3o6 A History of the Pacific Northwest
nomination to Roosevelt and the election resulted in the choice of Wilson electors. In 1916, Washington and Idaho both gave their electoral votes to Wilson, while Oregon by a small majority gave hers to Hughes.
The problems of direct legislation. One of the important problems of our new democracy is to ascertain the limits within which the direct expression of the popular will, in an election, is efficient as a political remedy. We have a new freedom and the question is how to use it most wisely. Oregon's experience shows that the initiative and referendum do not constitute a panacea for all political or social ills. For one thing, the number of measures presented to the people, on an enormously long ballot, is sometimes so great that no true expression of the people's will can be hoped for. Methods of securing a shorter ballot have been discussed but without much result.
Conference and conciliation needed. It is not commonly recognized that under the direct legislation system there is much room for the oppression of minorities. Voting, after all, may be merely the trench warfare of politics. Somewhere in the system provision should be made for conference and conciliation, so that measures, when they appear on the ballot, may represent, at best, the aspirations of the most thoughtful minds among all sections of the population, at worst a tolerable compromise of their conflicting opinions. For this class and that class, without mutual consultation, to load the ballot with measures
