For, I am sorry to say,
it is generally among the intelligent part of the community that we find
neglect of electoral duties. The wisest course, therefore, is to give to
the people as much electoral duty as they are ordinarily able and
willing to perform, and no more. The fundamental fallacies in the
initiative, referendum and recall are, first, that they impose on the
voters three times the electoral work they had to do under the
representative system, and second, that the additional work involved is
of a kind that could be done much better through agents than by the
people directly. As to the recall of officers, I have only to say that
if you elect a man for three years to try to help your city, or state,
you must not make him subject to recall at any moment by those
candidates or people whom he has had to disappoint in order to do his
work effectively. Under the system of recall you are not going to secure
the men who will work well by looking ahead to preserve the real public
interest, but men who are trimmers, devoting their time to politics and
doing as little as possible to avoid criticism.
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