Referenda

Voters may vote for a candidate because he is a New Dealer or anti-New Dealer, handsome, honest, a neighbor, a relative, or a fellow Bulgarian immigrant. This sometimes confuses the meaning of their votes. But when they vote directly on an issue, their meaning is not easily mistaken. Some issues on which voters of various States last week expressed themselves directly :

Pensions. California, although it elected Pensioneer Sheridan Downey to the Senate, did not want $30 Every Thursday for its old folks at the cost of a serious monetary experiment, returned a 100,000 majority against it. Oregon rejected a "citizens' retirement annuity plan" which would have paid up to $100 a month, but instructed its Legislature to memorialize Congress on behalf of the Townsend Plan. Nebraskans refused to license slot machines to provide more pension revenue. Elsewhere the pension cause was successful. North Dakota approved pensions of $40 a month. Colorado rejected an amendment repealing its present $45-a-month pensions which its opponents declared were bankrupting the State. Missourians thought it was all right to lower the age minimum for pensioners from 70 to 65.

Labor, its rights and wrongs, a lively campaign issue in most States, fared well with voters. A.F. of L. and C.I.O. combined to stave off drastic anti-picketing ordinances in California. Oregon. Washington. But Oregon approved a milder initiative proposal to outlaw picketing in jurisdictional disputes, restrict secondary boycotts, regulate union expenditures.

Marriage Laws. Oregon voted to require medical examinations for marriage license applicants. Maryland prescribed a 48-hour interval between licensing and ceremony to scotch its fly-by-night marriage racket at Elkton.

Texas consented 5-to-3 to kill a clause from its 1876 Constitution requiring Governors and other State officeholders to swear they have never fought a duel.

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