When I was in Oregon, not many months ago, I had some very interesting conversations with Mr. U'Ren, who is the father of what is called the Oregon System, a system by which he has put bosses out of business. He is a member of a group of public-spirited men who, whenever they cannot get what they want through the legislature, draw up a bill and submit it to the people, by means of the initiative, and generally get what they want. The day I arrived in Portland, a morning paper happened to say, very ironically, that there were two legislatures in Oregon, one at Salem, the state capital, and the other going around under the hat of Mr. U'Ren. I could not resist the temptation of saying, when I spoke that evening, that, while I was the last man to suggest that power should be concentrated in any single individual or group of individuals, I would, nevertheless, after my experience in New Jersey, rather have a legislature that went around under the hat of somebody in particular whom I knew I could find than a legislature that went around under God knows who's hat; because then you could at least put your finger on your governing force; you would know where to find it. Why do we continue to permit these things? Isn't it about time that we grew up and took charge of our own affairs? I am tired of being under age in politics. I don't want to be associated with anybody except those who are politically over twenty-one. I don't wish to sit down and let any man take care of me without my having at least a voice in it; and if he doesn't listen to my advice, I am going to make it as unpleasant for him as I can. Not because my advice is necessarily good, but because no government is good in which every man doesn't insist upon his advice being heard, at least, whether it is heeded or not. Some persons have said that representative government has proved too indirect and clumsy an instrument, and has broken down as a means of popular control. Others, looking a little deeper, have said that it was not representative government that had broken down, but the effort to get it. They have pointed out that, with our present methods of machine nomination and our present methods of election, which give us nothing more than a choice between one set of machine nominees and another, we do not get representative government at all,--at least not government representative of the people, but merely government representative of political managers who serve their own interests and the interests of those with whom they find it profitable to establish partnerships.