difference in their operations is that the one does its own voting and the other tells the people how to vote. The present and many preceding generations in America have grown up under a representative form of government. It is a difficult thing to abandon. Oregon has not done so except on fundamental questions. The multitudinous laws and amendments on the Oregon ballot which give uneasiness elsewhere where direct legislation is in prospect are in fact approved or rejected by a roundabout representative system. A great many in Oregon do not yet realize this fact, but they will in time." 1

The legislative assembly of course has greater opportunities for the proper consideration of legislation than the voters can generally have, but these opportunities under conditions that have prevailed in the past have not, unfortunately, been used to their full extent, and hence there is widespread opinion that the advantage is rather with the people. "I have heard more than one member of the legislature declare, as the press and tumult of the session began to distract him, that he believed the initiative method with its prolonged and searching discussions during the campaign before the voters was a better way to make laws than he was attempting to practice." 2

3

The Results of Education

The actual amount of knowledge of the issues involved which is gained by the voters from the various available sources of information is of course problematical. Some views of the matter are very pessimistic. "After all the discussions of the initiative and referendum propositions it is doubtful whether one voter in ten has distinct ideas about most of them. Legislation after

1 Oregonian, May 6, 1914, p. 10, col. 3. Cf. above, p. 92, note 1.

2 R. W. Montague, Oregon System at Work, National Municipal Review, vol. 3, pp. 256, 266 (1914). See also J. Bourne, Initiative, Referendum and Recall, Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, pp. 122, 127 (1909).

this manner is a leap in the dark." 1 Other views are more cheerful. But whatever may be the difference of opinion as to the amount of knowledge obtained by the voters, there is general agreement in the view that the educational effect of the campaign is of very great value. "It takes time to educate a people into fitness for self-government. We are not completely fit, no doubt, but the very use of this privilege and power will make the people more fit, constantly and even rapidly." "It keeps the average citizen in touch with current legislation. It brings home to the average citizen the duty and responsibility of helping make laws. It awakens every citizen's mind to a realization of factorship in state concerns. Nobody knows how much benefit has already come to the men of Oregon by the reflection and study incident to initiative law making. Nobody knows how many average minds are now grappling with current problems who never did so in the old days, because all our law making and all our public thinking was done for us by proxy. Nobody knows the full extent of the informative influence exercised on tens of thousands of voters by perusal and study of the measures in the state pamphlet and in the reflection incident to determining whether to vote for or against the various measures." 3

1 Oregonian, June 1, 1908, p. 8, col. 4. "Since receiving the book of laws to be voted upon this fall, I have been trying to post myself upon the miscellaneous measures therein in order to vote intelligently upon the same. I frankly admit that I feel incompetent to perform the duty properly. I have talked to others- some who have intelligence above the average — - and they have admitted their incompetency also, principally because it is out of their line of business." S. V. Rehart, Oregonian, Sept. 30, 1912, p. 8, col. 6. Oregon Journal, Feb. 29, 1908, p. 6, col. 2.

Ibid., Aug. 30, 1912, p. 8, col. 1.

STANFORD_LIBRARY

CHAPTER XI

THE VOTE IN DIRECT LEGISLATION

I

The Interest in Elections

"THAT Voting in an election is a patriotic duty that no man should neglect has long been urged upon the electorate. But there is even stronger reason why the people should vote on direct legislation. Election to office is a contest between two or more candidates. The voter who stays away from the polls divides his vote equally among the several candidates. Oregon state and county elections have developed largely into a popularity test between personalities. The office will be filled and the business of the government carried on in spite of widespread dereliction in the exercise of the franchise. An initiative measure or one subjected to the referendum, on the other hand, is an issue in itself. We either adopt it or reject it. We either accept its virtues or its evils or we deprive ourselves wholly of them. Failure of many to vote leaves the control of government affairs, in sometimes unsuspected instances, to a compact group or class that is actually in the minority. Indifference of the majority, or its failure to discern the significance of a proposed law, may wreak disaster upon the majority or give the minority special advantages or privileges to which it is not entitled." 1

But that the voters are not as much interested in the enactment of direct legislation as they are in the choice of officers clearly appears from the fact that when officers and measures 1 Oregonian, Sept. 10, 1912, p. 8, col. 1.

ΙΟΙ

are voted upon at the same election which has been the case at every election under the new system except the special election of 1913 on the average only seventy-three per cent of the total vote cast at the election is received by a measure, in contrast to the average of eighty-eight per cent received by an officer. Further, at the special election of 1913, when no officers were elected,' the total vote cast on the measures was only seventyone per cent of the total vote cast at the election the year before, although since then the extension of the suffrage to women had increased the electorate probably over forty per cent. "It has been suggested that this, at worst, results only in a kind of natural selection of the intelligent and interested— an oligarchy of the thoughtful, which some believe to be the goal of politics." 2

• There is much variation of interest shown in the particular measures appearing on the ballot. The greatest variation appears in the election of 1910, when the highest number of votes cast on a measure was eighty-eight per cent of the total votes cast at the election, and the lowest sixty-one per cent.

The chief interest of the voters, so far as this is indicated by the percentages of votes cast on the various measures, is in matters of general state policy liquor legislation, woman's suffrage, the "single-tax," etc.; and their least concern is generally with matters of a special local nature, as county divisions, with technical questions, as the details of tax administration, and with complex subjects, as the reorganization of the legislative department. Progressive and even radical measures at times receive low percentages of the votes cast when the measures are much involved, and this has happened even where single issues have been submitted in such cases.3

1 Except local officers in some places.

R. W. Montague, Oregon System at Work, National Municipal Review, vol. 3, pp. 256, 268 (1914).

Why the constitutional amendment for the local initiative and referendum received the least number of votes cast on measures at the election of 1906 does not appear.

Although promoters of initiative and referendum movements sometimes are anxious that their measures should be filed in time to get "good places" on the ballot, there is no evidence that the place on the ballot has anything to do with the consideration of a measure by the voters.

2

Minority versus Majority

From a study of the votes for the measures which have been approved at the several elections, it appears that of the fifty-one measures which received a majority of the votes cast on the particular measure, only nineteen, or a little under two-fifths of these measures, received a majority of the votes cast at the election. The majority is generally reduced as the number of measures on the ballot increases.

For years there has been complaint, especially in regard to the initiative, that the provision which permits the passage of measures submitted to the people by the majority of the votes cast on the particular measure instead of the majority of all the votes cast at the election, and thus puts into effect legislation approved by only a minority of the voters, substitutes minority rule for majority rule as a principle of government. Accordingly, in 1912, proposals for constitutional amendments were submitted to the people, which provided, one for the approval of all constitutional amendments, the other for the approval of all initiative measures, by the majority of all the votes cast at the election.2

1 E.g., Oregonian, Feb. 18, 1908, p. 8, col. 1; Referendum Pamphlet, 1912, pp. 85-6. Referendum Pamphlet, 1912, nos. 310, 322, pp. 31, 83. Earlier proposals: A. T. Buxton, Oregonian, May 15, 1908, p. 6, col. 3; Oregon Journal, Nov. 22, 1908, sec. 5, p. 6, col. 2; proposed Grange resolution, Oregonian, May 13, 1909, p. 6, col. 3; House Joint Resolution, 1911, no. 11. "Any measure referred to the people by the initiative shall take effect and be in force when it shall have been approved by a majority of the votes cast in such election. Any measure referred to the people by the referendum shall take effect and be in force when it shall have been approved