. 195 "This representative as
sembly should bo in miniature an exact por
trait of the people at large. It shbuld think,
feel, reason and act like them."
2. Philosophy of Representative System
The conception that the principle of represen
tation somehow qualifies the sovereignty of the
people suggests the German adage!
"Wo die Begriffe fehlen, da stellt zu rechter
Zeit ein Wort sich ein."
(When comprehension fails, a word happens
opportunely in.)
It is true in tho larger sense that the whole
government must represent the popular will,
but it is not true that all its functions must bo
performed through delegates. It suffices if the
things done "represent the will of the majority
of the people" and this Is the length and breadth
of the representative system in a republican
government. The manner in which this is ac
complished is merely functional and in no sense
fundamental.
It does not need argument or citations to
prove that our governments are and must be
affected by the representative principle and
practide. The error of the appellant in his
i claims is in assuming that legislation must
under the republican principle take the form
of a delegated power. The various expreGsions
indicating that some kinds of representation
are necessary are essentially true because all
acts of government can not be performed by the
mass. Even in the forum of Rome, there were
senators, tribunes, praetors and aediles. In the
town meeting, the present form of democracy,
sit the selectmen, assessors, town clerk, con
stables and other representatives of the people
of. the town in the execution of their behests.
There sits the justice of the peace, their agent
or representative to perform the judicial func
tions. Clearly the citizens in mass can not
pay bills, assess and collect taxes, kee the
records and make arrests.
A democracy without agents and representa
tives Is inconceivable. In the executive func
tions, the representative system is physically
essential to a pure democracy.
The judicial ' functions might be exercised
directly by judgments and decrees settled in
mass, but the service and execution must bo
delegated to certain persons.
But the legislative or law-making power may
be physically exercised without the interven
tion 'of agents or the power may be delegated to
agents who are called "representatives," be
cause they in theory carry out the, will of the
electorate. Hence representative legislation is
the exercise of the people's soverignty, not by
virtue of any sovereign power inherent in the
persons who represent, but purely by virtue of
the sovereignty imparted to them by the people.
There is no legal or constitutional principle
which warrants 'the claim that when the people
decline to delegate their sovereignty, the re
' public fails.
Representation so far as it is a necessity must
exist, but tho necessity is limited and variable,
and between its maximum and minimum is no
lino which marks the republican boundaries
Legislators may be dispensed with and tho
popular will remain in full power. A legisla
ture is no more essential to a republican form,
than agents are essential to a business. They
may be functionally necessary, but do not inhere
in the business.
James Wilson (Elliot's Debates, Vol. II, pago
358) says that even in England, "though we
find representation operating as a check it can
not be considered as a prevailing principle."
3. Power of Legislatures Delegated and Limited
a. DELEGATED POWER
The leerialatliro ia n. nnr nrontiirw nf thn
state. While it is necessary to make laws, It
is not necessary to have legislatures. If the
people choose they may cease to create, and the
creaturo will cease to exist.
The status of legislatures is already well
established in the decisions of this court. In
Van Horn's Lessee v. Dorrance, 2Dall. 304,
Mr. Justice Patterson describes the source and
extent of legislative power.
"The constitution of England Is at the mercy
of parliament. Every act" of parliament ia
transcendant and must be obeyed."
In America "a constitulon is the form of
government delineated by the mighty Tiand of
the people, In which certain first principles of
fundamental law are established. It contain
the permanent will of the people and is tb