Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum

Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum

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Title: Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum
Author: James W. Sullivan
Release Date: February 11, 2006 [EBook #17751]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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DIRECT LEGISLATION
BY
THE CITIZENSHIP
THROUGH
THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM
BY
J.W. SULLIVAN
* * * * *
CONTENTS:
AS TO THIS BOOK i.
THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM IN SWITZERLAND 5
THE PUBLIC STEWARDSHIP OF SWITZERLAND 25
THE COMMON WEALTH OF SWITZERLAND 47
DIRECT LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED STATES 72
THE WAY OPEN TO PEACEFUL REVOLUTION 95
* * * * *
[Copyright, 1892, by J.W. Sullivan.]
* * * * *
NEW YORK TRUE NATIONALIST PUBLISHING COMPANY 1893

AS TO THIS BOOK.
This is the second in a series of sociological works, each a small volume, I have in course of publication. The first, "A Concept of Political Justice," gave in outline the major positions which seem to me logically to accord in practical life with the political principle of equal freedom. In the present work, certain of the positions taken in the first are amplified. In each of the volumes to come, which will be issued as I find time to complete them, similar amplification in the case of other positions will be made. Naturally, the order of publication of the proposed works may be influenced by the general trend in the discussion of public questions.
The small-book plan I have adopted for several reasons. One is, that the writer who embodies his thought on any large subject in a single weighty volume commonly finds difficulty in selling the work or having it read; the price alone restricts its market, and the volume, by its very size, usually repels the ordinary reader. Another, that the radical world, which I especially address, is nowadays assailed with so much printed matter that in it big books have slight show of favor. Another, that the reader of any volume in the series subsequent to the first may on reference to the first ascertain the train of connection and entire scope of the thought I would present. And, finally, that such persons as have been won to the support of the principles taught may interest themselves, and perhaps others, in spreading knowledge of these principles, as developed in the successive works.
On the last-mentioned point, a word. Having during the past decade closely observed, and in some measure shared in, the discussion of advanced sociological thought, I maintain with confidence the principles of equal freedom, not only in their essential truth, but in the leading applications I have made of them. At least, I may trust that, thus far in either work, in coming to my more important conclusions, I have not fallen into error through blind devotion to an "ism" nor halted at faulty judgment because of limited investigation. I therefore hope to have others join with me, some to work quite in the lines I follow, and some to move at least in the direction of those lines.
The present volume I have prepared with care. My attention being attracted about eight years ago to the direct legislation of Switzerland, I then set about collecting what notes in regard to that institution I could glean from periodicals and other publications. But at that time very little of value had been printed in English. Later, as exchange editor of a social reform weekly journal, I gathered such facts bearing on the subject as were passing about in the American newspaper world, and through the magazine indexes for the past twenty years I gained access to whatever pertaining to Switzerland had gone on record in the monthlies and quarterlies; while at the three larger libraries of New York--the Astor, the Mercantile, and the Columbia College--I found the principal descriptive and historical works on Switzerland. But from all these sources only a slender stock of information with regard to the influence of the Initiative and Referendum on the later political and economic development of Switzerland was to be obtained. So, when, three years ago, with inquiry on this point in mind, I spent some months in Switzerland, about all I had at first on which to base investigations was a collection of commonplace or beclouded fact from the newspapers, a few statistics and opinions from an English magazine or two, and some excerpts from volumes by De Laveleye and Freeman which contained chapters treating of Swiss institutions. Soon after, as a