most flagrant existing abuses.  These prudential measures have not served to improve the legislative output, and the reformers are now crying for more drastic remedies.  In the West the tendency is to transfer legislative authority from a representative body directly to the people.  A movement in favor of the initiative and the referendum is gaining so much headway, that in all probability it will spread throughout the country much as the Australian ballot did over a decade ago.  But the adoption of the initiative and the referendum substitutes a new principle for the one which has hitherto underlain American local institutions.  Representative government is either abandoned thereby or very much restricted; and direct government, so far as possible, is substituted for it.  Such a fundamental principle and tradition as that of representation should not be thrown away, unless the change can be justified by a specific, comprehensive, and conclusive analysis of the causes of the failure of the state governments.

The analysis upon which the advocates of the initiative and the referendum base their reform has the merit of being obvious.  American legislatures have betrayed the interests of their constituents, and have been systematically passing laws for the benefit of corrupt and special interests.  The people must consequently take back the trust, which has been delegated to representative bodies.  They must resume at least the power to initiate the legislation they want; and no law dealing with a really important subject should be passed without their direct consent.

Such an analysis of the causes of legislative corruption and incompetence is not as correct as it is obvious.  It is based upon the old and baleful democratic tendency of always seeking the reason for the failure of a democratic enterprise in some personal betrayal of trust.  It is never the people who are at fault.  Neither is the betrayal attributed to some defect of organization, which neglects to give the representative individual a sufficient chance.  The responsibility for the failure is fastened on the selected individual himself, and the conclusion is drawn that the people cannot trust representatives to serve them honestly and efficiently.  The course of reasoning is precisely the same as that which prompted the Athenian democracy to order the execution of an unsuccessful general.  In the case of our state legislatures, a most flagrant betrayal of trust has assuredly occurred, but before inferring from this betrayal that selected individuals cannot be trusted to legislate properly on behalf of their constituents, it would be just as well to inquire whether individual incompetence and turpitude are any sufficient reason for this particular failure of representative institutions.