at the expense of civilization, nor
deliberation except at the expense of intelligence. Very few
questions can be safely left to its councils, and these only of the
most general kind. A tribunal that can be so easily deceived as the
electorate can be in common elections cannot be trusted to decide
intelligently the graver and more complicated questions of public
finance or private property, of administration, and of justice. It
may be honest and mean well, as I believe it would be; but such an
institution can not govern.

That is the conclusion reached a priori by a profound student of men
and of institutions; and there is not a man who hears me or who may
read what I am now saying but knows the conclusion is sound.

But, fortunately for the states which have not yet adopted the
innovation, we are not obliged to rely upon academic, a priori
reasoning, in order to reach a conclusion as to the wisdom of the
initiative and referendum, for the step has already been taken in
other states and we have their experience to guide us.

There is South Dakota, for example, where under the initiative the
ballot which I hold in my hand was submitted to the people at the
recent election. This ballot is 7 feet long and 14 inches wide, and it
is crowded with reading matter set in nonpareil type. Upon this ballot
there are submitted for the consideration of the people six
legislative propositions. Four of them are short and comparatively
simple. But here is one referring to the people a law which has been
passed at the preceding session of the legislature dividing the state
into congressional districts. How many of the voters of South Dakota
do you suppose got down their maps and their census reports and
carefully worked out the details of that law to satisfy themselves
whether or not it provided for a fair and honest districting of the
state? They could not amend it, remember, they had to take it as it
was or vote it down. In point of fact, they voted it down; but who
will say that in doing this they expressed an enlightened judgment or
merely followed the natural conservative instinct to vote "no" on a
proposition they did not understand? And here is a law to provide for
the organization, maintenance, equipment, and regulation of the
National Guard of the state. This bill contains 76 sections. It
occupies 4 feet 4 inches of this 7-foot ballot. It would fill two
pages of an ordinary newspaper.

And he