reference of the bill to the locality to be affected by it affords. an opportunity for public discussion of the subject, and should it really be an unworthy measure, it is reasonable to think-at least this is the underlying theory-that it could not be so easily passed a second time in the face of local disapproval. Whatever the final outcome of this interesting contest between the city and the State, regarding municipal government, it is plain that we are all the while tending toward results which promise soon to be more definite, and it may be hoped more satisfactory to all the important interests involved. If New York has taken a step in this direction and has proven herself wise beyond her sister States in the treatment of this question her example, it may be inferred, will be generally followed throughout the country within a very few years.

CHAPTER XV

THE INITIATIVE IN AMERICA

Up to this point we have been devoting our attention chiefly to the referendum, an institution which is clearly of ancient lineage in the United States, but which recently has been making history for itself in some parts of the Union at a particularly rapid rate. Only incidental allusions have been made to the right of the people themselves to initiate legislation, a subject which is to be considered in a general way in the present chapter. It would seem that the referendum could scarcely exist anywhere without the initiative, and the experience of the American States certainly does not mark them out as exceptions to the rule in this respect. In Switzerland the one is closely associated with the other and whenever a reformer of our constitutional system in the United States, of whom there are now so many, proposes the referendum, as a means of clearing the atmosphere of much that is evil in our political life, he in the same breath asks that the initiative shall be given a trial also.

The initiative and the referendum, the initiative being mentioned logically first, have been introduced as inseparable parts of a whole into the legislative practice of South Dakota, Nebraska, California, Iowa and the city of San Francisco and they exist together in fact, if not in name, in nearly all the States of the Union. For what is the system of petition for the passage of a law but the initiative? It is true that the dearly bought right of the people to petition their kings and governors for a redress of grievances, of which we still see many surviving forms even in free states, is not the right of initiative. A petition more or less numerously signed by citizens for the enactment of a law or the

repeal of a law is merely an appeal to a legislature, the members of which will afterward do quite as they please regarding this matter when the time comes for definite action on their part. But the system which has long been with us in the New England towns and in our local communities organized according to the representative principle, prescribing that a certain number of citizens may unite in a petition in favor of some local policy-the laying out of a new road, the vacating of a street or the enclosure of domestic animals, is the initiative in one of its true forms. This needs no particular demonstration, whether the petition of the citizens interested in the settlement of this local question enacts the ordinance and executes the by-law of its own force and at once, or whether it merely brings the subject before the people so that they can vote upon it in the town-meeting or by way of the referendum. In a very great number of cases there must be a moment set when, a local ordinance or administrative measure shall come into effect; the enacting authority must name some condition which shall be fulfilled before the vote can be ordered, and the referendum taken. The legislature which desires that its laws in respect of localities shall be self-operating, and which cannot pretend to determine on its own account small details of government in a municipality or other political subdivision of a State, prefers to commit the task to the people themselves, rather than to local boards and officers.

The referendum has been described as a condition precedent to the taking effect of a law; the initiative is a condition precedent to the referendum. The referendum, itself in the nature of a contingency, is made to depend upon a contingency, and that is the filing with representative local officials of a petition signed by a definite number of persons, asking that the citizens residing within a given district shall have the opportunity to say yea or nay on the proposition that it shall be governed by the terms of a certain local bylaw which the State legislature has proposed. Thus a prescribed number of signatures from ten to several thousand,

according to the size of the district, its population, the desire to encourage or discourage the taking of the vote, the whims of the legislatures and other controlling influences and circumstances, must be secured in a locality before the election can be held. Sometimes the requirement is for a petition signed by a definite number of persons, as ten freeholders, one hundred qualified voters, two hundred resident taxpayers, etc. Again the law may require a certain percentage of the whole number of qualified electors registered within the district, or of the electors voting at the last election as 10 per cent, 15 per cent, 20 per cent, 25 per cent; or the literal condition may be one-tenth, one-fourth, onethird, two-fifths, three-fifths, a majority or even threefourths of the legal voters. The legislature instead of enacting the law, requiring the referendum to be taken on a certain fixed date, on regularly recurring dates, or on the motion of local judges, commissioners, mayors and boards, places upon the shoulders of the people themselves the responsibility of deciding when the time has come for an election on the subject. The prohibition of special legislation in recent years and the restriction of the State legislatures' activities, in respect of localities, to "general laws" have exerted a powerful influence to forward this development. For if the legislature cannot adopt the laws which are required by any particular community, and the need for such legislation still exists, the natural tendency is toward the enactment of the great codes of general laws now made so familiar to us in many of the States. These codes have become so comprehensive as to include almost any possible case which from time to time may arise out of the exigencies of local government. The legislature passes the laws without saying whether or not they are needed by all, or by any one of the communities to which they purport to relate. It does not even go so far as to say that the laws shall be submitted to the people in the various districts, for elections are expensive and troublesome and should be avoided when they are likely to fulfil no purpose. An ordi

nance which would be useful to one community might be without applicability to another, and, furthermore, while without direct interest for a locality at one time might at another time, a few years hence, be of much practical importance to the same locality. The legislature being unable to decide these matters for itself,-whether any given ordinance should be made to apply to the localities or not and if so to which ones, and when, finds a simple way out of its many difficulties in the signed petition, or the initiative. Shall the law which has been passed by the State legislature apply to a particular locality? The people will decide by the referendum. When shall the referendum be taken? The people will decide by the initiative.

Instances are so innumerable that it is a matter of chance in selecting even leading forms. A few will have to suffice since it is a subject so closely bound up with the referendum that to cover the field fully again in this place would be but a repetition of much that has been said in earlier chapters. The initiative occurs in connection with propositions to incorporate cities and villages, to "advance" or "reduce" their grade, to organize levee districts and irrigation districts, to loan the public credit and issue bonds, to levy taxes for special purposes, to change city and county boundary lines, to remove county seats, to make the enclosure of various species of live stock obligatory, to prohibit the manufacture or traffic in alcoholic liquors, to sell public lands and to enact a great variety of by-laws and enforce many different regulations having to do with local manage

ment.

In reference to local option liquor laws, for instance, we find that in Connecticut twenty-five "legal voters" of any town may cause an election to be held " to determine whether any person shall be licensed to sell spirituous and intoxicating liquors in said town". The law having been adopted the same number of petitioners may later demand that an

1 General Statutes of Connecticut, 1888, sec. 3050.