[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 Buerkli, 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'etat_ 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 institution, when the _coup d'etat_ 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 Considerant. Among Considerant's works was "Solution, ou gouvernement direct du peuple," and this and companion works that fell into the hands of Carl Buerkli convinced the latter and other citizens of Zurich ("an unknown set of men," says Buerkli) 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 Buerkli'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] [Footnote E: The facts relative to the operation of these two forms of the Referendum have been given me by Monsieur P. Jamin, of Geneva.]