and the ballot were designed to improve the
quality of public officers, and were supplemented by a demand for direct
legislation which would check up the result. In Switzerland a scheme had
been devised by which the people, by petition, could initiate new laws
or obtain a vote upon existing laws. The idea of submitting special
measures to popular vote, or referendum, was old in the United States,
for in this way state constitutions and constitutional amendments were
habitually adopted, and matters of city charters, loans and franchises
often determined. The initiative, however, was new, and appealed to the
reformer who resented the refusal of the legislature to pass desired
laws as well as the unwillingness to pass worthy ones. The Populists, in
1892, recommended that the system of direct legislation be investigated,
and they favored its adoption in 1896. A journal for the promotion of
the reform appeared in 1894. In 1898 the first State, South Dakota,
adopted the principle of initiative and referendum in a constitutional
amendment. To those who attacked the device as only mechanical it was
answered: "Direct legislation is not a panacea for all national ills. In
fact it is not a panacea at all. It is merely a spoon with which the
panacea can be administered. Specific legislation is the panacea for
political ills."

The West was more ready than the East to break from existing practice
and take up the new reforms. It had always been the liberal section of
the United States. Between 1800 and 1830 it had led in the enlargement
of the franchise and in the removal of qualifications of wealth and
religion. It now approached the one remaining qualification of sex. With
the admission of Wyoming in 1890, full woman suffrage appeared among the
States. Colorado adopted an amendment establishing it in 1893. Utah, in
the words of the women, "completing the trinity of true Republics at the
summit of the Rockies," became the third suffrage State in January,
1896, while Idaho adopted woman suffrage in the same year. It was
fifteen years before a fifth State was added to the list, but the
women's movement was advancing in all directions. A General Federation
of Women's Clubs was organized in 1890 as a clearing-house for the
activities of the women, and through organizations like the Consumers'
League, the movement fell into line with the general course of reform. A
clearer vision of the defects in governmental machinery and of the
needs