IF

"PEOPLE'S RULE" ON TRIAL

THE OREGON ELECTION, NOVEMBER 5, 1912

F the presidential campaign had not proved so engrossing, the recent election in Oregon would have commanded the nation-wide attention of students of politics. The official returns are now at hand, and these latest results from America's most active political laboratory are deserving of careful analysis.

First, as to candidates. In recent years a substantial majority of Oregon electors have voted the Republican ticket. Yet divisive issues and factional fights between aspirants for office have resulted in the election of Democrats to the positions of state governor and federal senator. In a state where the Republican ranks were already so badly divided, the incoming of the Progressive party made a Democratic victory a foregone conclusion. The aggregate vote for presidential candidates was 137,013. Of this vote the Republicans polled 25.2 per cent; the Democrats, 34.4; the Progressives, 27.4; the Socialists, 9.8; and the Prohibitionists, 3.2. For candidates for Congress the aggregate vote in the three districts was 130,910, and two Republicans and one Republican-Progressive were the winners.' The long struggle to secure popular control of the federal senatorships, has focused attention upon that office. In November there were six candidates, and the election was hotly contested. The incumbent, Senator Bourne, figured upon the ballot as "Popular Government candidate"; but of the total vote he polled only 19.4 per cent. The rest of the vote was divided as follows: Republican, 28.8; Democrat, 30.1; Progressive, 8.3; Socialist, 8.3; Prohibitionist, 5.1.2

'The votes cast in the several districts-62,530, 28,280 and 39,100-raise some question as to the degree in which the last districting of Oregon complied with the law's requirement that the districts shall be, as nearly as may be, of equal population.

'The highest state offices to be filled were secretary of state and justice of the supreme court, for which were polled 130,985 and 126,213 votes respectively. In each case a Republican was elected by a decided majority. For the minor offices there was fusion; in each case the candidate having Republican endorsement was elected.

But for the Oregon voter, even when he is called upon to choose forty-four officers from a list of one hundred and seventy-seven candidates, the election of officers is but the curtain-raiser to the real play. When he has finished his task as an "elector," he settles down to his work as a "direct legisAt this last election thirty-seven legislative proposals of state-wide scope were put before him for his verdict. Of these, fourteen were proposed amendments to the constitution, only four of which were adopted. Of the four adopted, two had been proposed by initiative petition and two had been referred to the people by the legislative assembly.

Of the thirty-seven measures, twenty-eight were placed upon the ballot by initiative petition; six were referred to the people by the last legislative assembly; three were acts of the legislative assembly on which a referendum had been secured by popular petition. Of these thirty-seven measures, eleven were adopted and twenty-six were rejected. The voters approved one in three of the measures referred to them by the legislative assembly, and one in three of those on which they had demanded a referendum. Of the measures proposed by initiative petition-measures which had not come before the legislature at all, or had been ignored or defeated by that body—the voters approved two out of five.

Proposed by any one of three methods and scattered promiscuously over the ballot were many measures dealing with a few general topics. Thus, eight of the thirty-seven related to taxation and finance, a subject which has been in hot debate in Oregon for a dozen years. It is to be remembered that several of the men who have been most prominent in developing "people's rule" in Oregon are ardent single-taxers, whose first enthusiasm for direct legislation arose from their conviction that it might serve as the means for bringing in their favorite reform. Their aim has not changed, nor has their zeal abated. At successive elections prior to 1910, constitutional amendments tending to place practically the entire tax burden upon annual

1In several counties, the voters also passed upon one or two local measures, all proposed by initiative petition. Cf. infra, p. 22, n., p. 29, n.

In 1910

land values had been submitted, only to meet defeat. a measure, for which a Portland labor organization stood sponsor, was placed upon the ballot, providing that the people of each county might "regulate taxation and exemptions within the county, regardless of constitutional restrictions and state statutes, and abolishing poll or head tax." The last feature was the one stressed in the campaign book. The announcement that this amendment had been adopted, by a small majority, called out a storm of protest. The measure was declared to be, in reality, a "county-option single-tax amendment," which the voters had been fooled into passing by its misleading ballot-title. Be that as it may, during the next two years the tax fight was furious. On the one hand, the singletaxers put forth every effort, both to secure the adoption of their programme by individual counties under warrant of the amendment of 1910, and to secure the adoption of a state-wide single-tax amendment in 1912. Oregon became the critical battlefield of the single-tax propaganda in America. Not only was a large appropriation from the Joseph Fels Fund assigned for carrying on the agitation in Oregon, but Mr. Fels himself took the field at the height of the campaign. The opponents of the single tax, on the other hand, were aroused to unprecedented efforts. Their speeches, editorials and pamphlets showed much more fighting spirit than heretofore. Moreover, as an antidote for the single-tax proposal, the board of state tax commissioners (composed of the governor, the secretary of state, the state treasurer and two other members) and the legislative tax committee united in urging the adoption of seven measures, which together would effect a veritable revolution in the state's financial system. These may be summarized as follows:

(1) Providing for a uniform rule of taxation, except on property specifically taxed; for the levy of taxes upon different classes of property, and for the equitable apportionment of state taxes among the several counties. (Rejected: 51,852 to 56,671.)

(2) Permitting taxes to be levied upon different classes of property at different rates. (Rejected: 52,045 to 54,483.)

(3) Repealing "all of Section 1a of Article IX' except that part prohibiting poll and head taxes in Oregon" and adding “a provision prohibiting the declaration of an emergency in any act passed by the Legislature regulating taxation and exemptions." (Approved: 63,881 to 47,150.)

(4) Providing for the taxation of incomes, from whatever source or sources derived. (Rejected: 52,702 to 52,948.)

(5) Exempting from taxation all household furniture, domestic fixtures etc. actually in use, and all wearing apparel, jewelry and similar personal effects actually in use. (Approved: 60,357 to 51,826.)

(6) Exempting all intangible personal property (debts, notes, mortgages, stocks, bonds etc.) from taxation, except bank stocks, shares and banking capital. (Rejected: 42,491 to 66,540.)

(7) Radically revising the taxation of inheritances. This complicated measure, 16 pages long, proposed rates progressive in proportion to the amount of the transfer and varying according to the degree of kinship. If the transferee were an immediate ascendant or descendant of the deceased, the rate was to progress from one per cent on amounts ranging from $5000 to $25,000 up to five per cent on any amount in excess of $1,000,000. In other cases, the rate was to progress from two per cent on amounts ranging from $1000 to $10,000 up to twelve per cent on any amount in excess of $1,000,000. (Rejected: 38,609 to 63,839.)

The single-taxers, on the other hand, submitted but one

measure:

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(8) Providing for specific graduated taxes, in addition to other taxes, upon all franchises and rights of way, lands and other natural resources in excess of $10,000 under one ownership, and assessing water powers in the counties where situate; exempting from taxation all personal property of every kind, and improvements on, in and under land, except a county may enact a county law to tax the same." (Rejected: 31,534 to 82,015.)

In the campaign book the two parties to the financial controversy joined issue sharply. The single-taxers especially drove home their points by incisive arguments. They showed, in tables, how much greater exemption certain named wageearners and farmers would enjoy under the "graduated tax and

1 Namely, the so-called "county-option single-tax amendment," adopted in 1910.

exemption amendment" than under the amendment exempting household furnishings, and they gave a long list of individual and corporate owners of unimproved land in the several counties who, under their proposed amendment, would pay sums ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 "in addition to the regular and special tax levies on the assessed values."

Amid such a welter of tax proposals what were the voters to do? In the first place they not only rejected the state-wide single-tax amendment by an adverse majority of over 50,000, but by a majority of nearly 17,000 they repealed the countyoption single-tax measure of 1910. To this day the decisiveness of the defeat of the single tax is a mystery to many a close student of Oregon politics. On the eve of the election it was thought not improbable that it might succeed. The explanation has been suggested that, aside from their distrust of innovation, the people of the state resented the activity of outside leaders and the attempt, through a propaganda subsidized by foreign capital, to force an issue in Oregon for the effect to be gained in other states. But, having thus given a staggering blow to the single-taxers, the voters showed little inclination to follow the lead of the board of tax commissioners. They adopted the one proposal which friends and foes alike deemed of least importance-that exempting household furnishings— and rejected all the other "reform" measures. On the proposal to tax incomes from whatever source derived, the vote was very close it was defeated by only 246 in a vote of 105,650. But the amendments providing for the exemption of intangible property and for the progressive taxation of inheritances were defeated by about 25,000.

Next to taxation, the development of highways was the subject which most actively claimed the voter's attention. No less. than seven "road bills" appeared upon the ballot. Only two of these were approved by the people, both of them restrictive in effect: prohibiting in the one case the state, and in the other any county, from increasing its indebtedness for road

In three counties a proposal was submitted for a local single-tax law, under war rant of the 1910 amendment. In each case, it was rejected by a vote of about two

to one.