TEE STRUGGLE FOE EQUALITY 381 



of our legislative assemblies have not been uncommon. As a result, 

 there has long been a tendency to shackle our legislatures with more 

 stringent constitutional restrictions. Numerous statutory enactments 

 have been written into the organic law of many of the states which the 

 legislature can not change. Provisions in the statutes of some states 

 are often found in the constitutions of other states. The referendum 

 and the initiative are another device to prevent an abuse of legisla- 

 tive power. 



President Woodrow Wilson says: 



Among the remedies proposed in recent years have been the initiative and 

 referendum in the field of legislation and the recall in the field of administration. 

 These measures are supposed to be characteristic of the most radical programs, 

 and they are supposed to be meant to change the very character of our govern- 

 ment. They have no such purpose. Their intention is to restore, not to destroy, 

 representative government. ... If we felt that we had genuine representative 

 government in our state legislatures no one would propose the initiative or referen- 

 dum in America. They are being proposed now as a means of bringing our rep- 

 resentatives back to the consciousness that what they are bound in duty and in 

 mere policy to do is to represent the sovereign people whom they profess to serve 

 and not the private interests which creep into their counsels by way of machine 

 orders and committee conferences. The most ardent and successful advocates of 

 the initiative and referendum regard them as a sobering means of obtaining 

 genuine representative action on the part of legislative bodies. They do not 

 mean to set anything aside. They mean to restore and re-invigorate, rather.29 



Our legislative bodies sometimes yield to the passions of the hour, 

 but the cowardice and irresponsibility which lead to this result are to 

 some extent induced by the fact that the courts may set aside what the 

 legislature enacts. The contention that the referendum will lower the 

 standing of our legislatures is open to question, but there can be no 

 doubt that judicial control has promoted trifling on the part of our 

 legislative bodies and undermined their authority. So long as the Inter- 

 state Commerce Commission was not clothed with the substance of 

 power, the railways occasionally treated it with contempt by waiting to 

 present their side of a controversy until it was taken up by the courts. 

 In like manner, judicial control lessens the reliance of property owners 

 upon political action and causes undue reliance upon the judiciary. It 

 seems probable that many members of our legislatures would treat the 

 railway interests with more consideration if they knew that legislative 

 indiscretion would not have to run the gauntlet of the courts. 



Notwithstanding the undermining influence of judicial control upon 

 legislative authority, the railways have found political action by no 

 means unavailing. It is notorious that the legislatures of many states 

 have done the bidding of the railways in practically everything that has 

 concerned the railway interest. Likewise, our municipal governments 



29 William Bennett Munro, ' ' The Initiative, Eef erendum and Eecall, ' ' pp. 

 87-88. 



