of great public convenience; in the region in question, however, opponents to the number of about 200 signed a declaration that this was a measure for more offices and more officers," and the voters of the state defeated the project: 26,463 to 71,239. The legislative assembly of 1911 had passed an act creating a state printing board, fixing the salary of the state printer and of the secretary of the board, and providing for the purchase and operation of a state printing plant. This law was to take effect January 1, 1915. An initiative petition placed upon the ballot a proposal that this law should go into operation December 1, 1912. This was opposed in a twelve-page argument by the state printer in esse, who protested that it would violate the state's contract with him by ousting him in the middle of his term. He further alleged that the law in question was full of crafty schemes to secure a state printing plant under the control of socialist members of the Salem Printers' Union, and that the attempt of the sponsors of this law to put it into immediate effect was occasioned by their fear that the legislative assembly of 1913 might "remedy the rascalities of their joker-filled law." Another argument, by a state senator, sustained the state printer's contentions, bore witness to his honesty and efficiency, and insisted that the state must not violate its contract with him. The project was defeated: 34,793 to 69,542. A strange measure to be proposed by initiative petition was one "fixing the percentage that freight rates on less than car-load lots shall bear to car-load lots and to establish minimum weights and maximum freights." Its provisions are highly technical and its specific ratings would seem to be of little significance to the average voter.' Not a word of explanation or argument accompanied this measure in the 1 For example, its first section reads: "The classification ratings of freight shall bear a uniform relationship of one class to another class, and the percentage of the first class shall be 100, and the other classes shall be the following percentages of the first class: Classes C D E Percentages. 100 29 24 20." I 2 3 4 5 Railway men declare that it is impossible to tell what the law means, and insist that its enforcement would throw everything into inextricable confusion. A temporary injunction was promptly secured to prevent the law from going into effect. campaign book, yet nearly 104,000 voters passed judgment upon it, and it was approved: 58,306 to 45,534. The bill contained convenience which The Traveler's Protective Association was sponsor for a bill creating the office of "hotel inspector," and appropriating $7000 a year for the salary and traveling expenses of such officer and of his deputy, by whom all hotels in the state should be inspected at least twice a year. an attractive list of items of comfort and the hotels must provide. Yet it was rejected by a majority of over 75,000 (16,910 to 91,995), in the largest aggregate vote cast upon any of the thirty-seven measures, with the single exception of the equal-suffrage amendment. That the initiative may be used in behalf of conservatives as well as of radicals is indicated by two measures attributed to the Employers' Association of Oregon. The first of these, in most sweeping terms and with redundant legal phrasing, prohibited boycotting or picketing any industry, workshop, store or factory, and any attempt to persuade persons working therein from continuing such employment, under penalty of a fine of from $100 to $1000 or of imprisonment for from thirty days to one year, or of both fine and imprisonment. The other bill prohibited the use of public streets, parks and public grounds for holding meetings for public discussion or speechmaking purposes in any city or town of a population of 5000 or over without a permit from the mayor thereof. In the campaign book both of these measures were fiercely denounced as violating fundamental civic rights, and no argument in their favor was there presented. Though both were rejected, the vote of nearly 50,000 in favor of each of them (49,826 to 60,560 and 48,987 to 62,532) indicates a wide-spread distrust of some types of labor leaders and agitators. This completes the series of state-wide measures.' 1 Aside from the bills previously noted (supra, p. 22, n.) to secure the single tax by county action, four other local bills were submitted: (1) Prohibiting the building of a court-house in Harney County before 1916, and to refund to the taxpayers paying the same all moneys collected for building such court-house. (Adopted: 778 to 391.) (2) To establish a Taxpayers' National Bank of Jackson County. (Rejected: 1975 to 2379.) In what kinds of measures did the Oregon voters take most interest? The largest aggregate vote (118,369) was polled on the question of woman suffrage. It amounted to 86.4 per cent of the vote cast for the leading presidential elector, the office which called forth the heaviest vote. Next in order of size were the votes on the bill creating the office of hotel inspector and on that providing for a state highway department. The lowest vote (97,191) was cast upon the measure for a new method of creating counties; it amounted to 70.9 per cent of the vote cast for the leading presidential elector. Of the thirty-seven measures on the ballot, thirteen were both advocated and opposed by arguments in the campaign book. Upon twelve measures arguments were presented on only one side, though in some cases from more than one interested party. Thirteen measures were unargued. Of the eleven measures which were approved, seven were submitted without argument, one was opposed, while three were both advocated and opposed. A summary glance at the following list of measures approved shows common qualities which may give some hints as to the working of the new legislative processes. With but two exceptions the successful proposals are very brief, making hardly more than one simple change in the existing law; in many cases they are merely prohibitive. They are as follows: (1) Extending the suffrage to women. (Ten lines.) (2) Prohibiting the increase of state debt for road-building in excess of two per cent cf its taxable valuation. (Twelve lines.) (3) Applying the same limit to county debts for road-building. (Nine lines.) (4) Prohibiting the legislature's declaring an emergency in passing any finance act, and repealing the county-option single-tax law. (Three lines.) (5) Imposing double liability on stockholders in banks. (Eight lines.) (3) Reducing the number of commissioners of the port of Portland from seven to three, making them elective by the people etc. (Rejected: 13,931 to 18,668.) (4) Abolishing the county high-school of Wallowa County. (Adopted: 1031 to 665.) (6) Exempting from taxation household furnishings and wearing apparel. (One page; but all that was new was in three lines.) (7) Prohibiting the employment of state penitentiary convicts by private persons or corporations. (Twelve lines.) (8) Prohibiting the employment of county or city convicts by private persons or corporations. (One and one-half pages.) (9) Prescribing the eight-hour day for laborers in the employ of state, county or city. (One and one-half pages. In this, and in the preceding measure, the substance of the proposal is of the simplest.) Upon seven of these nine measures no argument was presented on either side. There remain, thus, but two measures, in the entire list of eleven which secured the voters' approval, which required more than a minute's time for reading and analyzing their provisions. Technical and complicated was the one-page proposal for fixing freight rates on less than car-loads lots; yet it hit at a "monopoly" against which every shipper of freight had a fancied grievance. The only other measure approved was the one vesting the railroad commission with power "to supervise and regulate every public-service corporation and utility in the state." This, it is true, is a very long and complicated measure, comprising eighty sections and covering twenty-four pages. It is more than twice as long as this article. But this measure, it is to be noted, came before the voters not by popular initiative, but by referendum petition, after its merits had been canvassed and its many sections "licked into shape" in the regular session of the legislature. This election was Oregon's fifth trial of direct legislation in its modern forms. The following table (page 32) shows the number of measures, proposed by each of the three processes, that have been submitted to the people at the several elections, and the percentage of measures, thus proposed, that have been approved at the polls. It is no mere coincidence that as the number of measures submitted at a given election has risen from two to thirty-seven, the percentage of those approved has fallen from 100 to 29. The data clearly indicate that the greater the number of measures upon the ballot, the smaller the proportion that will be approved. This probably results both ACTION OF The Oregon VOTERS ON MEASURES SUBMITTED, 1904-1912 'Since this article has been put into type, there has come to the writer, from an exceptionally acute Oregon student of politics, the following |