" What was the result?
The electors went up to the polls and solemnly put in tickets. When they
opened the ballots, they were blanks. What does that mean? It means that
the people themselves believe that they do not know how to vote on
those issues, and that such issues ought to be left to the agents whom
they select as competent persons to discuss and pass upon them in
accordance with the general principles that they have laid down in party
platforms. In Oregon, at the last Presidential election, the people were
invited to vote on thirty-one statutes, long, complicated statutes, and
in order to inform them, a book of two hundred and fifty closely printed
pages was published to tell them what the statutes meant.
I ask you, my friends, you who are studious, you who are earnest men who
would like to be a part of the people in determining what their policy
should be, I ask you to search yourselves and confess whether you would
have the patience to go through that book of two hundred and fifty
closely printed pages to find out what those acts meant? You would be in
active business, you would go down to the polls and say, "What is up
today?" You would be told: "Here are thirty-one statutes.
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