fully and maliciously' with Breen and Pitman to injure Joseph Assaf by placing seven pounds of dynamite in his house at Lawrence. "Fourth, that Wood, Collins and another are charged with the same offense as specified in the third count, against Urbano di Prato, of Lawrence. (Seven pounds of dynamite were placed in his home.) "Fifth, that Wood, Collins and a third man not named, are charged with conspiring with Pitman and Breen to store dynamite in buildings in Lawrence without a permit. "Sixth, that the same defendants are charged with conspiring with Pitman and Collins to place the dynamite in the county of Essex where it was found with the intent to injure various buildings and their occupants." That the politicans and police of Lawrence have been under the domination of the mill owners and that all worked to create a situation that would prejudice the public mind against the textile strikers, is another charge the grand jury has been investigating. Mr. O'Sullivan, former city marshal, was called before the jury. O'Sullivan was deposed during the strike, because he objected to giving the militia brought to Lawrence control over the city affairs. He was of the opinion that the police could easily have handled the situation had it not been for deliberately planned disturbance by Labor's opponents. He considered the strikers peaceful, law-abiding men and women who would not voluntarily cause trouble. The alleged purpose of those working for the mill interests was to create the general impression that the operatives were lawless, anarchistic, bent upon the destruction of property. Hence the planting of dynamite was an incident in this general conspiracy. Mayor Scanlon of Lawrence testified before the grand jury that members of the 'Committee of Public Safety" were in conference with the president of the American Woolen Company and the treasurers of the various mills in Boston, on the day the police 'discovered the dynamite. The public is anxious to know why the mayor and the responsible officials did not take steps to have a full and thorough investigation of the dynamite case. It was common talk during the strike that the militia was brought at the request of the mill owners, and that the police were under their control and acting by their direction and in their interests. As contrasted with this great, grinding money power, these men of high political, social and “moral" position and influence was a group of underpaid foreign workers, without organization, hence without influence or means of making known their distress and hardship-unprotected strangers at the mercy of a protected and specially privileged power. The results of the investigation no one can predict. An indictment is very different from a conviction, but when the story of financial greed, heartlessness, and determination to disrupt labor organizations shall have been established, the world will have confirmed previous criminal conspiracies of merciless and unscrupulous capitalist antagonism to organized labor and will have a new viewpoint from which to judge the work, methods, and policies of the labor movement, and a new appreciation of the hazards and obstacles to be overcome in the fight for economic betterment and social uplift. 1 DEMAND A WORKABLE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM. By JUDSON KING, Field Secretary, National Referendum League. N HIS timely and valuable article on the "Initiative, Referendum, and Recall" in the August AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST, President Gompers pointed out that the American Federation of Labor was the first organized body of men in the United States officially to endorse direct legislation and to demand that the Initiative, Referendum, and Recall be added to the political tool-chest of the people. That action was taken at the Philadelphia Convention on December 17, 1892, and ever since then organized labor has been the most powerful continuous force battling for these reforms. In 1892 Labor could not get the old party politicians within a mile of a pledge to support Direct Legislation, save in rare instances. In 1912 thousands of old party and new party politicians are imploring the voters to elect them to State Legislatures, or make them governors, presidents, or what not, because they are in favor of the Initiative and Referendum. Organized labor in thousands of electoral districts is now questioning candidates how they stand on this issue, and whether they will, if elected, submit to a vote of the people amendments to their State constitutions providing for the Initiative and Referendum, and it is safe to say that in a majority of instances they will get an affirmative answer. The stone which the politicians once rejected has become the threshold of entrance to the political temple. But it is of the utmost importance at this time to ascertain what kind of an Initiative and Referendum amendment the candidate favors. It is not enough to stop with gain ing a mere assent to "the principle." It makes no difference how much a man shouts for "the rule of the people;'" if he refuses to support an honest, workable, amendment which experience shows to be just and right, he must for practical purposes be regarded as unfriendly to the Initiative and Referendum. An examination of the actual workings of the Initiative and Referendum in the States where it is now in operation, will demonstrate that it is one thing to have "the principle in the State constitution," and quite another to have a system which is workable and with which the voters can do business. The Initiative and Referendum is a piece of political machinery as easy to put out of commission as to "pi" a page of type. An ordinary statute law can be amended by the Legislature. To change the Initiative and Referendum requires an amendment to the constitution, and involves a fight as difficult as to get it adopted in the first place. Moreover it often takes many years to demonstrate the harm done by jokers and to remedy them. It has taken one hundred years to convince the American people that the 'checks and balances" of the Constitution are responsible for much of the mis-representative government we have had. We are finding it out now to the distress of our health, happiness, and pocketbooks. The clever corporation lobbyists do not ask that "checks and balances" be placed in the Initiative and Referendum. It is "safeguards and restrictions" which they want now, but they are playing the same old game under a new name. The forces of organized labor, particularly the legislative committees, must look out for those "safeguards and restrictions." When a candidate states that he is 'in favor of the 'principle' of the Initiative and Referendum, but has not made up his mind" as to the particular provisions, it is time to put a question mark after his name right on the spot, and at the first opportunity to have a heart to heart talk with him as to just what he means. If you want to get right at the real vital elements of a workable Initiative and Referendum with him, let me suggest Five Initiative and Referendum Questions for Candidates. 1. Will you vote to apply the Initiative to constitutional amendments as well as to statute laws? 2. Are you in favor of the standard percentages on petitions-not more than 5 per cent for the Referendum, not more than 8 per cent for the Initiative, and with no distribution in counties? No State should require more than 50,000 for the Initiative and 30,000 actual signatures for the Referendum. 3. Will you oppose an emergency clause" which will permit the Legislature absolutely to deny the people the right of a Referendum vote on any law it sees fit to say is "necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety?" 4. Do you think measures should be adopted when they receive a majority of the 'vote cast thereon," or would you vote to require them to have a majority of "all votes cast in the election?'' 5. Will you favor a modern, efficient, economical system of informing the voters on the questions submitted, similar to the Oregon Publicity Pamphlet system, and give the people the right to include arguments for or against measures, they paying the actual cost of the space taken? Each one of the points covered by these questions is necessary to the successful working of the Initiative and Referendum. There are other "jokers," but these are the most dangerous. In order to drive home their value, let me illustrate their significance by giving a few illustrations from recent experience of those States which have Direct Legislation in operation. First Question. South Dakota, Montana, and Maine do not have the Constitutional Initiative. You have heard of nothing vital being done in these States, although South Dakota has had the Initiative and Referendum since 1898. If the people of Oregon had not had the Constitutional Initiative, the tremendous progress made there would have been blocked. Out of the sixty-four questions voted on by the people since 1902, eighteen have been amendments to the con stitution, of which eleven have been adopted and a big majority of these have been initiated by the people. These amendments constitute the backbone of Oregon's progress. The States of Washington and Idaho will vote upon the adoption or rejection of the Initiative and Referendum at the November election, but the constitutional initiative is omitted from these proposed amendments. The corporations permitted the Legislature to grant the statutory initiative but refused it on amendments. Second Question. Montana adopted the Initiative and Referendum in 1906. Never heard of even a statute law being voted on in that State, did you? Why? Because petitions must be signed by the required percentages in each of two-fifths of the counties of the State. That makes it costly and burdensome. The State Federation of Labor tried in 1907 to get an initiative petition for the direct election of United States Senators and some other measures and fell down. In 1911 they tried to get a referendum petition on the infamous Dick military law as enacted in that State, and failed-until helped out by the People's Power League of Montana, which completed their petition for them. They could have gotten the petition in the cities and towns, but when they had to go to the country it was too costly. A provision in the Missouri amendment distributing petitions in two-thirds of the Congressional districts has been found unexpectedly burdensome. Next November the people of Nebraska will vote on an amendment which has this joker in it. These last cases are a little less severe than in Montana, but will be found burdensome. This "joker" is especially aimed at organized labor, because it compels the unions to pay the expenses of men to go out into the rural counties to get their petitions completed, when they could more easily do it in their own localities and in industrial centers. Do you see the point in this "safeguard"? This fall the people of Wyoming and Florida will vote upon Initiative and Referendum amendments in which the petitions are fixed at 25 per cent for both the Initiative and Referendum. Mississippi votes on one which requires 20 per cent for the constitutional Initiative, 15 per cent for the statutory Initiative and 10 per cent for the Referendum-all entirely too high. It is well to note at this point that this fall a large number of questions are to be voted + on in Oregon and Colorado, due to the neglect of the Legislatures to attend to the business of the people, and that during the next two years these examples will be held up as excuses in all the Legislatures for requiring high petitions in future amendments. These questions are not on the ballot because it is easy to get petitions but because the people are determined to have these questions settled. Third Question. In South Dakota, if the Legislature does not want the people to vote on a law, it "declares an emergency to exist," the law goes into effect at once, and no Referendum can be had by petition of the people. About 40 per cent of the laws passed in that State are removed from the power of the people in this manner. That is, the "Referendum" exists only at the will of the Legislature, which practically is no Referendum at all. This clever tricky method of suspending the Referendum is fixed in many of the amendments now in use. The "joker" is right here. In order to give time for Referendum petitions it is customary to provide that no law passed by a Legislature can go into effect for ninety days after the session ends. But at times it is necessary and proper that a law take effect at once in genuine "emergency cases" without waiting for the ninety days. The Legislature decides what is an emergency, and the trick lies in so framing the provision that an emergency denies forever a Referendum of the people, where it shouid simply allow the law to go into effect at once and remain in effect until repealed either by the Legislature or by a vote of the people. This latter form gives the people power to reject the law through the Referendum, if they so choose. The "jokered" form allows the Legislature to suspend the Referendum when it sees fit-and annuls the power of the Referendum. Fourth Question. This covers the most dangerous joker of them all. In Oklahoma not a single measure initiated by the people or submitted by the State Legislature has been adopted at a regular election since the admission of the State in 1907. Why? Because such measures to be adopted must receive a majority of all the votes cast in the election." It makes not a whit's difference how big a majority of the vote cast on the measure is in its favor, if you do not get a majority of the total vote cast, you are lost and have all your hard work for nothing. The substance of this "joker” is that every man who votes for some candidate and fails to vote on your measure is in effect counted as voting against it. Examine the election returns and you will find that in all States having the Initiative and Referendum, an average of 25 per cent of the voters who vote for candidates do not vote on questions submitted. This 25 per cent is made up of ignorant, careless, or doubtful voters. Is not that a load to hang around the necks of the progressive workers for better conditions? In Oklahoma five important measures which got large majorities of the votes cast thereon in their favor and should have become law, were lost because of this requirement. In the amendments to be voted on in November in Wyoming, Idaho, and Mississippi this fatal joker has been slipped in. It is strenuously advocated by every apologist for special privilege in the country under the hypocritical cry of "majority rule." Look out for it! Fifth Question. Even opponents of Direct Legislation have been compelled to admit that the voters of Oregon in deciding questions have shown “rare discrimination." Do you know why? It is because the State of Oregon sends to every voter before election a Publicity Pamphlet, called by the people "The Voters' Text Book," in which are printed in clear type the laws and amendments to be decided by them, and, also, arguments both for and against these measures written and submitted by the friends and opponents of the various questions, they paying the exact cost to the State of the space taken. Thus every voter is given a chance to know exactly what he is voting on-and the measure is explained in simple language in the arguments. This Publicity Pamphlet has practically killed the power of the corrupt corporation newspapers and special privilege politicians. It is necessary as a part of the Direct Legislation system. The old method of advertising measures in favored political newspapers is frightfully expensive and utterly inadequate. Up to date, out of the fourteen States which have adopted some form of direct legislation only Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota have adopted the pamphlet system, and South Dakota did it only last year. It is the game of Special Privilege and the politicians who serve Special Privilege to keep the people confused and in ignorance. Hence, they oppose every means of enlightenment while they slander the people by claiming that they lack intelligence enough to vote on laws. If you will examine the Oregon pamphlet you will find in every one splendid arguments signed by the officers and legislative committees of the State Federation of Labor, the Portland Labor Council, etc., favoring or opposing legislation of interest to labor. Organized labor has in this way an opportunity to state its case to every voter in the State. It was because of this right and the intelligence so carried to the farmers that they were able to have enacted their Employers' Liability law, and other laws, which they joined the State Grange and Farmers' Union in securing. Our chief danger in the future will be from "jokered" abortive amendments. We must be on our guard, else, when we think we have won the victory for the rule of the people we will find ourselves cheated. The Initiative and Referendumissometimes called a "club” which people hold over the heads of reluctant legislatures; but unless we are careful on the detailed provisions, we will find we have a "saw log" which we can not wield. Already the list of defeats in victory are enough to constitute a grave warning. Out of fourteen States which have some form of the Initiative and Referendum embedded in their constitutions, over one-half are either worse than nothing, or have one or more vicious jokers. Out of eight proposed amendments which will be voted on this fall, only one can be commended as free from jokers, that of Nevada, which provides the Initiative feature omitted from the direct Legislation amendment adopted in that State in 1905. If I were an enemy of the Initiative and Referendum, I would profess to be its friend, proclaim the "rule of the people,'' the "restoration of popular government,” and then, when it came right down to the brass tacks of framing an amendment I would talk wisely of "safeguards and restrictions" for the benefit of the people themselves, of course-and frame an amendment having the Initiative and Referendum in box-car letters on the front, and a lot of clever ‘jokers” inside which would prevent any effective use of the instrument by the people after they had got it. This is the method by which despots like Cæsar, Napoleon, and all the rest of them, have first gained the confidence of the masses and then delivered them into the same old bondage of the few which has cursed the world and delayed the day of genuine democracy-economic and political. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS. "O mother, see the mill lights in the darkness glow!'' "I see but candles for my dead At foot and head." "Nay, see how wrought by childish hands, world-fabrics grow!'' "I see my babes, decrepit, bowed They weave a shroud." "Yet see their golden wage: the purse of wealth is deep." "The tide of barter at its flood Gives bread for blood!" “O mother, with thy visions dark, dost thou not weep?'' "For slaughtered babes upon such biers There are no tears." -ROSE TRUMBULL in The Independent. |