"PROBLEM IN GOVERNMENT"

Hon. Frederic C. Howe, of Cleveland, Ohio, Secretary of the National Progressive Republican League, gave the seventh of the series of lectures on "The Social Problem and its Remedies," yesterday afternoon. His subject was "The Problem in Government" and dealt with the cure for boss rule.

Mr. Howe treated his subject from two main points of view, that of the state and that of the municipality. Taking Oregon as his model, he showed the results that have been obtained by making the people initial in and responsible for the welfare of the state. First the people secured the power of popular initiative in legislation, and then proceeded to use that power. The legislature, though pledged, would not vote for direct primaries, and so the people drafted their own bill and forced it through. As a result, state officers are nominated by the people and adopt their own platforms, from which the people choose. Then the provision was added to this bill that the state legislators must pledge themselves absolutely to support or ignore the agitation for direct election of United States senators. The next move was to establish the recall, so that the people could discharge those officers who proved faithless to their trust. Immediately a Republican legislature, pledged to direct senatorial election, chose a Democratic senator to support that movement. And next, to remove the great danger of corruption at the direct primaries, the people forced the unwilling legislature to pass a genuine corrupt practices act, which is so severe as to prevent further corruption at the polls. Finally, the people decided that they would vote for the candidates for President and Vice-President themselves. Hence the delegates from Oregon to the next national convention will go instructed directly by their people.

Mr. Howe considered the power given to the people of the cities to choose their own forms of government the most important of the municipal reforms effected in Oregon. They too have the initiative, referendum, and the recall. Each city can control its own license policy and, as they have not been extremists, they make changes for or against prohibition only as they understand what their needs are.

The results of this movement toward direct popular government have been important and good. The employee can now collect fair damages from his employer; in civil procedure the defendant must now convince one-fourth of the jury that he is innocent; judicial decisions cannot be reversed for trivial errors; railroads are kept in control by the club of the initiative and referendum; state officers are made to do their duties by the recall, stationed as a guard over them; a larger percentage of intelligent voters has come forward to run the government with wisdom; experts are planning and arguing the new steps in state affairs; and the responsibility for the government is where it ought to be with the people.