Word: referendums
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...speak of the refundum as an expression of the public will. But this is merely one of the pleasant self-deceptions which a democracy likes to cherish. For a referendum is at best nothing more than a call for the yeas and nays, with no opportunity for anyone to voice a qualified opinion. It assumes that every voter is ready to say yes or no to any question that may be placed before him, whether it relate to the extension of a street-railway franchise, the independence of the Philippines, or the pay of the police force. The unthinking person...
...York Representative Ogden L. Mills: "The Senator says those responsible for the submission of this question [The Volstead Act referendum] to the people of New York were actuated by cowardice rather than by conviction. When Senator Borah urges in Atlanta the enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment, and defends Volsteadism and its fruits in New York City, he may be in a position to discuss the political courage of others. But as long as he remains discreetly silent on the nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment and selects the heart of the dry belt as the appropriate place to preach the sacredness...
Maimed German War veterans exhibiting their stumps, shouting "We fought! You vote!" were motored by Communists and Socialists about German cities last week in an effort to rouse sluggish citizens for the great Referendum (TIME, June 21 et ante) held to deprive Wilhelm II and the erstwhile German nobility without compensation of property valued at five billion gold marks previously seized by the Reich...
...Referendum Sunday" dawned warm, blue-skied, inviting. Millions of Germans went a picnicking, neglected to ballot. A drenching afternoon rain fell alike upon the picnickers and the snug houses of several million more Germans who refused to venture out-even jeered the War veterans riding in open motors through the rain...
...confiscation without compensation." That was not enough. Twenty million votes were required by law to sustain the plebiscite. Five per cent of the voters (542,311) strode to the polls and gratuitously expressed their opposition to confiscation in any form, though their votes had no immediate bearing upon the referendum...