, we should
set up such an agitation as that for the initiative and referendum and the
recall. When did this thing begin? I have been receiving circulars and
documents from little societies of men all over the United States with
regard to these matters, for the last twenty-five years. But the circulars
for a long time kindled no fire. Men felt that they had representative
government and they were content. But about ten or fifteen years ago the
fire began to burn,--and it has been sweeping over wider and wider areas
of the country, because of the growing consciousness that something
intervenes between the people and the government, and that there must be
some arm direct enough and strong enough to thrust aside the something
that comes in the way.

I believe that we are upon the eve of recovering some of the most
important prerogatives of a free people, and that the initiative and
referendum are playing a great part in that recovery. I met a man the
other day who thought that the referendum was some kind of an animal,
because it had a Latin name; and there are still people in this country
who have to have it explained to them. But most of us know and are deeply
interested. Why? Because we have felt that in too many instances our
government did not represent us, and we have said: "We have got to have a
key to the door of our own house. The initiative and referendum and the
recall afford such a key to our own premises. If the people inside the
house will run the place as we want it run, they may stay inside and we
will keep the latchkeys in our pockets. If they do not, we shall have to
re-enter upon possession."

Let no man be deceived by the cry that somebody is proposing to substitute
direct legislation by the people, or the direct reference of laws passed
in the legislature, to the vote of the people, for representative
government. The advocates of these reforms have always declared, and
declared in unmistakable terms, that they were intending to recover
representative government, not supersede it; that the initiative and
referendum would find no use in places where legislatures were really
representative of the people whom they were elected to serve. The
initiative is a means of seeing to it that measures which the people want
shall be passed,--when legislatures defy or ignore public opinion. The
referendum is a means of seeing to it that the unrepresentative measures
which they do not want shall not be placed upon the