Certainly no duty is more pressing than to see to it that in every election the unbiased and unbought will of the people be recorded. Is there a remedy? And, if so, what is it? My conviction is, that we only need to carry out the intent of the founders of this government. They blazed the way; we must make a clear and beaten track along that way. By a republican form of government the Revolutionary statesmen meant two things, which now are not carried out. They meant that every state, and the nation as well, should possess a legislative body, representative of the will of the people. Nowhere does this exist, not even where honest elections assure a free ballot and a fair count. Neither in ability nor in opinion do state legislatures by their acts represent a majority of their constituents, except by accident. Nor will they represent the people until each political party, whether large or small, elects its due proportion of the members. That is to say, a party which casts forty-five per cent. of the total vote for representatives must have forty per cent. of the legislature, and the party which casts five per cent. of the total vote must have five per cent. of the legislature. Then only will statute law be framed in accordance with the will of a majority of the people. The other part of our republican form of government, as understood and intended by American statesmen of the eighteenth century, was that a majority of the people should directly control the organic law. To this end they had the state constitutions framed by the people, acting through delegates chosen to conventions for that sole purpose, but not in effect until submitted to the electors and adopted by a majority of the votes cast for and against. In like manner the referendum was provided for in case of subsequent amendments. It was thought, also, that a popular initiative for constitutional changes was created, in the authority given to legislatures to submit amendments; but, alas, time has shown that those legislatures, being unrepresentative of the people, refuse to submit amendments, however extensively demanded by public sentiment. Hence the necessity of giving the power to propose constitutional amendments, as has lately been done in South Dakota, Utah and Oregon, to a reasonable minority (in those states eight per cent.) of the voters. When the popular initiative shall thus have been added to the referendum already existing for making changes in the organic law of our states, all else will take care of itself. The amendment pending in the Rhode Island Legislature, and known there as the constitutional initiative, reads in substance as follows: