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 result of my
observations in the country, I contributed, under the caption
"Republican Switzerland," a series of articles to the New York "Times"
on the Swiss government of today, and, last April, an essay to the
"Chautauquan" magazine on "The Referendum in Switzerland." On the form
outlined in these articles I have constructed the first three chapters
of the present work. The data, however, excepting in a few cases, are
corrected to 1892, and in many respects besides I have profited by the
labors of other men in the same field.

The past two years and a half has seen much writing on Swiss
institutions. Political investigators are awakening to the fact that in
politics and economics the Swiss are doing what has never before been
done in the world. In neighborhood, region, and nation, the entire
citizenship in each case concerned is in details operating the
government. In certain cantons it is done in every detail. Doing this,
the Swiss are moving rapidly in practically grappling with social
problems that elsewhere are hardly more than speculative topics with