board, three Chiropractors who had practiced their art in Kansas for two years past. In order to comply with this provision of the law, I would have been compelled to appoint men or women who had been openly violating the Medical Registration laws of our State for two years—a thing which, as Governor, I refused to do.

"The law governing the inspection of hotels and lodging houses contains this provision: 'All carpets and equipment used in offices and sleeping rooms, including walls and ceiling, must be well plastered and be kept in a clean and sanitary condition at all times.'

"For six years there stood upon our statute book as a part of the law regulating automobile traffic on the public highways, the following-which was doubtless added by some hilarious politician who was impressed by the 'band wagon' idea of party management:

"Nothing in this section shall be construed as in any way preventing, obstructing, impeding, embarrassing, or in any other manner or form, infringing upon the prerogative of any political chauffeur, to run an automobile bandwagon at any rate he sees fit, compatible with the safety of the occupants thereof; provided, however, that not less than ten nor more than twenty ropes be allowed at all times to trail behind this vehicle when in motion, in order to permit those who have been so fortunate as to escape with their political lives, an opportunity to be dragged to death; and provided further, that whenever a mangled and bleeding political corpse implores for mercy, the driver of the vehicle shall, in accordance with the provisions of this bill, "Throw out the life-line.'''

"Here is another illuminating one:

"If any stallion or jack escape from his owner by accident, he shall be liable for all damages, but shall not be liable to be fined as above provided.'

"By being somewhat heedless to the ordinary rules of grammar, some court might decide that it was the owner and not the stallion or jack who is made liable for damage under this act.

"I am told that in the early days of Oklahoma, a compilation of the laws of this Prairie State included a full set of regulations for the government of harbors, wharfage, and lighthouses, taken bodily from the regulations enacted by the Texas legislature for its Gulf ports.

"Another law sent to my office for signature was found on examination to contain a negative which made the act exactly contrary to what it was intended to be. This bill was only one of fifteen others which were returned to the legislature by me for correction in particulars more or less important. Two bills which were exact duplicates, each of the other, passed both Houses and came to my desk before the duplication was discovered.

"I am informed that exactly the same thing happened this year in Pennsylvania. And in one instance a bill was passed amending another act which had been passed some days previous, and both the original act and the amendment were enrolled and reached my office about the same time. A number of bills passed both Houses without any enacting clauses a matter absolutely requisite to their validity as laws, and in the Session Laws will be found a large number of resolutions authorizing corrections in a number of acts.

"Notwithstanding the constitutional prohibition against special legislation, many acts were in fact special, although they have the form and appearance of being of general application. On the other hand, by reason of time taken up in discussing and passing worthless legislation, like the Chiropractic Bill, and the Pure Shoe Bill, legislation of the utmost importance was pushed over until the last days of the session, when there was not time for even a pretense of discussion or deliberation, and accordingly failed of enactment. Among these important measures was a Grain Inspection Bill, the Kincaid Bridge Bill, a Collateral Inheritance Tax, a Recording Mortgage Tax Bill, and a bill prohibiting the foreclosure of mortgages, until the owner and holder should either pay, or show that he had paid, all taxes that might lawfully have been assessed against it from its date.

"With all that, the Kansas legislature of 1913 was as efficient, as capable, as up-right and honest as any legislature that ever sat; it passed many wholesome

laws. There was not a single suspicion of corruption. It was as good a legislature as can be gotten together under the bicameral system, but it requires much more than honesty to make laws for a State. Effective work in a legislature can only be done by a man of experience, notwithstanding the best of intentions. A district can be effectively represented only by a man who is able to accomplish results.

"What is commonly called the technical part of legislation, is incomparably more difficult than what may be called the ethical. In other words it is far easier to conceive justly what would be useful law, than so to construct that same law, that it may accomplish the design of the law giver.'

"To illustrate this, take the case of the member who is quoted as saying, "When I came to the legislature I introduced a bill to prohibit the manufacture of filled cheese. It would have done it all right, but it would have prevented the manufacture of all other kinds of cheese too.' Or take the case just cited of the act, which provides for the 'plastering of carpets and furniture.'

"But these are simply examples of unintentional, legislative humor. The serious side of the question appears, if one visit our state library, with its hundreds of volumes of court decisions made necessary by the work of inexperienced and untrained legislators.

"I have seen bills carefully drawn by experts after months, or perhaps years of the most painstaking and careful study of the subject, amended on the floor of both House and Senate in a rapid-fire sort of way, by men who had never given an hour's consideration to the subject-matter, and in the end have seen what might have been a useful law, either weighted down with amendments which caused friends of the original bill to vote against it, or have seen the bill become a law, so amended as to be unrecognizable by the man who introduced it, and its effectiveness frittered away, because some Senator or Representative possessed an inordinate desire to put himself in evidence, no matter how.

"The Anti-pass Law, now upon our statute books, was re-written on the floor of the Senate-a make-shift sort of a measure was reported for passage and an attempt made to 'railroad' it through. A minority became acutely alive to the situation and, helped by the presence of a crowded Senate, they substituted, section by section, until the measure became a splendid enactment. It was a dangerous way to pass a measure of so great importance, but the exigency of the moment demanded heroic action.

"If it was the intention of our Constitution makers that the bicameral system of legislation, which now prevails, should be a system both representative and deliberative, they have utterly failed to secure that result under the present system. As a matter of fact, the average member of the legislature, and especially of the House of Representatives, does not even represent the people of his own little district. And unless he happens to be one of the very few leading spirits who run the legislature, about all the new member is good for is to vote as he is told.

"Those of us who have legislative experience, know that this is true in varying degrees of almost every State legislature, and I am told that it is largely true of the membership of our National Congress, and yet so strong is the veneration for ancient institutions, that many well-intentioned men-to say nothing about the politicians-regard any proposition to do away with this inefficient and unwieldy system as little short of treason, and denounce a proposal for the substitution in its stead of a single legislative body; so small in number that the people may know whom they have selected and whom they have trusted, and having so few to watch, that they can watch them. These men are honestly conservative, and are hoping against hope for the realization of an ideal-which the realities of experience have demonstrated to be impossible, and these conservative gentlemen sometimes become classical in their diction and charge those of us who are disposed to be progressive, with attempting to establish an oligarchy, "One of the stock arguments in favor of the bicameral system is that the second chamber is a valuable check on bad legislation because there are two bodies through which the bill must pass. From personal legislative experience, I know how farcical this contention is. About the only purposes I have ever been able

to see for the two-house system is, that it enables a legislator to fool his constituents, by getting a measure demanded or promised them through his branch of the legislature, and then using every effort to have it killed in the other branch. Six years ago a resolution passed the House by a goodly two-thirds majority, submitting to the voters the Equal Suffrage amendment to our Constitution. Before the resolution reached the Senate, fifty per cent of the House members were importuning their senators to defeat the resolution, and the Senate, in duty bound, followed their importunities. The same impediment which the existence of two chambers offers to bad measures, also applies to good ones.

"Let us take the last session of the Kansas legislature. So far as I now recall, no very objectionable bills passed either House, but a number of very meritorious bills were actually defeated after having passed one chamber or the other. For example: The resolution to submit an Initiative and Referendum amendment to the Constitution, promised by all parties, passed the Senate and failed to get the necessary two-thirds vote in the House, because the minority members of the House preferred to engage in the pass-time of playing politics. A Recording Mortgage Tax law was passed by both Chambers, went to Conference, and failed because the Conference Committees would not agree. The Grain Inspection law suffered the same fate. The Kincaid Bridge Bill-one of the most meritorious bills introduced during the session, passed the House and was lost in the Senate. The Collateral Inheritance Tax Bill passed the House and was defeated in the Senate. Several other meritorious measures failed to become laws, because of a feud between a senator and a leading member of the House, to which in a sort of an unconscious way, the members of the House and Senate became partisans. And that sort of thing has happened in other legislatures to my certain knowledge, so that if the bicameral system serves as a check to bad legislation, it also serves as a check to good legislation.

"It is claimed for the bicameral system that it destroys the evil effects of sudden and strong excitement and of precipitate measures, springing from passion, caprice, personal influence and party intrigue. There are possibly occasions when the bicameral system would be advantageous in this respect, but they are not met with in the study of a normal legislative session. To be a check upon such excitement, passions and intrigues, it is important that the second House be not subject to the same influences. If we take the New York legislature as an example, there appears to be little force in this argument, for with no cause for sudden excitement, passion, or intrigues, in the year 1910, one hundred and thirty bills were recalled from the Governor by the legislature of that State after having passed both Houses.

"Then there is the argument that it is more difficult to corrupt or wrongfully influence two bodies than one. The test of legislative efficiency is the ability to effect positive enactments. A good measure opposed by special or predatory interests, may as easily be defeated under the bicameral system as under a onehouse system, because all that is necessary, is for the opponents of the measure to control one House, and in cases of that kind, the special interest has two chances with the bicameral system to one with the other. Indeed the lobbyist and representative of corporations first attempt to defeat a measure objectionable to them in the committee, and if they fail there, then they concentrate their assault on the members of whichever House there appears to be the best chance of success in blocking the proposed legislation.

"Then again it is said that under the bicameral system there will be a jealous and critical revision of all proposed laws by a rival body of men, though it would be difficult to produce evidence to show when they are either rival or jealous.

"Generally speaking, the two Houses do a lot of trading; the first House in order to get anything, accepts the amendments of the second, and vice versa. In actual practice, the two Houses seldom seek a middle ground, at least not by formal methods. Two considerations do not necessarily mean a double consideration and two hasty considerations may not be as good as one thorough one. There is a tendency to assume that a subject has been considered in the other House, when the consideration there has been very inadequate, or sometimes one House hastily passes a bill, with the expectation, that the other House will

deal with it more carefully; and so there is frequently a shifting of responsibility from chamber to chamber. It is customary for amendments of the second House to be accepted without question. It is also customary to advance bills advocated by the party leaders. Important measures are determined upon by the party leaders, and upon these the second chamber is of little additional usefulness in furnishing consideration.

"Toward the close of each session, a committee on revision of the calendar is appointed. The membership of this committee is always dictated by the party leaders and they absolutely determine what bills shall be considered, and the order in which they shall be considered.

"This committee usually consists of three in the Senate, and five in the House, and these eight men during the last week of the session, when almost fifty per cent of the bills are passed, absolutely dictate what enactments shall comprise one-half of the laws upon our statute books. The committee becomes in reality, a bicameral legislature of three and five members. And the House, in order to get its bills passed by the Senate, accepts Senate bills; and the Senate in order to get its bills passed by the House, accepts House bills.

"Those of us who have had legislative experience, are fully aware that many an important bill has been killed in one House or the other, just because of a feeling that the Senate was killing House bills too carelessly; or that the House was killing Senate bills with too great frequency. As for being a deliberative body, I have yet to see a State legislature that could be so classed.

"And pertinent to this remark is the criticism which I take from the Saturday Evening Post of August 9th, 1913. The Post says:

"The Illinois Legislature was in session twenty-three weeks. A contemporary on the ground reports that in the first twenty-one weeks it passed onequarter of the bills that it finally made into law and in the last two weeks it passed three-quarters of them. That is the inevitable legislative program; two or three months of preliminaries, appointing committees, playing politics, squabbling over points of party advantage; then two or three weeks of earnest effort to get the machinery really started; then about ten days of frenzied haste, during which a large part of the important legislation is actually accomplished. "A body constituted as our legislatures are, cannot possibly work any other way. There would be exactly the same result with a bank or a railroad, if once in two years the stockholders elected a large body of directors who mostly knew nothing in particular about banking or transportation, who were sharply divided by opposing professional interests and who were to remain in session only three months. But the bank or railroad wouldn't last long under the guidance of such a board.

"We legislate in convulsions when we legislate at all. The organism is so constituted that it must have a fit or lie dormant.

"It is not a representative system. The people of Illinois do not conduct their personal affairs in rare bursts of frenetic energy divided by long periods of torpidity. No farmer hires thirty men to debate about small grain from July 4th to July 30th and then harvest the oats on the 31st. Why should he regard a legislature which operates that way, as representing him?"

"In my message of March 10, 1913, I proposed to the Kansas legislature the substitution for the present system, of a one-house legislature consisting of eight and not to exceed sixteen members. My most violent critic has proposed a onehouse legislature composed of thirty. I still believe that the number should not exceed sixteen. One-half of them might be elected from districts and onehalf of them at large, or they might all be nominated by districts and elected at large, with provisions for recall, and the initiative and referendum, which are imperative. These legislators should be elected for terms of four years each, with provision for expiration in rotation, in order to secure stability and experience.

"I further believe that these legislators should be nominated and elected upon a non-partisan ballot, like that which has recently been provided in Kansas for the election of judges; or if not that, then with provision for minority representation.

"They should be paid salaries which would enable them to give their time to the study of State affairs. They should meet at such intervals as the business of the State demanded and should have power to employ expert assistance in the drafting of laws.

"Just at this time the necessity for such a legislative body is quite apparent in Kansas. Such a legislature would enable us to handle the gas situation; it would have enabled us to handle the situation with reference to the inspection of grain; it would have enabled us to handle without trouble, the difficulties arising from the destruction of our twine plant at the Kansas Penitentiary. It would enable us to provide aid for those counties which have been sorely afflicted by the drouth; and so every year, such a body able to meet without large expense whenever necessity required, would be a good business proposition for the people of the State. As it is, one co-ordinate branch of the State government is absolutely abandoned for a whole biennium, unless the legislature is invoked in an expensive, extraordinary session by the Governor. It is as if the head of an important department of some other big business should give only fifty days every two years to its management.

"In my judgment, such a legislature as I am advocating, would give us fewer but better laws; it would give us laws that would need less interpretation from the courts and accordingly give us less litigation. It would be representative. As a matter of fact, under the present system, the sovereign voter helps elect one representative out of one hundred twenty-five, and the one senator out of forty, and if his senator and representative happen to disagree, he is not represented at all. Under the one-house system, elected as I have proposed, each voter would cast his vote for either eight or all sixteen members, according to the method adopted. He can watch eight or sixteen, and if he is alert, he may know from the daily newspapers on which one of them to fix the responsibility for any particular action, but he cannot keep track of 165.

"Democracy does not mean numbers, but that which is more flexible, the more responsive to the will of the people is the more democratic. Eight or sixteen men, who sense their responsibility, and accountability, and who-so to speak-feel the grip of an exacting public, will be far more democratic, far more solicitous of public approval, and much more sensitive to public criticism, than they would have been, had they been but a part of a legislature of two Houses of 165 members.

"And this brings me to the matter of publicity. I would have published and distributed at State expense, a journal of the proceedings of this House so that every voter in the State, if he care, may know just what is going on.

"I have not at any time proposed, as I have been credited with doing, commission form of government for the State. When it is attained, I think it must be step by step, and so my proposition is for a small, single-house legislature as the firstep. If it prove a success, it will then be time to consider the question of taking another step. What we now want is a legislature in which there will be real deliberation and real responsibility, and real accountability. What we want is legislation by members adequately equipped, and adequately paid to legislate. Men who will promulgate new law only when needed. We want a better system which will bring into service better, though fewer men, and give us better, though fewer laws.

"Since this address was prepared, I have received from Richard S. Childs, secretary of the National Short Ballot Organization, the result of his examination of the manuscript, for a bulletin shortly to be issued by the Kansas Legislative Reference Library on this subject. This bulletin embodies all the available literature on this subject, both favorable and unfavorable. A summary of Mr. Childs' conclusions is as follows:

"First. Membership in a small one-house legislature would be more attractive to first-class talent, than membership in Congress and would rank not far below the Governorship itself.

"Second. This plan would bring the legislature nearer to the people. This statement contradicts the first impression, but it is true nevertheless. The legislature of to-day is as remote from the people as it is possible to be. The