[Footnote C: For constitutional amendments only.]

The thoughtful reader will ask: Why this continual progress toward a
purer democracy? Wherein lie the inducements to this persistent
revolution?

The answer is this: The masses of the citizens of Switzerland found it
necessary to revolt against their plutocracy and the corrupt politicians
who were exploiting the country through the representative system. For a
peaceful revolution these masses found the means in the working
principles of their communal meetings--the Initiative and
Referendum,--and these principles they are applying throughout the
republic as fast as circumstances admit.[D]

[Footnote D: While the reports of the Secretary of State and "The
History of the Referendum," by Th. Curti, will bear out many of the
statements here made as to how the change from representative to direct
legislation came about, the story as I give it has been written me by
Herr Carl Bürkli, of Zurich, known in his canton as the "Father of the
Referendum."]

The great movement for democracy in Europe that culminated in the
uprising of 1848 brought to the front many original men, who discussed
innovations in government from every radical point of view. Among these
thinkers were Martin Rittinghausen, Emile Girardin, and Louis Blanc.
From September, 1850, to December, 1851, the date of the _coup d'état_
of Louis Bonaparte, these reformers discussed, in the "Democratic
pacifique," a weekly newspaper of Paris, the subject of direct
legislation by the citizens. Their essays created a sensation in France,
and more than thirty journals actively supported the proposed