hat they are satisfied whichever side wins.
The initiative and referendum are, above all other forms of government,
the specific remedy for the ills of universal suffrage and conflicting
nationalities. Race antagonism springs from personalities, race
coalescence from community of interest. A vote for candidates
intensifies antagonism--a vote on measures promotes community.

There are, indeed, some kinds of measures which stir up race antagonism.
But the keenest of these have happily been eliminated. More intense than
any other source of discord is religious belief. Religious differences
in America are not so much theological as racial in character. The
Judaism of the Jew, the Protestantism of the British and colonial
American, the Lutheranism of the German, the Roman Catholicism of the
Irish, Italian, and Slav, the Greek Catholicism of other Slavs, all
testify to the history and psychology of races. Far-sighted indeed were
our fathers who separated Church and State. Were the people taxed to
support religion, every election would be a contest of races. All other
questions would be subordinate, and democracy impossible. But with
religion relegated to private judgment, each race is free to cultivate
at will that one of its own peculiarities most fanatically adhered to,
but most repellent to other races, while uniting with the others on what
is most essential to democracy. Religious freedom is more than a private
right--it is an American necessity.

[Illustration: CHINESE STUDENTS, HONOLULU (From _The Independent_)]

Another class of measures running partly along race lines are sumptuary
laws, especially those regulating saloons and Sunday observance. In
the Southern states saloon prohibition is largely a race
discrimination and a race protection. In the North it often is American
puritanism of the country against European liberalism of the cities.
Here the referendum shows itself as the conciliator of nationalities.
Upon no other issue has the popular vote been so generally resorted to.
This issue comes close to the habits and passions of the masses. It
takes precedence of all others except religion, but cannot be evaded
like religion. If legislative bodies and executive officials decide the
question, then the German or the Irishman adds to his zeal for the
election of a conationalist his thirst for the election of a candidate
with habits like his own. But when left to a popular vote, the saloon
question is separated