institution, when the _coup d'état_ put an end to free speech. The
articles were reprinted in book form in Brussels, and other works on the
subject were afterward issued by Rittinghausen and his co-worker Victor
Considérant. Among Considérant's works was "Solution, ou gouvernement
direct du peuple," and this and companion works that fell into the hands
of Carl Bürkli convinced the latter and other citizens of Zurich ("an
unknown set of men," says Bürkli) of the practicability of the
democratic methods advocated. The subject was widely agitated and
studied in Switzerland, and the fact that the theory was already to some
extent in practice there (and in ancient times had been much practiced)
led to further experiments, and these, attaining success, to further,
and thus the work has gone on. The cantonal Initiative was almost
unknown outside the Landsgemeinde when it was established in Zurich in
1869. Soon, however, through it and the obligatory Referendum (to use
Herr Bürkli's words): "The plutocratic government and the Grand Council
of Zurich, which had connived with the private banks and railroads, were
pulled down in one great voting swoop. The people had grown tired of
being beheaded by the office-holders after every election." And
politicians and the privileged classes have ever since been going down
before these instruments in the hands of the people. The doctrines of
the French theorists needed but to be engrafted on ancient Swiss custom,
the Frenchmen in fact having drawn upon Swiss experience.


_The Optional and the Obligatory Referendum._

To-day the movement in the Swiss cantons is not only toward the
Referendum, but toward its obligatory form. The practice of the optional
form has revealed defects in it which are inherent.[E]