What is here recognized as an afterthought, it is hoped direct primaries, the initiative, the referendum and the recall will compel every politician to keep uppermost in mind. It is clear that the efficiency of these institutions depends upon the intelligence and good sense of the people. Unless used with discretion, they will prove to be as useless as a rusty knife. Conspicuous instances of their utility, however, are not lacking. But for the referendum the Cincinnati Southern Railway would have been sold away from the city for a tithe of what it was worth, just as the streets of the city were handed over for fifty years as a gift to a street railway monopoly. Lecky tells us:
In England, a large class of politicians are now preaching a multiplication of small democratic local legislatures as the true efflorescence and perfection of democracy. In America, no fact is more clearly established than that such legislatures almost invariably fall into the hands of caucuses, wire-pullers, and professional politicians, and become centers of jobbing and corruption. One of the main tasks of the best American politicians has, of late years, been to withdraw gradually the greater part of legislation from the influence of these bodies, and to entrust it to conventions specially elected for a special purpose, and empowered to pass particular laws, subject to direct ratification by a popular vote.[1]
Among other things expressive of the spirit of the times is the reduction of tariff duties, the movement for currency reform, the reform of the general property tax, the income tax and socialism. The first aims at taking the determination of tariff schedules out of the hands of special interests, or, at least, at imposing some restraint upon them other than their own moderation. There is no more reason why the beneficiaries of the tariff should be given a free hand in fixing tariff rates than there is why one business man should permit another with whom he deals to fix the price without let or hindrance. The second aims at preventing the general distress which the collapse of our banking system now and then occasions. It also seeks to prevent the concentrated control of banking in the hands of the few and to place the facilities of credit at the disposal of every one entitled to them. The third and fourth seek to distribute the burden of state and federal taxes in a more equitable manner and to tap additional sources of revenue. The general property tax in many states involves gross inequality in the assessment of realty and the total escape of the bulk of personalty from taxation. Much is to be said in favor of the income tax in comparison with the tariff on sugar. The sugar industry does not promise to become self-supporting. As a young industry, therefore, it is hardly worthy of further protection. The whole of the income tax will go to the government, whereas part of the enhanced price of sugar has gone into the pockets of the sugar producers. Moreover, sugar is an article of general consumption and an import duty upon it is practically a capitation tax. On the other hand, an income tax is based roughly upon ability to pay. If col-
- ↑ "Democracy and Liberty," Vol. 1, p. 282.
