The need for the supervision of various phases of local industry has caused a considerable increase of state administration, which has been endowed by the legislatures or by the people with larger discretionary powers than was formerly the case. Many different methods are being proposed to reorganize American state government in the interest of a combination of increasing administrative and legislative power and increasing popular control. One of the most critical problems which confronts the American democracy is the devising of a method of direct government which will articulate with a method of efficient representation. Wherever public opinion has been vigorously demanding the adoption of a progressive state policy, the agent to which it has turned for the carrying out of that policy has been a candidate for governor. The national platform of the Progressive party grouped a declaration in favor of the initiative, referendum and the recall with a declaration in favor of a short ballot.