The
leaders of the popular movement, however, declared that this was
not enough. They preached the right of the people to rule. The
people, they urged, must have a real share in electing the men
who were to make the laws and to administer and interpret them.
Every one knew that the system of party government resulted in a
Machine, consisting of a few men who controlled the preliminary
steps which led to the nomination of candidates and then decided
the election, so far as their control of the regular party
members could do this. It would be idle, said the advocates of
these popular rights, to make the best of laws in behalf of the
people and allow them to be enforced by representatives and
judges chosen, under whatever disguise, by the great capitalists.
And so these Progressives, bent on trusting implicitly the
intelligence, the unselfishness, and the honesty of the People,
proposed three novel political instruments for obtaining the pure
Democracy they dreamed of. First, the Initiative, by which a
certain number of voters could suggest new laws; second, the
Referendum, by which a vote should be taken to decide whether the
People approved or not of a law that was in operation; and third,
the judicial Recall, by which a majority of the voters could
nullify a decision handed down by a judge.
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