S H O RT BA LLO T
-
PRINC IPLES
RIC HAR D S CH ILDS
.
B OS TON
H OUGH T ON
NE W ! OR!
MIFFLIN
COMPA N!
attic a m usin g p r ess fl am b ub g e
191 1
TO
TH E
WITH
TH E
AMERICAN PEOPLE
A SS URAN C E
TH A T T
H EY
NOT T o B LAM E FOR T H E IR M I S G O V ERNMEN T
T
IS
HI S
V OLUME
LO YALLY
D ED I C A T ED
P REFA CE
H I LE I e n title this b ook Short B allot
”
Prin ciples I am aware that it c on ta in s
a number of things which are on ly r e m ote ly con
n e c te d with the S hort B allot movement S ho r t
B allot a dv oc a t e s are justifi ed in asking
The
Wieldy Dist r ict idea the L eadership P arties
and Nom in a tion by F orfeit
are the s e Short
B allot principles ?
N o The title is meant to cover only those
chapters which deal with the Short B al lot
principle as defined by The Short B allot Or
g a n iza ti on ; which is
F ir st ! That only those offices should be
elective wh ich are important enough to attract
( and deserve ) pub lic examination ; and
S econd ! That very few offices should be
filled by election at one time so as to perm i t
adequate and unconfused public examination
of the candidates
B ut the Short B allot far reachi ng and im
portant as it is will not completely answer
“
present difficulties of self government
New
”
York C ity practically has the Short B allot
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viii
PREFAC E
says a doubter ; and I must explain that the
mere bigness of the electoral di strict creates a
special p r oblem which the Shor t B allot does
not answer and that big cities must have the
“
”
machine
r i ght k in d of S ho r t B allot else the
wi l l stay and p r osper S o likewise to answer
othe r cr i t ics I must talk of parties and of nomi
nation p r ocedur e and get those things into the
same pe rspective as the r est of the book B ut
these postscr ipts are only my personal answer s
and any Shor t B all ot advocate is fr ee to differ
and to off er other r easoning of his o w n without
impairin g hi s orthodoxy '
R ICH ARD S C HILDS
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Fe b r ua r y 1 9 1 1
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CONTENT S
I
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SUPERS TITIONS
OUR POLITI CA L
A ND
TH E
S CI ENTIFI C SPIRIT
H
.
D EMO CRA TIC GOV E RNMEN T
HAS
LIMITA TIONS
SH ORT B A LLO T
OFFI C E MUS T
.
TH E NA TUR E
.
TH E LIMI T
V
VI
A ND
RAMS HA C!
OF
OF
BE
IMP ORTANT
POP ULAR INTERES T
DIS TRICT-SI!
MIS FIT S
LE
PA RTIES AND
GOVERNMENT
WH !
TH E! CA NNOT
BIB LE
LEA DERS HIP PA RTIES
! I NOMINA TION PROCEDURE
.
! II CONCLUS ION
.
L ENVOI
’
E
BE
RES P ON
10
S H ORT
-B
A LLOT P RINCIPLE S
C H AP TE R I
O UR
SUPER STI T I ON S
S CI EN TI FI C SPI RI T
P OLITICA L
A ND TH E
M
purpose is to present in these pages a
View of democratic government from a
distance not usually t aken by A merican citi
zens
a distance so remote from the whole
tangle of reasoning as to cast into clearer per
s pe c t i ve the meaning and relation of the vari
ous par ts
I n considering the problems which we have
met in the course of our adventure in demo
cracy we A mericans have very r arely stopped
to take a look at the whole proposition o f popu
lar government We have wrestled with func
tions instead of causes A s a nation we have
never been more than merely superficial in our
theories of political science
I n fa ct most Americans seem unaware that
there i s such a thing as political science Any
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S HORT— BALLO T
2
PR INCIPLES
sensible lawyer is considered c ompetent to
dr aft a plan of government for a city Honesty
qual ifies a business man to go to a state consti
t ut ion a l convention I n talk in g to miscellane
o us audiences on subjects o f this nature I have
been repeatedly secretly amused at the easy
nonchalance with which men who had never
before given a thought to the problems o f
governm ental organization would wave aside
statements quoted from such men as ex Pr esi
dents E liot of Harvar d and Woodrow Wilson of
Pr inceton as if the r e could not possibly be any
elements in democratic p r oblems that were n ot
visible to any ama teu r at a glan c e The only
parallel I know of is the profession of a dve r
t i s in g
Al most any average man thinks him
self competent to write good advertisements
Without any study or experience and every
advertising agent ea rns his commissions ten
times over in squelching the foolish pr Op os a ls
o f his cli ents
And so when a council proves c orrupt our
city charter is me r ely amended to transfe r the
control of contracts to a n e w board of public
works If the state surveyor is untrustworthy
we create a n e w official to build the new canal
If the county cle r k makes h is offi ce a feeding
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O U R POLI T IC AL
S U PER S T I TION S
3
trough of patronage we create a civil service
board to supply him with an eligible list Ne w
Y ork takes the control of franchises away from
the aldermen as a measure of reform while
C hicago ( as a measure of refor m) is adding to
the powers o f its aldermen
and in both cases
refo r m is for the moment achieved since cor
ruption is a plant that often takes more than
a moment to grow in new environments So we
go on doctoring symptoms instead of lookin g
for the disease !
In fact in any tentative exploration in the
direction of fundamentals we have been
stopped time and again by certain widespread
political superstitions among o ur people s u
p e r s t it ion s that usually have as their nucleus
an ancient catch phrase Propose that a mayor
be allowed a seat and vote in the council and
the proposal will be heard on i ts merits until
“
some one says ! That violates the principle of
There you have
the s e p a r a ti on of powe r s
”
legislative and executive functions united ;
and with the advent of the catch phrase it is
deemed the duty of the proposer to bow in
awed silence as if the argument were ended
Propose t o make the state engineer appointive
o n the ground that the plan of hav ing him elec
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S H ORT~BALLOT
4
PRINCIPLES
tive has worked badly and the word a n de m o
”
fal ls like a gavel to end the discussion
cr a ti c
P lead that a referendum on a technical subject
is little bet ter than leavin g the decision to
“
chance and the que ry
Don t you tr us t the
is supposed to reti r e y ou in confusion
p e ople ?
Robe rt L ouis S tevenson w a s right when he said
“
M an shall n ot live by b r ead alone but princi
pal l y by catch ph r ases
That in o ur pol itical reasoning w e should
“
”
be the sl aves o f these glib b r om id io m s is
probab l y because the subject is the common
pr ope r ty of the mi ll ions Any idea that is t o be
wide ly spread and remembe r ed must be c o n
d e n s e d t o a catch ph r ase first even if such r e
duction means Iopping off many of its vital
ramifications and making it false in many of
its natural applications A dozen well chosen
words can tr avel from mouth t o mouth great
distances and keep their alignment unbroken ;
but make the phrase longer and it falls apart
and stops
or only a fr agment of it travels
on
The power of these catch phrases t o sway
men s minds regardless o f reasoning is a fas
c in a t in g thing to see
The D es M oines plan of
city government at this writing is winning favor
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OUR
S U PE RSTITIONS
POL I T ICAL
5
Wi th thousands because they say i t is
a busi
”
“
n ess form of organization
just l ike a
”
c orporation w ith its board of dire ctors
although in fact it is really like a board of de
pa rt m e n t superintendents electe d by the sto ck
holders
a form of organi zation un k n own in
business and never likely to find favor in busi
ness practice I f it we r e really like a board of
“
”
dire ctors the commission w ould appoint a
manager who in turn would hire the de pa r tm e n
t al heads reporting regular ly to the commission
and submitting to it only b r oad matters of
poli cy Yet the catch phrase has conver ted
W hole c ities while the fundamental but less
catchy reasons for the comparative success of
the plan have rarely been mentioned !
I n this v olume I propose to r emain at a point
of V iew so distant that the whole network of
catch phrases will be lost sight of and we shall
see de m o cracy as a whole never getting close
enough t o see the details If we can only keep
for a while at such a di stance that nothin g but
the fun damental features will be visible ! I t will
be hard bu t perhaps it will help if I t a ke the
libert y of warning you against the greatest
”
c at ch phrase o f a ll namely the people
“
”
p ronou nced pe e pul ! O r worse yet the
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SH ORT
6
—
BALLO T PRINCIPLES
plain people w h o I believe have certain
“
s upernatur al vi r tues not possessed by the
people
It is lés e m aje s te to all ege that there
ar e any limitations to the people in either
mor als or lear ning We ar e only beginning to
emerge from t h e period when thought on the
question of popular gove r nment was simply
used to supply the savor and not the sub
“
stance for or atory
Rounded periods are
o ut o f fashion o n every other subject but r he
“
this great
t or i c a l vaporings still i e n s h r o ud
”
peop l e ; and if y o u should have the temerity
t o Opine that most o f the people vote for a state
t reasur e r b l indly without adequate knowledge
o f his qualifications a hundred edito r s ( after
h av ing looked up the name of the state t reas
ure r themselves to be sure of it ) will exp l ode
in par ag r aphs of fury inveighing against your
ar istocr atic snee rs
I n the same editor ials
after exalting the intelligence and vi r tue of the
people I have seen them p r oceed to deplore
“
the wanton indiffe rence o f the age and the
p revailing absence of civic ene rgy
An d there w e have another familiar set of
“
”
catch words
Apathy is a catch ph r ase and
I shall show y oulater that the notion that our
people are apathetic toward their political in
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O U R POL I T ICA L
S U PER ST IT IONS
7
and duties is one of our political super
s t i t i on s
I shall be a l ong way on with you
M r C itizen if I can persuade you
F i r st that the people are men and women
not de migods
S econd that the people are men and women
not moral delinquents
I f we thus concede to the people the faults
and merits possessed by men and women we
can proceed calmly to consider them as the
great underlying force of democratic govern
ment with certain well known and so far as we
are concerned unalte r able characte r istics to
be reckoned with as we erect the political
superstructure
Think of the people as you would o f water
when building a water mill ! ! ou would waste
n o time in deploring its lazy tendency to slip
down ward through every cre vice in your dam
you would admit the fact and build a tight
dam ! o u would not plan to have the water
flow uphill knowing that you would inevitably
be dis a p pom te d If your mill finally failed t o
wo rk you wo uld still n ot blame the water but
only the mill and would strive to adapt its
gearing to the force of the stream Yet you
would have j ust as much right to sit by the
te r e s ts
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SH OR T
8
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BALLO T PRIN CIPLES
motionless mill and curse the characte r istics of
water (which consistently fails to fulfi l l your
man made r equirements ) as has the Char te r
Revision Committee t o devise a city char ter
that imposes r equi rements o n the people which
amp l e expe r ience demonstr ates that the people
wi ll n ot fu l fi l l and t o cu rse the peop l e fo r fail
“
”
ure t o live up to these arbit r ar y duties
S o in this volume I shall try t o get y ou to
”
consider the people in the same scientific
spir it in which y o u would conside r the water
ascr ibing to them no unnatural virtues no
powe r s that have n ot been revealed in p r actice
n o halo n o go l den g l o r y ; t o consider them as
a phenomenon of nature which in a given set of
cir cumstances will d o certain things and will
not d o certain othe r things
I n the past we have app r oached the people
as a pagan approached the waterfall
t o w or
ship and pee r ar ound fo r nymphs We must t o
day approach the people as the mill builder
app r oaches the waterfall open eyed unafr aid
exp ecting n o miracl e measu r ing its capacity
making allowance for its var iations and ir r e v
e r e n tly gauging its limitations in o r der that o ur
mill shall not exceed them We shall learn
“
perhaps that the crystal drops contain a cer
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C HAPTE R II
DEMO C RA TI C G OV ERNMEN T
HAS
LI MIT AT I ON S
I wi l l suppose that the p r evious chap
te r has gotten us into the coldly scientifi c
and unsentimental state of mind where we
can safely trust our selves to measure and cal
cul ate the various e l ements of popular govern
ment without danger of either mag nifying or
ignoring any of the featu res we see
The problem before us is
Given the Ame r ican people
H ow to organize among them a government
which in all no r mal times wi l l be impelled
promptly and intelligently to learn their desire
and perfor m it
This does n ot mean merely that the govern
ment will obey on those occasions when the
people in a paroxys m proclaim fr om press
pulpit and mass meeting that a certain thing
must be done (though even that would be sub
s t a n t i a l gain in some American communities )
I t means a gove rnment which is s o sensitive to
the currents of pub l ic opinion that it will even
a n ti c i pa te the popular wish
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DE MOCRAT IC G O VE RNMENT
11
There is nothing fanciful in such an ideal
C ommerce is no less sensitive than that E very
taste of the public in food ar t and comfort is
catered to without any conscious public in
quiry for such satisfaction I t is profitable to
our purveyors to please us with new dainties
for the table comfortable shoes pretty homes
and records of C aruso s voice R arely do we as
a people need to express a want for such things
the knowledge that we shall l ike them is
enough to stimulate their production S o in
our ideal democracy w e shall want something
“
better than legislatures that say Yes that s
a good idea but the r e s no public demand for
”
it as if the fact that they had not yet been
kicked were satisfactory excuse for inaction !
R ather we want legislatu r es that will even sur
p rise us with good things that most of us had
not yet had time to hear agitated
knowing
us and knowing what we like each public serv
ant racing to be the most popular and to w in
our bestowal o f honor and office by inventing
new political delights !
D emocratic government is government con
trolled by the people and has three important
v ariations of form
F irst ! the town meeting where the people
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PRINCIPLES
S H ORT- BALLO T
IQ
themselves gather in conference and after de
bate decide for themselves upon their laws and
communal activities The average man will
readily agree that this form of democratic gov
e r n m e n t is only suitable in a limited field of
appli cation and is unpracti c al in large cities or
sparsely settled communities of large area or
communities where the governmental a ctivities
are complex and technical in their nature
S ec ond ! the referen dum wherein laws are de
vised by some committee official or otherwise
a n d submitted for app r oval t o popular v ote
The average man wi l l r eadily agree that this
form of democratic government a lso has its
limits of p r acticability and that fo r instan c e to
have a ll the laws of a state made in that f a shion
would be quite out of the question
Yet what would happen if some limitations
of these forms of democ r ati c go ve rnment were
ignored ? Suppose C hicago were forced by the
terms of an ancient village charter to submit
its vast governmental activities to the tender
mer cies of an annual publi c meeting o f all the
citizens ! Of course all the citizens could not get
into a sin gle hall nor Within sound o f a single
voice and the fe w thousand who could do so by
tri ck or violen ce could gain control and keep i t
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DEMOCRAT IC G O VERNM EN T
13
year af te r year That would be oligarchy
the
rule of the few
although any politician armed
with a few carefully selected catch phrases could
indignantly argue that i t w a s exactly the same
form of government which when used in New
E nglan d towns had proven a tri um ph of pure
democracy ! I nasmuch as it l ooked as if it ought
to be a d emocr acy thousands of citizens
would actually believe that it mus t be one and
that the tr ue r emedy fo r the r esultant ills of the
“
” “
system lay in mor e civic vi r tue
a mor e
”
“
militant good citizenship and the education
of the people s o that they would n t shout and
yell so at the meeting I f you asserted that the
overstepping of the limit of practicability in
the size of the electorate had been in itse l f s uf
fic ie n t to alter the whole princip l e of the plan
making it normally and natural l y productive of
Violent oligar chy instead of democracy you
“
”
would be cal led an academic aristocrat
”
“
“
distr ustful of the pee pul o r a dilettante
”
w h o disliked to jostle in the r ough m ob !
D oes the pictur e of such stupid opposition
seem overdrawn ? Wait I t is actually the p r e
s ent condition of Ame r ican political thought
except that I have imagined it applied t o the
t own meeting form instead of to the third form
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S HORT
14
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BALLO T PRINCIPL ES
of democratic government namely
gove r n
,
by e le c te d offi c e r s
m en
t
.
Government by elected officers which of
cou r se is by far the most import a nt of the th ree
typical mechanisms fo r asce rtaining and exe
euting popular wi ll is supposed t o wor k as fo l
lows
I t is known that a certain office in the gove rn
ment w i ll on a cer tain day be filled by popul ar
vote The ofiic e is made attractive by salar y
and honor Several eligible men covet the posi
tion and accordingl y g o among the voters seek
in g favor If any conside r able section of the
vote rs want a ce r tain po l icy adopted in that
office either the need of secu r ing their support
wi ll l ead candidates to announce concurrence
in that desir e or the oppo r tunity to obtain
office by means of thei r suppor t wi l l produce n e w
candidates who d o concu r in it Thus any im
portant demand among the people is automat
i c a lly r eflected in the list of candidates whose
names appear on the ballot on e l ection day
Then the voters g o to the po l ls and knowing
which candi date best r epresents their individ
ual desires they mark his name on the ballot
The officer thus elected is the on e who has suc
c e s s fully catered to the wishes of the greatest
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DEMOCRAT IC G O VERN MENT
15
n umber The necessity that every elected officer
shall thus find favor with the people gives the
people ultimate control
That is the theor y We are so far from it in
practice that it has a str ange look I t is a sound
wo rkable theory neve r theless B ut it has its
limitations j ust as town meeting democr acy
has And if these limitations are overstepped
tomatically results
o ligarchy a u
Some of these limitations ar e me rely mechan
ical ; others are rooted in human nature itself
The me chanical limitations do not common l y
bother us much for they are easy to see and
hence are unlikely to be overstepped For i n
I f it
s tance the polling p lace must be o r derly
be unguar ded by the police the oppo r tunity
to capture an election by violence will be left
open t o any g r oup of r uffia n s and it is a
reasonable certainty that some group o f ruf
fia n s will sooner or later pe r ceive and gr asp
“
”
the opportunity
B leeding ! ansas before
the C ivil War was the unhappy scene of just
The rule of the few (oli
s uch occu rr ences
garchy ) instead of democr acy the rule of the
many is thus the logical normal inevitable
resul t of a failure t o observe thi s limita tion of
democr acy by election
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SH ORT
16
—
B ALLOT PRINCIPLES
The most familiar illustr ation of overstepped
mechanical l imitations is in the form of the
ballot and the method of mar king it The r ules
governing the vote r in the act of voting must be
simp l e and easy to comp r ehend T r icky ar
rangements of the ballot o r intricate r ules of
p r ocedu r e may ope r ate t o disfranchise thou
sands of vote r s The ope r ation of voting might
easily be made so elabo r ate that the bulk of the
people would be ce rtain to violate the rules and
lose thei r votes
and again government by a
small minority woul d resul t automatically
Notice that in such cases the failu r e of demo
cratic gove rnment to deve l op according t o p r o
gramme is only the nor mal to b e expected
resul t and implies n o discredit whateve r to the
people The people are the same under an un
p r actical form of democracy as under a pr a c ti
cal o n e
It would be easy to invent a thousand ways
of p l an n ing an appar ently democratic fo r m of
gove rnment that would in all normal conditions
result in ol igar chy ! nowing that the people
ar e ob l iged by natu r al economic p r essure to
work t o thei r maximum e ffi ciency at gainful
occupation it is only necessar y somehow t o
elaborate electoral processes un til the bulk of
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SH ORT
18
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
the latter t o r emain in the neighborhood and
would tend to be forced out The group of
voter s near the poll s would be holding the g o v
e r n m e n t in an info r mal t r ust fo r the balance of
the e l ectorate A n d since that power woul d be
accessible t o any o n e w h o chose t o l ive the r e
and would off er l ivelihood and wealth t o corr upt
men and nothing but thankless l abor to good
men it is inevitable that the t r ust would be
betr ayed
Would the people be to blame for not pro
teeting their o w n inter ests unde r those circum
stances ? Could it be fai r ly c l aimed that they
ought t o give up p r oductive labo r o n so many
days of the year ? I s it n ot cl ear that those of
the people who whol e hear ted l y str ove t o ful
fi l l these a rbitr ary requirements o f citizenship
wou l d su ff er in business competition with those
who did n ot ? Should the merchant close his
shop so that he coul d g o t o vote leaving his less
patr iotic competitor in possession o f the field ?
Wou l d n o t the clerk w h o insisted on taking a
day off ever y month t o vote be wor th less t o his
employer than on e w h o was wi ll ing t o ignor e
“
”
such duties ? Woul d n ot the first question
“
asked of an applicant for a job be ! D o you
”
i nsist on voting ?
The conditions would put a
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D EMOCRAT IC G O VE RNMENT
19
premium on the neglect of politics None but
the independently wealthy or the unemployed
could aff ord to be factors in the government
without remuneration And it would be no
reflection on the people if it were found that
only a few we r e in politics
rather it would
show that they wer e loyal to the higher duty of
working as hard as they could to p r ovide home
and comfort for thei r fami l ies
The whole outcome of a fai l ure to keep with
“
”
in this limitation oi convenience of voting
c an thus be easily seen to be wholly irrespective
“
civi c v irtue of the people It is an out
o f the
come that would result among peoples which
n ow govern themselves with complete success
as certainly as among peoples whose self gov
e r n m e n t is commonly characte r ized as rotten
Now for the rule b ased on this reasoning
( L ook out ! F or if you are s o incautious as t o
admit this point I shall have converted you to
the major premise of this whole book )
N0 pla n of gove r n m e n t i s a de m oc r a c y un le s s on
a c tua l tr i a l i t pr ove s to be on e The fact that those
w h o planned it i n te n de d it to be a democracy
and could argue that it w ould be one if the pe o
ple would only do thus and so p r oves nothing
”
“
if it does n t de m oc it is n t democracy !
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B A LLOT PRINCIPLES
And I will ask you to agree as a result of
thi s chapter of fancies that democracy has
limits
many limits
and that overstep
ping some of these limits may result in oli
garchy
From this point w e will move nearer to our
subject and see whether our Am erican form of
government has not at some points gone b e
yond the limits o f practicab ility
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C HAPTE R
TH E
S
H ORT
III
B A LL O T
E TTI NG
a government that will normally
obey the people is a matter of making it
feasible for the people to put into public office
the men they want ther e
and none else
This in turn is a matte r of exposing candidates
to adequate public examination before elec
tion so that when the voters go to the polls
they will have had ample i n f or mation to enable
them to decide in telligently which man they
want as their representative and servant
If after the people have seen a man they elect
him they m ust stand by thei r ver dict Their
only protection is to see what they are getting
The only thing that can happen is that they
may elect a man they do n ot really want and
that sometimes happens The only legitimate
protection the people may be given is the full
est chance to scrutin ize the candidates A r
range for the fullest most intensive scrutiny
and you have done all that can be done S c r u
tiny a t election is vital to democracy Deny
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S H ORT
22
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B ALLO T PRINCIPLES
the people the oppor tunity to scr utinize the
candidates and y o u have left them fighting
b lind ly and futilely in the dark
On e method of concea l ing the candidate
fr om the public gaze is to have s o many e l ections
at o n e time that each candidate is sheltered by
the confusion
Notice I use the plural
elections
The
”
habit of saying el ection day instead of
“
e lections day and
election instead of
e l ection s has caused m ore trouble than any
other idiom of the language When w e fi ll ten
offices by popular vote in a singl e day we call
“
”
it an election but it is really ten elections
When O hio holds for ty seven elections o n o n e
day does the ave r age citizen r ead the names
casting a str aight Republican ticket only when
fin din g that each R epublican candidate is to
his l iking ? Or does the average citizen igno r e
the individual names fo r the most par t and p l ace
his dependence on the party management ? To
find this out demand of the average citizen on
the evening fo ll owing elections day as he
stands befor e the ste reopticon scr een watching
“
”
the r etu rns Wh om did y o u vote fo r ?
“
Taft for president and H armon for gov
e r n or
he wi ll answer
to
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TH E SH ORT
B ALLO T
23
else ?
The R epublican N ational ticket and the
”
D emocratic State ticket
“
B ut what men ? You voted for forty seven
you know and you ve only named two ! Whom
did you vote to send to the state legislatur e ?
A nd whom did you pick for county cler k ? And
for dairy and food commissioner and corone r ?
“
O h I don t kn ow
I m not in politics
I dare say that even the politicians of O hio
take most of their ticket on faith in this w a y
I n C leveland a certain militant reformer r e
lates that he spent most of his time for weeks
before one of these elections working as one of a
committee to investigate all the candidates and
publish recommendations for the guidance of
the voters H e had special facil ities he became
an expert in the business of citizenship and by
election time was on e of the few men in town
w h o had studied all the candidates of all parties
When he went to vote himself he found to his
dismay that he had omitted to bring along his
carefully compiled memoranda H e attempted
to vote fo r the long list of forty seven offices
from memory found himself confused and in
doubt at various points and finally cast a ballot
Which he later found contained several mistakes
Whom
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BALLOT PRINCIPLES
In gi vin g we eks of tim e to politi c al inquiry
this man w a s doing n o mor e than every citizen
w a s supposed to do I f he needed a m e m o r a n d um
to aid hi s memo ry it is reasonable to suppose
that every other citizen nee ded on e at least as
badly If the citizens knew what they were
doing at that election every one of them must
have had su ch a memorandum in the polling
booth copying the forty seven separate marks
the vote must have show n substantial va riations
on different offices and the citizens mus t have
been exchanging ideas fo r many days before
hand ou such subjects as Smith s qualifications
for the post of state dai ry and food commis
s ion e r
and Jones s ideas r egarding the a d
ministration of the cor one r s office ! D id they ?
O r did the citizens vote without stopping to
read the ballot without knowing even the
names of al l the o ffices that were to be filled
simply rubber stamping without scrutiny the
ready made tickets o f the politician s ? And if
the politi cians a r e only ten per cent or five per
cent or as I suspect less than one per cent of
the population is not Ohi o an oligarchy ?
When the ball ot is long i e when there are
m any offices t o be filled simultaneously by
popular vote the people (except i n v illage ele c
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26
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BALLO T PRINCIPLES
dence that there is such a thing as asking th e
people more questions than they will answer
car efully In blindly ratifying party nomina
tions the people of O hio are doing a much better
thing than voting at random or not voting at
all The contr olling elements in the par ty have
some slight r esponsibility and some desi r e to
“
”
make good
There is some chance to blame
and punish some on e if things g o wrong
Let us imagine a typical citizen trying to do
better
trying to get along without party
guidance
trying to act as an independent
j udge w 1tho ut bias and thinking on l y of the
common good H is vital need is for light on the
subject H o w is he to get it ? R emember that
economic pressu r e is d riving him to his maxi
mum e ffic ie n c y in gainful occupation T o do his
duty to self and fami ly he must work as har d a s
he can If he finds himse l f still fresh at the end
o f the day s labor
it signifies that he could
safely have worked harder or longer to give his
wife a better home or his children a better edu
cation ! Any un r emunerated labor that b e ex
pends displaces profitable labor and can be
per formed on l y in small amounts o r for short
pe riods S ustained e ff or t in unpaid work
whether it be the work of citizenship or some
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T H E SH ORT
BALLOT
27
thing else is incompatible with his economic
efficiency F or the average man pressed by
competi tion in mill or shop or office it is sim
ply impossible
“
To go into politics to become an active
and responsible and effective force in a political
machine is utterly beyond the powers of the
ave r age man because it calls for a very large
amount of such sustained unpaid effort F or
the most par t the men w h o are active in politics
are not unpaid E ither their political acquaint
ance is in some way profitable to them or they
are ch ronic ofli c e holders who regard political
activity as part of their j ob (Young men with
energy to spare and no family burdens are also
frequently seen in such circles ; but when they
marry and begin to feel the economic pressure
they soon retire from active work )
“
”
Yet to go into politics impossible as thi s
generally is is the only way o ur typical citizen
can gain any direct information regarding the
men o n whom he is to pass judgment at the
polls His newspaper barely mentions the can
its limelight flits
did a te s fo r minor offices
over them fitfully and finding nothi ng pic t ur
esque leaves them in darkness C andidates
sometimes c ampaign and get elected on the
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28
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B ALLOT PRINCIPLES
ta il of the ticket wi thout ever getting a line of
newspaper publicity They can get no in di
vidual hearin g because the public is har dly
aware that their little office is bein g contested
A candidate for clerk of cou rts who tr ied
for
to explain to the people the wo rk of his office
and the improvements he proposed to install
”
would be classed as eccentr ic and his e f
forts would be futile This or that audience
might lis ten respectfully enough but he could
never force the issue to a point where his op
F orty
p o n e n ts would feel obliged to reply
seven elections does not mean forty seven tech
n ic a l debates dur ing the campaign
by any
means The people unable to oversee so many
separ ate contests simply allow sets of candi
dates to be tied togethe r fo r them in bunches
lik e asparagus and then vote them by the
bunch A hopeful independent candidacy in
Ohio for on e o f these minor offi ces is almost
unhear d of An independent contestant would
be utterly lost in the shuffle and could not se
cure any public attention
All the power of public discussion is so wasted
by dissipation that our typical citizen is un
able to hear enough facts to obtain basis for a
judgment I t is no disparagement of the com
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T H E SH ORT
BALLOT
29
prehension of the average citiz en of O hio to say
that he never casts a completely in telligent
ballot
it is only saying that being a man
and not a cat he cannot see in the dark !
Thus the sheer amount of political work
thrust on the O hio citizen is so great that he
c annot perform it intelligently without the i m
possible sacrifice of economic efficiency The
typi cal O hi o citizen therefore wisely defaults
these excessive political obligations which are
thus arbitrarily put upon him leaving the
c ontrol in the hands of those few who for on e
reason or another can take time and energy
for such work A ballot of forty seven offices
thus makes citizenship a specialty
a pro
fe s s i on
a thing for experts and not for the
people
If forty seven places is too long then how
m uch shorter must the ballot be ?
I f the people are not to rely blindly on ready
m ade lists prepared for them they must rely
on individual lists of their o wn
That fact
reduces us to the psychological question !
How many candidates will the average man
H OW many separate
r emember for himself ?
c ontests will he keep c learly defin ed in his
memory ? How many mental images or impres
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S H OR T
30
—
BALLOT PR INCIPLES
sions of contesting candidates will he hold in
m ind Without confusion ? F or on election day
he is to see thei r names before him o n the bal
lo t and to choose for himself on a basis of his
kn owledge regarding them
E xact determin ation o f the number is not
possib l e but the best test is to observe the
”
tendency of tickets t o appear when a n on
p a rtisan bal l ot is in use We are near enough
n o w t o the end o f the problem to establish a
rul e !
T o keep a government by elected offi c ers
from becom ing an oligarchy
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The ba llot m us t be
H ow
s hor t !
short ?
( D so that the number of
choices to be made by the voters will not be
s o g reat as to conceal the in di vidual candidates
from a public scrutiny that will b e adequate
t o exclude any on e whom the voters do not
reall y wa nt
S hor t
e n ough
.
C HAPTER IV
TH E
OFFI C E MUS T BE
I MPOR TANT
you in the last chapter with a for
mula on your hands instead of the answer
itse lf My reason w a s that in any examination
of facts regardin g the trouble ca used by over
long ballots we find the evi den ce inextricably
entangled with a second cause of invisibility
n amely the un important character of many
e lective offi c es
W e m ight have a short ballot that covered
only one offi ce ; but if that office were that of
coroner the people at large would shrug their
There ar e
s houlders an d pass on in different
and ought to be other things more impor tant
“
Wh o shall
t o the people than the question
”
be coroner ?
It is no slight thing to ask all
the men of a c ity to bestir themselves all at on e
tim e regardi ng a n y question The question
m ay easily be too trivial The average man s
share of interes t in getting the better can di
date for c oroner elected is so in fin itesimal as
not to wa rr ant the slightest exertion on hi s
I
LEF T
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BALLO T PRINCIPLES
p ar t The powers of the coroner in a small
community a r e insig nificant In a large city
the corone r may have a busy office but in p r o
portion to the community he is insignificant
stil l If n inety pe r cent of the people ar e in
di fle r e n t to the issue the remaining ten per
cent wi ll have their way in the matter
and
ther e we have a bit of oligarchy I f the coroner
ship wer e the only office to be filled on a cer
tain day only a few of the people would go
to the polls and the attempt to make the people
stand up and be counted on the issue would
ther eby be a failure I f the mayor and the
coroner were the only two offices to be filled
the people would be d r awn to the polls by the
mayoralty contest but their votes on the
coronership would represent no clear or ade
quate inf or mation and wou l d be easily in flu
e n c e d by the few citizens w h o we r e interested
A full vote for coroner under these circumstances
woul d be no more a real ve r di ct of the people
than in the other case
Probably no city has s n fle r e d so much from
ballots that ask fatuous questions as P hila
delphi a A fe w years ago I was invited to
addr ess a luncheon at the Philadelphi a C ity
C lub a political reform association and was
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BALLOT PRINCIPLES
—
relegatin g the whole issue to its prop er posi
tion
O ne of the elective offices for instance is
that of inspector of election
the officer w h o
is t o count the votes at the po l ling place The
incumbent wor ks only one day Ther e ar e
1 1 70 of these posts in P hiladelphia I f all thei r
work were concentrated in o n e officer s hands
it would n ot even then make a conspicuous
office H o w inconspicuous it becomes when
subdi vided into 1 170 par ts was r evealed a few
”
years a g o when on e Clarence B oyd w h o was
“
e l ected by the triumphant ver dict of the
people was some time after discove r ed to
be n o n exi stent (The man who appeared and
performed his duties came from outside the
state s o that when wanted later by the cou r ts
on
account of fr auds which he perpetrated
whi l e in office he was n ot obliged to g o to the
inconvenience of changing his domicile !)
No w this is an ext r eme case t o be su r e
but it is a r eal on e and as we can ofttimes c om
p r ehend an extreme case mo r e c l earl y than an
or dinary on e we will use it as a text f
I n theory the peop l e of Clarence B oyd s dis
t r i c t should have stu di ed the relative q ua lific a
tions of the various candidates and chosen the
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OFFIC E
M UST
IMPORTANT
BE
35
o n e who me t with their appro val In a com
munity where no man knew all his n eigh
bors however the fact that C larence B oyd did
n ot exist was not disco verable by the m ethods
of in quiry that are available t o the a verage
v o ter The fact that there was absolute si
lence on the part of C larence B oyd during the
weeks prior to election excited no suspicion
C an didates for the office in question never
m ake a cam paign for the ample reason that
n o one would ever listen if they did N othing
but the discovery of a plot for fraud would a t
trac t attention t o such a picayune contest
N ow the C ommittee of S eventy investigates
these li ttle nominations to point out the r e
liable candidates
M any people when they
understand the plan follow these r e c om m e n da
tions They will not do so on acc ount of e vi
den c e submitted to them but primarily b e
c ause the C ommi ttee of Seventy wants them
t o and th ey trust the sincerity and the ability
The publi c ation of the
of that orga nization
n am e of the c an didate recommende d un a c c om
p a n ie d by evidence is enough for practi c ally
This
a ll the v oters who accept this leadership
is a vi t al point ! O pen eyed accep t an ce of lead
e rs hi p is legi t im ate and desir able ; but h ere we
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36
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BALLOT PRINCIPLES
have blin d a cceptance
an e ntirely differ
ent thi ng for it gives the leaders opportunity
to p r ofit by misleading their followers O pen
eyed acceptance of leadershi p involves few
pe ri l s ; bli nd acceptance invol ves many
Wh en the offic e is sufficiently unin teresting
it becomes in visible and the popular accept
ance of leadership will then be blind
The ways in which a ballot may be un in te r
estin g are numerous In the Philadelphia in
stance just cited the offic e was too miserably
insig nificant to stir the multitude to adequate
in quiry M an y offi ces lie outside the purifying
spot light by reason of their character even
when they are of considerable importance
Technical oflfic e s for instan c e are habitually
in obscurity and the s a m e is true of a n y cle r i
cal or purely administ r ative post What for
instance c an the c andidate for the post of
state treasur er do to demons trate hi s supe
r i o r it y over rival c laimants for the position ?
H e can c laim that he will be hones t and sys
t e m a ti c and intelligent
but so c an his rivals
If the a cc oun ting system of th e s tate is out of
date he c an promise reform
but he can t
stir the people to strenuous partisanship on his
behalf by t alking about book-keepin g Nothin g
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OFFIC E M U ST
BE
IMPORTAN T
37
he can do can alter the fact that there is littl e
or nothing in the state treasurership out of
which to make an issue that will fir e the im
a g i n a t i on of a mill ion voters
There is an in
evitable loginess to the mass of the people
the si mple in ertia of bigness L et our candi
date talk to a quiet little audience of a hun
dred and he will w in them L et him talk to
an audience of several thousand a n d he will
be unable to hold their attention at al l on
such a subject His appeal to the mil lion
will fall flatter yet ; in fact he will secure no
hearin g at all Accordingly such candidates
habitually ign ore their own c ontests and con
fin e themselves to supporting the head of
the ticket and the broad party issues of the
c ampaign
L ookin g at the matter fr om another angle
suppose that the R epublican and Democratic
candidates for state t r easurer in New York
were noth ing more than respectable politi
W ould that fact create opportunity for
c ia n s
a n expert accountant to run independently for
the place ? Would the fact of his superior fit
ness be enough to make N ew York s eight
millions look his way and make note of him
I n fact
for ele ction day ? Theoretically yes
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B ALLOT PRINCIPLES
n o Independent candidatures for su ch offi ces
in states and cities ar e quite unkn own and um
hopeful I n a cou rt r oom an interesting c ase
obtains fair he a ring fr om the jury be c ause the
jury must stay an d listen ; but here are a dvo
c ates pleading thei r un i nteresting c ase before
a crowd in the market place the crowd being
at liberty to dr if t away to the ball game if it
chooses ! Th e case w ill be decided by the few
oligarchy again !
wh o remain
An y office which may properly be c ondu c ted
in only one w a y will make an uninteres ting sub
je c t for an election contest The people c an
not be expected to take sides on a question if
it is only a o n e sided question P artisanship
c annot be p r ovoked when al l the rival c andi
dates promise the same things Unless a con
s p i r a c y to misuse the office can be alleged ( and
not always then ) the people will n ot de velop
a preference among the candidates The di ff er
ence in the lives and equipment of candidates
will rarely c ome clear ly enough before the
millions to make them div ide on these per
sonal distin ctions alone The questi on of which
man shall draw the salary is not momentous and
c annot be made s o
Into thi s classification of undebat able offi ces
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OFFICE M U ST
BE
IMPORTANT
39
fall many that are now elective in the United
States To retain them on the elective list is
undemocratic N othi ng is so undemocratic as
government in the dark and to put on the
elective list ofli c e s which are naturally and in
e vit a b ly invis ible is compelling the people to
delegate power to officials cloaked in dark ness
The mo r e obscure the office by reason either
of its in s ig n ific a n c e or of its undebatable
c haracter the weaker is the c ontrol of the
people ove r it and the stronger is the control
of the politician
The net result of all these considerations is
to show a need for the elimination from the
e lective list of
( 1) all offices that are not large enough in
themselves to sti r the people t o take sides ;
(2) all ofli c e s that determine no policies large
e nough to stir the people to take sides
F or if the people won t settle the question
you put to them some few self see kers will
To shout at the people questions which the
people either will not or cannot answer care
fully is not doing the people a favo r I t is only
maki ng certain that the questions will be
a nswered by some one else
We must confine the participation of the
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BALLO T PRINCIPLES
people to questions which they want to de
cide E a c h e le c ti ve ofii c e m us t be in te r e s ti n g
The test t o app l y to an office to asc e r tain
”
“
whether it is inte resting is of cou r se to i n
quir e whether i t does actually in terest the
people Your opin ion or mine as to whether
the office of j udge ought to interest the people
Doe s it ?
is of no impo rtance ; the question is
If the bulk of the people are interested enough
to divide on the question and stand up and
be counted on the issue then the j udge may
prope rl y be made elective If only a few o f the
people develop opinions clear enough to impel
them to take sides in the contest then your
plan of having all the people select the j udge
has fail ed to work You have created oligarchy
instead of democracy You must then make
the j udge appointive by some one whom the
peop l e did select
B y taki ng sides I do not mean me rely that
the people must vote Goodness knows the
people wi ll vote readily enough without takin g
sides ! A full vote for the c ity clerk does not
mean that the whole city or any perceptible
part of it w a s really interested L ook closel y
at the vote and y o u wil l notice that the city
treasurer was elected by practically exactly
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BALLO T PRINCIPLES
hange the ballot A s the people are too big to
be spanked an d since human nature in the
mass responds but slowly to prayer it is good
sense to change the ball ot
D on t forget our major premise
if i t
”
does n t de m oc it is n t demo cracy !
c
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C HAPTE R
TH E
V
NA T URE OF POPU LA R
S
I N T ERE T
EMO C RA T I C
government is government
controlled by the people and al l the real
rights of the people are served if the govern
ment obeys their wishes If the wish of the
people is unanimous and if the government
a cts in accord therewith wi thout waiting for
An election
o rders an election is unnecessary
is due whenever the people are interested in a
question and divided in their opinions A demo
cratic government will then arrange to have
the people stand up divide and be counted
a n d being unable to please all wil l be con
tent to please the maj ority
F or example it was proposed a few years
N ew York S tate to enlarge the E r ie
a g o in
C anal at a cost of
V ast in terests
were a fl’e c te d whole cities expected renewed
prosperity from it yet the cost w a s enormous
The legislature did not know the feeling of
the people on the Subject The matter was put
before the people by referendum and the ex
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SHORT
44
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BALLO T PRINCIPLES
authorized The sele ction of an
engineer to construct the canal was not how
ever a matter of sufficient in terest to the people
to warrant the taki ng of a vote E verybody
wanted the work done well e conomically and
p r omptly but w a s pe rfectly willing to let the
gove rnor appoint the engineer Had the engi
neer been made elective the people would have
been confronted with a task of the utmost deli
cacy
not a task where the opinions of the
multitude were of value but one which de
m a n d e d intensive and intimate in v estigation
such as could be conducted only by a very
few men I t is no easy task to choose an engi
nee r for such a great unde rtaking The task
calls for special infor mation rather than the
collection of many judgments The appointive
way whic h was adopted secured for the people
better serv ice than the elective w a y
The choice of a good administrator is an even
mor e delicate task than the choice of a good
engineer An engineer can poin t to definite
achievements and evidences of standing in his
“
profession He can say ! I bui lt that bridge
does not that prove me competent to take
charge of public works ? My rival has never
built a bridge n or c an he attain in pri v ate prao
p e n dit ur e w a s
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NATU RE OF POPU LAR INT EREST
45
tice fees half so large as mine
B ut an e xe c u
tive must be selected on less tang ible evidence
and his work in office is harder to appraise
with justice B usin ess corporations pay their
biggest salaries to good administrators for
ability t o initiate to be just to insp ire loyalty
in subordinates to avoid errors to see things
in true propo r tion S uccess in such things can
not be measured and tabulated Only men
close at hand where they can see it can j udge
it wisely
E ven the stockholders of a corporation do not
pledge their directors to suppor t any g iven
c andidate for general manager of the company
They get better results by leaving the decision
to representatives who are in closer touch with
the situation than they To reorganize the c or
p or a t i on by making the stockho l ders elect the
manage r over the heads of the dir ecto r s would
n ot add t o the power of the stockholde r s since
all the power comes from them anyway and
wise stockholders would resist any attempt to
unload the responsibility upon them in this
fashion I t would not be a privi lege ; it would
be denial of privi lege
the privilege of holding
some one else accountable So too the people
w h o are the stockholders of the state are e n
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S H ORT
46
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
titled to have the government run as they wa n t
it r un without hav ing to leave other duties to
take hold a n d r un it themselves ; and a n y a t
tempt to th r ow un necessar y burdens of parti
c ip a tion
upon the electo r ate plays into th e
hands of any pub l ic empl oyee who wants to
evade r esponsibility
T o relieve the people of the bu r den of choos
i n g administ r ator s would l iberate public dis
e ussions from a mass o f d ull detai l that ob
scures greater issues The p r inciples p r oposed
by the candidate shoul d n ot be entangled with
evidence as to hi s fitness fo r per sonally admin
is t e r in g the execution o f those p r inciples
The real interest of the people in the gove rn
ment is not in administr ative problems but is
in maki ng the government obey when they
desire to issue an o r der Thei r interest is in
policies and usuall y the easiest way to put poli
cies into effect is to elect men who are charged
with the spi r it o f those policies to positions
where they can compel the installation of the
new ideas
P opu l ar control over policies is not difficult
t o provide fo r T h e people may be too big and
clumsy t o handle the de l icate task of choosing
a dminis tr ative offi cials but there can be no
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NA TU RE OF POPU LAR IN TE REST
47
doubt of their ability to sympathize w ith this
or that proposed policy and to determine which
candidate represents their favorite ideas The
candidate w h o thus wins people to his proposal
may not be the o n e w h o can best carry them
out B ut he may wisely be put whe r e he can
issue the mandate and compel obedience
I n one of the commission governed cities r e
c e n tly a labor union man was elected a member
of the C ommission of F ive to govern the town
He had two separate duties
to r epresent the
people w h o elected him and to admin ister the
department of parks and public p r operty As
a representative of the great labor ing p opula
tion he w a s admirable H e could say with real
authority ! My people want to have push carts
all owed around the factories at noon so that
they can buy cheap coffee and fruit for lunch
eon and I m against an or dinance to clear the
push carts off the streets P ut on extra men to
”
clear up if necessary
I t was right that labor should thus be r e pr e
sented in the high councils o f the city E very
important section of the people should be r e
presented in its due proportion in the govern
ment D emocracy demands it
A s adm inistrative head of the department
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SH ORT
48
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
of public proper ty however this man wa s
Administ r ative work w a s foreign
in e fle c t iv e
He w a s dis
t o his exper ience and abi l ities
placed a t the next e l ection in favo r of a business
man and his people lost all representation on
the C ommission
This w a s both wrong and unnecessary The
office should have been divided ac cording to
its administ r ative and r epresentative functions
The administ r ative office should have been
appointive the representative policy deter
m ining office a l one shou l d have been elective
The removal of a ll offices fr om the ballot
except those pu r ely rep resentative ones that
in te rest the peop l e on account of the b r oad
policies whi ch they may dete r mine will take
“
us a long w a y towards the inte r esting bal
lot we are looking fo r but n o t all the way
T o take an exagge r ated case again look at
the lower house o f the Philadel phia counci l s
I t determines policies and interesting ones t oo
B ut it contains 149 membe r s I ts decisions
ar e futil e unless app r oved by the other council
and by the mayor The choice of a single mem
ber of this house is n ot a big enough matter
by itself t o excite the interest of the people
“
and so Phi ladelphia is called corrupt and con
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SH ORT
50
BALLO T PRINCIPLES
—
and scattered so widely that the indi
vi dual officers by reason of their unimporta n ce
li e outside the bor ders of the spot light C on
c e n t r a t e d vi s i ble power is controllable and not
dangerous O ur visible elective servants wil l
i t is o ur i n
never become our monarchs
vi sible se rvants w h o o rganize oligarchies and
monarchies of bossism !
T o summarize t he l ast th ree chapter s then
w e find that the r e are th r ee p r actical methods
of concealing public servants f r om thei r mas
ters the people and thus causing popular con
trol to relax
( a ) B y havin g so many elections s im ult a
n e o us ly that each in dividual candidate is lost
in the conf usion ;
( b) B y di viding a power among so many
petty officers that each one of them escapes
sc r utiny by reason of in s ig n ific a n c e ;
( 0 ) B y makin g an office undebatable in char
acter so that di scussion regar ding it is dull
and unlikely t o attr act attention
Condensing this to a catch phrase we e s
t a b lis h what we will call the F irst L imitation
of Democracy ! E a c h e le c ti ve ofii ce m us t be
v i de
d
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vi s i ble
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C H AP TE R VI
TH E
LI M IT
OF D I S TR I C T
-
S I!
E
simplified the work of the people
to a point where they need no help
from political experts in casting their votes
w e have not yet got the power completely
into their hands The short interesting ballot
is not enough if the only names on that ballot
are those nominated by political machines To
be sure the fact that the nominations are to
be exposed to the searching light of c on c e n
t r a t e d public scrutiny will compel the ma
chines to be deferential to public opinion
Tammany nominates reputable men from out
side i ts own ranks even borrowing them from
the reformers ticket for the conspicuous oi
B ut even if the limitations of demo
fic e s
cratic government described in the previous
chapters were ful ly observed a Tammany Hall
would continue to be a necessary part of the
government of New York C ity Imagine all the
power put in the hands of the boar d of esti
mate wi th its three members elected at large
A V ING
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SH ORT
52
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
and one from each borough E ach citizen votes
for four members only This means a shor t
interesting bal lot that fulfills all the require
ments l aid down in the preceding chapte r s
each elective office playin g a large part in de
Then imagine
t e r m i n in g inte resting policies
the idea adopted that is in eff ect in C olorado
Springs and elsewhere of not only having no
party labels on the ballot but making every
candidate when filin g his petition swear that
he r epresents no political organization or
club ! I n the little city of Colorado Sp r ings the
requirement works perfectly In the city of
Ne w York that plan would limit the candi
dates to millionaires None less could finance
a campaign designed t o reach
voters
The expense of hiring halls in all pa rts o f the
city drawing the crowds to the meetings a d
v e rt is in g in circulars or newspapers and on bill
boards would ii this work were adequately
done be enormous
much greater than it is
n o w when the ability of the machines t o throw
into the field a vast standing army of well
trained volunteers cuts down the money cost
A candidate could spend
wi thout
even making a serious dent in the conscious
ness of the big tow n
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LIMI T OF DIST RIC T
—
SI! E
53
M aking the multitude listen m aking the m
all think about the same thing is a task that
becomes more difficult the larger the multi
tude The dis c ouragement of candidates and
the consequent serious limitation of possible
contestants is not the most serious dis a dv a n
tage of big electorates S uppose all the politi
cal machines o f N ew York City gracefully re
tired from the field leaving al l contestants on
an equal footing O ne candidate or another
would build up a p e r s on a l machine equipped
by experience and funds to w in elections for
him The superior effectiveness of such methods
in a huge population would put a premium
upon evasion of all laws seeking to p r event the
existence of political machines These armies
of political mercenaries would drift from one
leader to another seeking the highest pay and
their organized co operation fo r m a l info r mal
or secret would be vital to the success of the
candidates N0 candidate could build up such
an army of political workers at short notice or
with genuine volunteers w h o expected no r e
”
“
ward ( The volunteers in the present ma
chines are really paid by preference in political
appointments and city jobs where the hours are
short enough to permit steady political work )
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SH ORT
54
BALLO T PRINCIPLES
—
All thi s is only sayin g that large electorates
are hard of hear ing and they can be so large
as t o be almost deaf This deafness of a big
elector ate t o all but expert organized political
noise makers gives to the political experts an
influence which amounts to virtual control
T o express it another way an electo r ate
may be so la rge that it cannot pe r form even a
simple task without organizing for it A com
m i t te e can easily do in half an hour the work
that a convention of a thousand men can only
do in a stormy blundering fashion in a whole
day In fact a convention can hardly get any
where except with the aid of committees The
clumsiness of a convention is nothing to the
clumsiness o f a hundr ed thousand men scat
t e r e d through a g r eat city ; and if concerted
action is required of them the r e must be
organiz ation I n huge electo r ates it will have
to be a more elaborate and costly organization
than w e can ask the candidates to construct ;
and if the support of these standing a r mies is
essential to the success of candidates it follows
logically that these armies ( or the captains o f
them ) will hol d an unassailable monopoly of
the hopeful n ominations
D emocracy requires that there shall be rea
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LIMIT OF DI ST RIC T
s on a
—
SI ! E
55
b ly free competition for elective offices To
.
give to any set of men power to exclude v a
r i o us candidates from the contest may often
result in barring out the very men the people
would like I t is not possible to suppress per
manent political o rganizations when they will
be of great help in winning the great p r izes of
o fli c e but it i s possible s o to arrange the battle
ground that the r e will n ot be enough a dv a n
tage in permanent po l itical organizations to
encourage thei r existence
L et the political unit or district be not so
large but that an adequate impromptu organi
z a t i on
can be put together at short notice
Permanent committees or political organiza
tions may the n exist without controlling the
situation since the threat of opposition if their
nominations a r e unsatisfactory wi ll be truly
serious I n theory if the parties in New Yo rk
C ity both nominated unsatisfactory men new
candidates would spring into the field and get
elected thus automatically penalizing any
failure o f the o ld machi nes to please the people
I n fact of course the mere bigness of the task
is enough to discourage independent candi
dates and the existing machines preserve a safe
monopoly over the business of nomination
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SH OR T
56
—
B ALLO T PRINCIPLES
oligarchy again ! In the smaller subdivisions of
the city such as the Aldermanic and M unici
pal C ourt districts independent nominations
ar e not infrequent and sometimes succeed de
spite the fact that the offices ar e ones which
do not natural l y secure public scrutiny
The smaller the district and the fewer the
voters to be reached by the candidate the
weaker is the grip of the machine the easier
it is for the political novice to succeed and the
less is the advantage of the political specialist
“
knows the r opes
who
E nlarge the district beyond a certain point
and the business o f winning an election b e
comes a j ob for experts only ; and we get in
part at least government by politicians in
stead of government by the people
Accordingly w e establish the S econd L imita
tion of Democr acy ! The di s tr i c t m us t be wi e ldy
O ur unwieldy districts are as unique in the ex
p e r ie n c e of democrati c countries as are our long
j ungle ballots
G ranted then that New York City is too
large a district what the exact maxi mum is for
“
”
the voting population for a Wieldy distr ict
can be determined only by the test of prae
tice Regarding any e xisting district the ques
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SH ORT
58
BAL LOT PRINCIPLES
—
and their presence in the c ouncil makes
log rolling awkward Gerrymander in B ri ti sh
cities is preve n ted by having the ward lines
adjusted by a remote (parliamentary) a u
e n ce s
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t h or i ty
.
Proportional representation is also offered
B y that plan the district or constituency loses
i ts boundary so t o speak and all officers are
elected at large with this di fle r e n c e t hat the
candidates instead of being required to get a
plur ality need get only a quota I f ten offices
were to be filled in a city of
voters for in
stance the quota would be 9 091 (since not more
than ten candidates could each get that number )
To prevent waste of votes on candidates w h o
get more than a quota and on c andidates who
prove hopelessly weak the preferential ballot
is employed whereon the voter marks a first
choice a second choice et c and the ballot in
the counting is transferred from c andidate to
candidate in accordance with the voter s indi
c a t e d w ish until it finds a resting pla c e
This is
the H are or Ware system used in some of the
Br itish colonies I ts sign ifi c an ce here is the fact
that the candidate need only se cure a quota
instead of a plurality
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C H APTE R
FIT
S
A ND
VII
M I SFI T S
H A V E n ow proved I hope that democracy
is not a thing of magic wi th infinite capa
b ili ti e s but that it has certain limitations
which are not moral short comings of but
o nly the results of the inevitable clumsiness
of that great good hearted and human giant
the people A mong these limitations are the
following which must be respected to prevent
democracy from lapsing into oligarchy
1 The ofii c e m us t be vi s i ble ; that is it must
be ( a ) not c r owded out of sight by too many
s imultaneous elections ; ( b) not t o o small to be
s een ; ( 0 ) not too uninteresting in character to
get looked at
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2
The di s tr i c t m
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us t
be wi e ldy
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I n our American governments we have
almost invariably overstepped these li m i ta
tions turned democracy into oligarchy and
then found tha t oligarchic conditions furnished
to the ruling c lass the politicians opportun i
ties too often utilized to plunder the many
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SH ORT
—
B ALLOT
PRD ICIPLES
Accordingly let us take together a grand
tour o f the U nited States to inspect the work
ings of o ur s o call ed democratic gove r nments
in various places and see how they fit (or fail to
fit) within our li m itations
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T O WN G OVER NM ENTS
In small compact communities the offices
are visible and the district w ieldy The dis
c us s i on in ea r lier chapters regarding the limi
t a t i on s o f visibility however does not apply
The offices may be numerous and petty in
char acter but the fact that candidates are
personally known to the voters contr ibutes a
unique ki nd of interest that makes up for other
deficiencies
Accor dingly the American town should be
a democrac y or else there must be other limi
t a ti on s n ot mentioned
And is not the typical American town rela
t iv e ly an excellent example of democracy ?
T here are po l iticians but they are not in con
t r ol a s are their brothers of the cities since
any citizen can enter the field and threaten
their supremacy as soon as they by failure t o
b o w t o public Opinion give provocation Town
opini on rules town politics surely promptly and
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FIT S AND MI SFI T S
61
easily
Noti c e how national party symbols
fail to hold the people in lin e on local is sues and
“
how spontaneous genui ne caucuses and Union
P arties take the place of the inflexible un r e
s pon s ive mac hi nery of less W ieldy dis t ricts !
That town government is either efficien t or
cheap I do not claim I only believe that it
conforms very near ly to the civic ideals of the
people w h o live un der it and that e very change
in those ideals is reflected with reasonable
a cc uracy and promptness in the town go v
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G A LVE S T ON
This ci ty
inhabitants ) w a s formerly
go verned like most other A meri can cities by
a m ayor a c ouncil elected by distri cts and
v arious minor elective administrative officials
M ost of the offices were not Visible The mem
bers of c ouncil indi vidually had so little to do
th at it wa s hardly worth the time of the people
to both er about them and so a few of the people
wh o did bother took control
The dis trict in the case of all the officials
(including the mayor a n d other ofli c i a ls ele cted
at large) w a s Wieldy since the task of reach
inhabi tants
in g t he v oters in a c ity of
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SH ORT
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BALLOT PRINCIPLES
is not so colossal as to suppress impromptu
political movements
And G alveston was badly governed T h e
power whi c h the people delegated to their
officials was not all kept in the light whe r e the
people could easily observe h ow it was used
Wh en some misuse of power became known the
chance of anybody suffe r ing political punish
ment w a s slight All the politics concerning
such obscure offices as that of member of
council was beyond the Vision of the people I t
w a s n o t conspicuous
not placed on a pin
n a c le o f light where they a ll cou l d see it and
make it a target for their cr iticism C ouncil
pol itics o r ward pol itics especially was a
thing to be searched o ut In the b y ways and
shadows of the town I t required special know
ledge and acquaintance Who but a political
expert would kn ow fo r instance when or over
what saloon the little conferences that really
settled things would meet ? Wh at ordinary
citizen working for his bread and butter in
competitive industry could affo r d t o devote to
this part of the unpaid work of citizenship
enough time and study to keep fr om being
outwitted by those other citizens who were
stimulated by the hope of tangible pay in
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FIT S AND MI SFI TS
63
patronage or boodle ? The failure of Galveston
to mak e its elective offices conspicuous had
tur ned a large part of its politics into a veri
table jungle where none but experts knew the
trails A nd so a handful of experts in citizen
ship called poli ti cians ruled Galveston Gal
v eston was an oligarchy
General disgust among the people of Gal
veston w ith the coun c il led to a change in the
charter by whi ch the council wa s elected at
“
large instead of by Wards War d politics was
thus to be abolished I t was believed that
election at large would wipe out the field for
petty manipulations log rolling and cheap poli
tics in the council The new plan doubtless did
change the rules of the game and demoraliz e
the grafters for a time E very su ch change
s eems to be a reform for a while ; sin ce cor
is a plant of
r uption eve n in favorable soil
slow growth dependent on the c ontinuity of
s urroundin g conditions
Under the new plan
l The offices were not visible A ll the mem
bers of coun cil now appeared on all the ballots
instead of singly on the ballots in each dis
triet making the ballot mu ch longer and the
possibilities for blind voting m an y ti m es g reater
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SH ORT
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BALLOT PRINCIPLES
than before E ach member w a s still only a
small f r action of a weak council and hence
natur ally inconspicuous
2 T he dist r ict r ema ined wieldy
In this new situation the people had no surer
g r ip than before Thei r work at the polls con
tin n ed to be poorly lighted and they fumbled
and fal tered in all e flor ts to protect their in
t e r e s t s against the enc r oachments of P rivilege
whether it was the privilege of a rich man
to get a fr anchise cheap l y or of a poor man to
get an easy j ob in the C ity H all The politi
three per
e ia us continued t o rule the town
cent of the peop l e ruling the remaining ninety
seven per cent I t w a s ol igarchy
the rule of
the few ; unstable loosel y and info rmally or
It
g a n ize d to be sure but still an oligarchy
would have been an o l igarchy j ust as surely if
“
”
the reformers had been in control giving
the people exactly the kind of economical and
efficient government that w a s best for them
D emocr acy requires that the people themselves
get what they want whether in your opinion
or mine it be altogether good for them or n o t
E ffective citizenship
a very di fferent thing
“
”
from mere citizenship
must be for the
masses not simply for political specialists
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SH ORT
66
—
B ALLOT PRINCIPLES
desirable that for once the superstitions gave
“
wa y
Galveston adopted the famous C om
”
mission Plan by which the entire govern
ment of the city was vested in a board of five
ele ctive officers who in turn appointed and
controlled all the rest of the officials
To Am ericans accustomed to ineffi cien cy in
publi c Offi c e as contrasted with private enter
prise the story oi the achievements of this
C ommission reads like a romance Unhampered
by Checks and balances and legal red tape the
C ommission reorganized the city government
restored the city property planned and
finan ced and bui l t the great sea wall that now
bars out the sea raised the ground level of the
city and withal reduced the tax rate and the
debt ! The annual r unning expenses of the c ity
were decreased one third The new gov ernment
displayed foresight intelligence and dispat ch
I t appeared sensitive to that public clamor
which the average politician c onsiders so need
less
There w a s a st riking change in the attitude
of the public towar d the doings at C ity Hall
The people began t o take an interest in their
common property t o discuss the doings of the
“
C ommission on street corners t o hav e ci vi c
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AND
FITS
MISFITS
67
p ride ( since there was n ow at last some thing
to be proud of ) to criticise or applaud the work
of their servants They seemed to have actually
a proprietary interest in the government ! A mid
this widespread discussion the influen ce of the
poli ti cians of the town w a s swamped and
c ounted for only its true numerical strength
N ow every American city has its spells of
good government
the reactions that follow
orgies of corruption and scandal
and the
fact th at the new Galveston government saved
money is not in itself sign ificant The V ital
difference is that t hese good administrators in
“
Gal veston without building up personal ma
”
chines or intrenching themselves in power
by the usual army like methods of politi cal
organization were able to secur e re e lection
again and again They won favor by serving
all the people well They did their work in the
spot light of public scrutiny where every
c i t ize n c ould see and appreciate and applaud
There is no reward sweeter or more stimulating
than well earned public applause Good deeds
un der th e old government were frequent no
doubt but in the j ungle the doer received no
en couragement or glory
“
B y serving all the people
not by serv
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SH ORT— B ALLOT
68
PRINCIPLES
ing a few men w ho occupied strategi c posi tion s
in a political ambush ! I n fa ct there was no
obscuring ambush to afford Opportunities for
strategy
The commissioners were getting
re e lected and by overwhelming maj orities
without any organized aid save the support of
the City Club The expense of re e lecting them
w a s $ 35 0 for all five ! When the people kn ew
fr om their general information exactly what
they wanted w hy conduct a big c ampaign ?
Why try to build up a standing o rganization
o f political workers when the simple govern
mental plan left no work for it to do ?
Let us apply our two L imi tations o f D emo
cracy to the Galveston plan
only fi ve to
1 The officers are visible
elect all playing a large part in determining
interesting policies
2 The dist r ict is wieldy
Perfect conformity !
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O TH ER
C O MMI S S I O N G O VE R NED CITI E S
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There g rew up in Galveston the custom of
dividing work among the members of the
C ommission and letting each of the five special
ize in the aff airs of one branch of the govern
ment The members did not assume executive
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FI TS AND MI SFI TS
69
charge of the departments
that work w a s
done by hired expert superintendents
but
simply be c ame fam i liar with the work by Ob
servation
I n fact the commissioners r e
mained in private business and simply gave
a few hours a week to the city as needed The
public soon anticipated the organizing of the
C ommission and the division of the govern
ment over which each commissioner would
probably be given special oversight became
a matter of general knowledge before the
election
I n copying the Galveston plan other cities
Houston for instance made this division fo rmal
so that each commissioner became the r e s pon
sible active superintendent o f a depart ment
giving all his time to it and receiving increased
pay accordingly
The people thus have thrust upon them a
more difficult task than in Galveston namely
that of selecting the bes t men t o do a d
ministrative work The people have no great
relish for this task as is proved by the w a y
in which they habitually neglect ele ctive of
fic e s which are pur e ly administrative More
over it is work for which they have no great
ability The opinions of
voters on the
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70
SH OR T
—
B AL LO T PRINCIPLES
question which of the candidates is best fit ted
to supervise sewe r age or paving or the city s
fiscal operations ar e n ot valuable If you or I
were engagi ng a n engineer for a private con
tracting firm the fact that one candidate for
t he pla ce had secured
votes in Houston
for a si m ilar position woul d c a rry small weight
with us We should recognize that those votes
were based on hearsay evidence n ot investi
gated for its accuracy by a dozen voters out
of that
We shoul d recognize that the
popular support the candidate secured was
b a s ed rather on the fact that he had satisfied
those voters that he represented them sym
pa thize d with them was like them k n ew What
policies they wanted Fo r his qualifications as
an engineer we should prefer the report of ,say
five responsible investigat ors
To confound these two separate issues fit
ness t o represent and fitness t o administer in
t e r fe r e s with both accu r ate r epresen tation and
effi cient administ r ation P e r haps H ouston is
electing to superintend its public works a fir s t
class engineer w h o has no real intima cy with
the people O r perhaps H ouston is ele ctin g
a mediocre engineer w h o has the gift of popu
la r ity an d broad comprehension of the desires
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FI TS AND MISFITS
of
71
the people The chance of getting a maxi
mum Of both desiderata is remote The r e
q uir e m e n t of high administrative ability i n
elective offices makes it necessary to confine
nominations to the kind of men who earn large
salaries in private life and wear ki d gloves
I t excludes labor for example which is too
little represented in the government of ty pi
cal A merican cities
O f the two things fitn e s s to r e p r e s e n t will
naturally be the dominant factor in electing
a man for in that matter there is ample groun d
for a debate on policies that will actually stir
the people and c ause them to divide I t is
policies that make real politics and the most
efficient democrac y is that which provides for
the freest expression of the demands of the
people in r egar d to them L et each elective
offi ce therefore not only play a large part in
determining interesting policies but also be
“
kept free of every other consideration
When
you want representation elect
When you
”
want administration appoint
The mayor of Houston was elected as a
separate officer and was given special powers
and duties including the right of veto over
the act s of the C ommission
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SH ORT
72
—
BAL LOT PRINCIPLES
Measured by the requirements of visibility
thi s featu r e can hard l y be construed as an i m
provement on the G alveston plan The mayor s
office is made mor e interesting and c on s p i c u
o us but the offices of the other four commis
The mayor becomes
s i o n e r s a r e made less s o
all important at the expense o f his associ
“
ates w h o play a much smal ler part in deter
”
mi nin g interesting pol icies than i n Galveston
S o far as H ouston is concerned the elevation
of the mayor at the expense o f his associates
has done n o harm and may never d o any for
the harmony of the C ommi ssion is reported to
be s o exce ll ent that the mayor s veto powe r
has n o t been used T o a ce r tain extent usage
thus far has null ified the e rr o r in the design
and the fou r commissione r s ar e regarded as
highl y impor tant and get amp l e l imelight at
the e l ection t o protect thei r office against
capture by men whom the people r eally do
n o t want
In a certain middle sized E astern city the r e
is on foot at p r esent wr iting a plan for adopt
ing a new char te r in which the H ouston err or
is carr ied t o its l ogical concl usion T h e plan
p r ovides for five elective officers
namely a
mayor and a coun cil of four members The
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SH OR T
74
—
BALL OT PRINCIPLES
cover of the gloom could the people be blamed ?
Must they be expected to see in the dark ?
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C OLO RA DO
S PRING S
I n copying the Galveston plan of govern
ment C olorado Springs has intr oduced a pro
vision in the charter t o the e ff ect that every
candidate before hi s petition for a place on the
official non pa r tisan ballot can be accepted
must file a sworn declaration that he r e pr e
sents no political par ty or organization As a
temporary expedient to b r eak the grip of the
old party machines this p r ovision was appar
ently valuable for the la rgest plurality at the
fi r st election under the new char ter in thi s
normally R ep ub l ican city went t o a Democrat
The permanent desirability of the measure is
less certain It is interesting however as show
ing the practicability of unaided democracy
when the Two L imitations are respected The
people of Colorado Sp r ings are dealing with
their public servants directly w ithout calling
for exp ert assistance
The can di dates make
themselves k nown to the people each in his
own way without help fr om anybody save his
pe r sonal fol lowing The voters also make up
their individual mi nds and vote without help
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FI TS AND MISFITS
75
The politician in the American sense of that
word is a useless spectator with no more in
flue n c e than any other citizen of wide a c
quaintance He can go to his favorite candi
“
date after election and say I helped elect you
therefore reward me out of the city treas
“
u r y but he cannot say I helped elect you
as no other citizen could
I was necessar y to
you therefore reward me for permitting you
”
to be elected
The difference is enough to free city officials
from the embarrassment of partisan machin e
control To those who offer aid before election
“
each can say I welcome help but do not r e
quire it desperately nor do I need a gr eat deal
I can afford to refuse aid from all but those
whom I can pay in cash from my o w n pocket
o r w h o volunteer unconditionally and I prefer
”
S uch a statement to the politicians
t o do so
under o ld conditions would have foredoomed
the candidate t o defeat The political world is
full of men w h o have met this situation and
c ompromised grudgingly at the ultimate ex
pense of the public because nothing else was
”
practical
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SH ORT
76
—
BALLO T PRINCIPLES
B OS T ON
In January 1 9 10 B oston put into effect a
new charter whi ch aimed t o adapt to a large
city the fundamental features of the commis
sion plan The charter provides for a very p o w
e r ful mayor el ected for four years a council of
nine members ( weak and obstructive ) elected
for three year te rms three at a time in r o
t a t i on and a school board ( administrative ) o f
fiv e member s elected on e o r two at a time for
three year te rms T h e bal l ot is non partisan
al l nominations being by petition There are
six pl ac es or less each year to be filled by pop
ular vote fr om the whol e city
Measuring B oston by ou r L imitations we
find that the offices ar e not all visible O nly
“
the mayor plays a large part in deciding in
te r e s t in g policies
The distr ict is n ot wieldy
At p resent writing there have been only the
first two elections and the plan has n ot had
time t o settle down t o what will be its regular
pace Cer tain significant facts howeve r stood
o ut even at the first election with sufficient
clearness to warrant interpretation and a p r e
diction
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FI TS AND MI SFITS
77
There were four candidates for mayor w h o
s urvived the rather heavy petition require
ments namely F itzgerald a Democratic ex
mayor under whose former administration
there had been much complaint of misgover n
ment ; Hibbard a Republican ex mayor ; S tor
r o w the nominee of a committee o f reformers
rep r esenting the independent good govern
ment vote ; and Taylo r apparently rep r esent
ing no on e but himself and his prospective
constituents Ta ylor was out of the r ace from
the star t I t was recognized that his support
w a s only personal that he had n o machine at
his disposal t o car ry his message t o the voters
and that there was no long standing well
”
established good wi ll in his favor H ibbard
had been t oo rigidly scrupulous a mayor to
w i n the admiration and zealous support of the
R epublican machine but he recognized that
his only hope o f success l ay in getting that sup
port and his newspaper adver tisements bid
for I t openly and despe r ately in a manner
that indicated that he regar ded Republi can
s upport as more p r ecious than the good opinion
of reflective voters He did not get the Re
publican machine support though the Repub
li can politicians found it more worth their
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SH ORT
78
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
while to be active than they had at firs t ex
C ert ain l y the candidates all valued
p e c te d
their support and man oe uvred for it and the
stock of the c andidates rose and fell accord
in g to the rumors of the ir success in these
flirtatious F itzgerald had the Whole hearted
though inform al suppo r t of the D emocratic
machine which he had richly befriended in
patronage and favor itism when in office b e
fo re He was thus able to w i n support at much
less expense than S torr o w who spent
on his campaign and gather ed almost the e u
ti re anti F itzgerald vote H ibbard and Taylor
ended with only 18 00 and 600 votes r e s pe c
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St o r r o w
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huge expenses a r e the fruit of the
unwieldiness of a district as large as B oston
and show how the mere size of the task of
winning over a great e l ectorate must operate
to narrow the competition to a few men none
of whom may be what the public really wants
In the future the pol itical organizations of long
standing
namely the Democratic machine
the Republi can mach ine and the organized in
d ependents with thei r coterie of ci vi c work
e r s and reformers will hold a monopoly of the
hopeful nomin ation s
A candidate m ust a l
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FI T S AND MI SFI TS
79
ways have the support of at least one of them
in or der t o win If he can secure the support of
two o f them he wi l l be almost invincible To
build up de n ovo an impromptu voluntee r or
g a n iz a t i on capable of winning the election
against the old established organiz ations is
hardly a hopeful undertaking
The only hope of any such movement in
B oston now lies in the increased probability
of a division of the party strength by factional
disputes when there is no on e of s ufli c ie n t a u
t h or ity to stop the fighting E ven this chance
seems on reflection somewhat remote
F or
suppose t w o candidates equally strong among
the Democratic politicians began to claim
party support We know enough about politi
c i a n s to know that they would be politic and
would wait shrewdly estimating the r elative
strength of the candidates until one showed
a lead whereupon they would flock to him with
a rush leaving the other to g r ow steadily
weaker Or dinary human desi re to be on the
winning side is trifling compared with that
desire among politicians whose b r ead and
butter depends upon their being there
To believe that in the future the people of
B oston will not be sharing their control over
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SH ORT
80
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
the mayor with some coterie of politi cal spe
c ia li s t s is to assume that the politicians will r e
fuse to sell their suppor t t o the highest bidder
or that no candidates will bid for such support
even if getting it will contribute g reatly to
their success
At the second election under this charter
(January 1 91 1 ) there were chosen three mem
bers o f the council and t w o members of the
school committee
a short but uninterest
ing ballot and an unwiel dy district O n the
day before the e l ection the papers were tell
ing w h o the candidates were in a style they
might be expected to use in explaining the
matter to out oi town visitor s ; the voters were
urged to be sure to vote the news regarding
the campaign occupied a single half column
and despite the shor t bal l ot tickets were b e
ing advertised The r e w a s neve r so dull a city
election in B oston As in the first election all
the candidates who were elected had the sup
port oi machines and the importance of that
support w a s indicated in the way that one
c andidate for example w h o had been obscure
and out of the race became suddenly an a c
knowledged leader the moment a certain party
c ommittee g raciously issued its endorsement
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SH ORT
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BALLOT PRINCIPLES
NE W ! OR!
CIT!
New York is governed by its board of esti
mate of eight member s elected three at large
and one from each of the five boroughs The r e
is also a very weak board of alde r men e l ected
s ingly from districts
E ach voter in the city votes for four mem
bers of the board o f estimate and an alder
man
I n respect to the aldermen the F irst L imi
t a t ion
of Democracy is overstepped
the
office is not in ter esting and hence not Visible
I n r espect to the boar d of estimate the
S econd L imitation is ove r stepped
the dis
t r i c t is n o t W ie l dy except in the case of the
member from the borough of R ichmond
T he borough of R ichmond consists of S taten
Island a small dist rict suburban in character
and with a population o f
I t is a p
p a r e n t ly a W iel dy dist r ict and thus confo r ms to
both L imitations Amid the bitter pol itical
warfare in the other boroughs o f Ne w York
City this little district seems to have found
much the same kind of peace and stability
that Galveston has The political organiza
tion seems to have no control over the office
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FI TS AND MI SFI T S
83
of t he borough member of the board of esti
“
mate or borough president as he is called ;
and three times a man who in his administr a
tion of the borough ignores the local politi
c ia n s
has been re e lected over their heads
There have never been charges against hi m
a delightful contrast to the exper iences of the
other four boroughs in all of which there has
been much scandal and in two of which the
borough presidents have been removed for
misconduct
The borough president of R ichmond can
not claim that his good record is the result of
He has been under no
s uperior moral calibre
serious temptation I f politicians come t o hi m
demanding that some heeler be given a job
he can refuse knowing that if they attempt
to side track him at the next election he can
reach the people with his personal appeal and
even if not renominated by his party can at
least completely upset borough politics by
running as an independent S o he bows the
politicians out makes appointments for merit
wins approval from his people because he is
conspicuous and important enough to have
his good deeds noticed and announces him
self a candidate for re e lection ; and the politi
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SH ORT
84
—
BALLO T PRINCIPLES
needing hi m on the ticket more than he
needs them hasten to renominate him The
officer and the people are within reach of each
othe r and the intermediation of the politician
is supe rfluous
all because the office is visible
and the dist rict is wieldy
The othe r fou r boroughs of the great city
B ronx M anhattan B rook lyn and Queens are
decidedly unwieldy E ach has an immense
population and a great area F or a single man
unaided by a big r eady made organization to
tackle the huge m ob and make it notice him
is o ut of the question
S till more unwieldy is the city as a whole
whi ch comp rises the district of the three mem
bers o f the boar d o f estimate w h o are elected
at large
namely the mayor comptrol ler
and p r esident of the boar d of alde r men H o w
the me r e iner tia of so huge an electorate balks
initiative and limits the choice of the people
to candidates w h o have first won the approval
o f certain self established cote r ies o f citizens
is shown by the magnitude of the vain e flor t s
o f H earst
He attempted t o win the mayoralty
without permission of the D emocrats the Re
publicans or the organized reformers
He
had newspapers in three languages r eachi ng
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FI T S AND MI SFITS
85
an enormous client ele He built up an elabo
rate machi ne and astounded his rivals by the
size of th e crowds he d r ew to his mass meetings
f or he tapped the enthusiasm of the radical ele
ment and the hope of the discontented Never
has a man been so elaborately and powerfully
equipped for this fray Yet he was twice de
feated by Tammany H all which met him not
with arguments but by a more thorough can
v ass Thorough canvassing wins elections for
the simple human r eason that an argument
personally delivered face to face is mor e com
pelling than a better argument shouted in the
dim distance Any thorough canvass of the
voters was utte r ly impossib l e for Hear st s
impromptu o rganization or indeed for any
organization save Tammany H all itself with
its countless expert vote getters to whom this
work means bread and butter T h e large r the
electorate the greater the advantage of a
disciplined politi cal army and the greater the
advantage of an organization like Tammany
H all which does n ot sc r uple t o pay its soldiers
out of the city treasury
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86
SH OR T
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B AL LO T PRINCIPLE S
C OMMIS S I ON G OVER NMENT
IN LA R G E
CITI E S
la r ge cities for examp l e Pittsbu rg
B altimore Cincinnati and B uff alo ar e dis
cussing the adoption of the G alveston commis
sion form of government
N ew York C ity
shows what the results would be for its board
of estimate is very similar to a commission
Applied t o large cities the commission plan
would r esult in a short interesting ballot but
the Second L imitation of Democracy W ieldy
distr icts would be exceeded and political ma
chines would to some extent continue to share
in the contr o l of the gover nment
S everal
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CHIC A G O
Chicago has a mayor many minor elective
officer s and a boar d o f a l de r men elected sing l y
fr om war ds Th e ball ot is very long and mostly
uninte resting and the dist r icts of most of the
officer s are unwiel dy The aldermen contr ar y
to general Ame rican custom have large powers
and this has made possible an interesting de
v e lop m e n t in local politics
S ome year s a g o
the M unicipal V ote r s L eague consisting essen
t i a lly of a half dozen men and some money
started to improve wh a t then was a notori
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FI T S AND MI SFITS
o us ly
87
corrupt board of aldermen B y coneen
t r a t in g their e fforts on this body they made it
a rtificially conspicuous until the name of the
alderman stood o ut rathe r prominently o n the
long ballot before the average vote r instead of
being lost in the shuffle as before This con
s id e r a b ly negatived the pe r il of the long ba ll ot
so far as the office of alderman was concerned ;
and as the o fli c e played a large part in deter
mining interesting policies and the district was
W ie l dy the e ffect of fu ll conformity to our
Two L imitations w a s obtained The Municipal
V oters Le ague did not nominate candidates
but confined its eff or ts to maintaining the
Well aimed searchlight which p r evented the
aldermen from getting lost in the shadowy
j ungle of the huge Chicago ballot
Thereupon democracy began to reveal itself
incidentally demonstr ating that when the
people get what they want what they want
p r oves to be bette r government than the poli
Chicago
t ic i a n s usually ca r e to give them
began to see the spectacle of independent can
d id a te s for the boar d of aldermen appearing
in var ious war ds and winning These inde
pendent candidates could muster a fe w friends
improvise a private electioneering organiza
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SH OR T
88
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
tion competent to cover the little distri ct get
credi t before the peop l e for super ior merit
(thanks to the illumination provided by the
V ote rs League) and gather in the votes When
there was no independent nomination the fear
that there might be one if the party nomina
tions wer e n ot satisfactory w a s a well founded
fear and helped to put the parties on their good
behavior Moreover if o n e party nominated a
better candidate for alderman than the other
party it gained votes whereas in the o ld days
o f gloom nobody would have noticed
The
wieldiness of the district prevented the parties
from establishing a defiant monopoly by com
bin ation for both parties to make bad nomina
tions w a s to invite an independent nomination
that could defeat them both ( Note that there
w a s no such danger in the case of offices ele cted
”
at large fr om the unwieldy c ity !)
Year after year the board of alde r men in
this envi r onment showed steady improvement
“
”
The g r ay wolves w h o had been an appar
ently unassailable majority in the board
dropped out and stayed out and were r e
placed by men w h o for instance could be
safely tr usted to represent the people in trac
“
”
tion matters
D ropped out and stayed out
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SH ORT
90
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLE S
The success of the M uni cipal V oters League
in Chi cago has changed the di r ection o f r e
fo r m e flor t s in cities all over the country and
the old idea of forming new parties to fight for
ci vic imp r ovement has in consequence been
la rgely a bandoned I mitations o f the M unici
pal Voter s League i n other places have often
had indifferent success along the lines of the
Chicago campaign T hey can usuall y point
to important achievements in othe r fields but
none o f these voter s leagues I think can say
honestly that they have b r ought about per
manent r efor m in the city council Their dif
fic ulty l ies in the fact that the legislative bodies
in most Ame r ican cities are unimportant in
thei r powers and undul y large in their member
ship Often they ar e divided into two houses
o n the we ll disp r oved theory that if y o u make
action of any kind awkward the grafters will
get ti r ed of trying to put through their game
Membership in these councils is no honor b e
cause it involves s o small a share of the powe r
“
T he membe r s do n ot play a large part in
”
deter mining interesting policies as in Chi
cago So when the refor mer in Philadelphia
rushes into the newspape r offices with an a c
c us a t i on against A lderman Denni s the editor ,
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FI TS AND M ISFITS
91
instead of g i ving it fr ont page headlines as
would his Chicago confrere shakes his head
in a bored fashion tucks the item away on a
b ack page and neglects to follow it up H e
knows that the people will not get stirred up
about so insignificant and obscure a publi c
i c ia l
ofl
that th ey wi ll not read any story of
municipal scandal unless it touches some con
s p ic uous personage
such as the mayor A
voters leag ue can compensate somewhat for
the difli c ult ie s of invisibility by turning on the
light ; but to illumine a thing will not n e c e s
s a r i ly make the people stare ; the thing must
be interesting in itself E xcept in cities wher e
aldermen are individually powerful the Voters
Le ague recipe for putting the people in control
o f poli ti c s will not work
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TH E
BR ITI S H CI TIE S
The city governments of E ngland and Scot
land are the admiration of the wor ld They ar e
intelligent progressive and e conomical Ward
politi cians and reformers are both c on s pic u
ous by their absen c e Yet to a political grafter
of our country the opportunities would seem
ideal The B ritish municipality is r un by the
actin g through committees There
c ou nc il
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SH ORT
92
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BALLOT PRINCIPLES
is conside r able antiquated and outg r own red
tape and the p r ope r ty interests in the H ouse
o f L o r ds often interfe r e unreasonably with
ci t y p r ogr ess In some cities the municipal
ope r ation of public utilities
gas works str eet
car s etc
is s o extended that on e tenth of the
labor ing population is on the city pay r olls w ith
none o f the civil service examination r e s t r ic
tions that we should think vital in such a situa
”
tion to check patr onage T h e development
of wholesale o rganized cor ruption wou l d seem
to be inevitable in such an environment I ts
absence is n ot to be explained by any superior
civic spi r it in the British pub l ic for before
the cities wer e organized under the p r esent
act rel ating to municipal corpor ations corrup
tion in their governments w a s widespread and
quite equal in fla g r a n c y to anything w e have
eve r had in the United States The e xpla
nation is seen when you ride down to business
on the tramway on a morning fol l owing a
meeting of the city council The doings o f the
council ar e sp r ead out in detail in the morning
paper the editor ials review the p r oceedings
the people ar e chatting on the subject each
citizen knows what the councilmen fr om his
ward did and criticism is pointed and severe
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SH ORT
94
BALLO T PRINCIPLES
—
council could do with imp unity That di ff er
ence is sufficient to account for the relative
superiority of the Br itish municipality ! H o w
was it brought about ? B y some great stirring
up of the conscience of the people ? A r e the
Br itish citizens by reason of being conscious
taxp aye rs or for some other cause more alert
on civic matters than our people are ? No
Remember that simi l e in the first chapter
the stream and the water mill ? The B ritish
water mill works so nicely not because the
stream is str onger but because the mill tur ns
more easily its gears being proper ly adj usted
to the ene rgy available
T he mechanism by which the B ritish voter
contr ol s his city government is a ballot about
the size of a post card I t elects the member
of council fr om his ward There are t w o
names or thr ee on it ; the voter selects one
To make up his mind on that simple choice
is the whole work of the voter in the cam
p a ig n and on election day The chance of his
selecting the candidate w h o really best r e pr e
sents his wishes is excellent
certainly much
better than that of an American voter w h o is
t rying to make wise selections for thirty o f
fic e s at one time ! The B ritish council choos e s
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FI T S AND MI SFITS
95
the aldermen ( who sit in the council ) the
mayor whose duties are mostly o rn amental
and all other city officers The councilmen
simply dictate policies for paid superintend
ents to car r y out They do not themselves
receive salaries and they give only thei r spar e
time t o the city The service does not mean
the abandonment of private careers The wards
are small and candidates can easily get in
personal touch with ever y voter The office is
a visible and debatable office since it has a
”
large p a rt in dete r mining interesting policies
and this fact leads t o fiérc e campaign discus
sions N o candidate could hope for success if
he did not per m it questions to be publicly a d
dressed to him at the conclusion of his speeches
”
“
and this heckling does much t o provide a
basis for clear opinions among the voters
The phenomenon of political peace when
things are going right is also noticeable here
“
for about one third o f 1 h e time there is no
”
contest which means either that at the expira
tion of his term no one cares to try to p revent
the incumbent from r emaining in office for a n
other three years o r that only one candidate
has asked to have his name printed on the o f
fic i a l ballot C ouncilmen who do well for one
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SH ORT
96
—
BALLO T PRINCIPLES
more ter ms and are ready to serve again
are so su re t o be r e e lected that it is useless for
new candidates t o come for ward Often coun
cil membe r s serve for decades
This is good government and it r esults from
having a form of government which the people
readily control The British city is a demo
cr acy The T w o Limitations are respected
1 The office is visible
2 The dist rict is wieldy
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TH E
G OVERNM ENT
OF
C OU NTI E S
The app l ication o f the L imitations t o county
government brings us face t o face with a new
difficulty ! a ll the offi ces are practically n u
debatab l e T he r e may be a division of opin
i on as to which candidate ought t o have the
place and its sal ary but that is not a subject
o f sufficient import t o make the people take
note of the matter and study it carefully enough
t o develop cl ear opinions To county positions
men can be and fr equently are elected whom
the people would n o t think of choosing if the
facts were clearly and prom i nently brought
t o thei r attention
Men who have given good
service are displaced wi thout j ustice or r e
cognition and other s whose service has been
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98
—
BALLO T PRINCIPLES
where the people would see and criti c ise and
control it
The biggest counties however
would not respond All the powers of the county
even if concentrated in the hands of a single
official are n ot enough to cause a big electo
rate to bestir itself to select the best man The
absen c e of anyth ing tr uly political or policy
determining in the office would make it in vis
ible and the people would fail to control
I believe that we s hal l ultimately find our
way out of the county problem not by invent
in g a short ballot county with a responsible
chief executive but by gradually abolishing
the coun ty as an elector al unit Any work
performed on a smal l scale is usually rel a
t iv e ly in e fli c ie n t and many county f unctions
such as the care of the insane and the poor
can be better administered on a large s c ale by
the state The s lipshod methods of the typical
coun ty clerk c annot be tolerated fore v er and
the des irability of uniform methods through
out the state will b r ing these officers under
central responsible control Sheriff s m a y be
replaced by ofli c e r s of a state poli c e e nforcing
the state laws ; w e cannot always tolerate the
local n ullific a tion of statutes by leaving them
to be enforced by independent and therefore
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FI T S AND MISFITS
99
insubordinate local elective officers The con
stant speeding up of our means of c om m un ic a
tion is making our states steadily smaller and
changes of this sort are becoming easier as well
as more desirable Another w a y to get rid of at
least part of this co unty problem is t o extend
the plan used for instance in Port H uron
M ichigan where the city ofli c i a ls appoint the
local delegation t o the board of supervisors
To politicians who play their little hide and
s eek games in the county underbrush s uc h a
mowing dow n may seem a catastrophe The
people in shop and factory and field wi ll
never miss the county or r egret its passing
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! U D ICIA L O FF IC ER S
The question whethe r j udges should be
elected or appointed is not to be determined
by your opinion or mine as to whether such
positions are prope rly political I t should be
settled by the answe r to the question
Do
”
the people want to select their judges ? That
answer is not to be obtained by a referendum
The opinion o f the theorizing voter is often a
rather hazy thing The answer is obtained by
“
asking
If the j udicial elections were on
separate days from other elections would the
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SH ORT— BALLO T
PRINCIPLES
bulk of the people study the relati ve merits of
the candidates and go to the polls and make the
selection ? O r would the j udicial election be
”
ignored by all save a minority of the people ?
I be l ieve that outside of Village justices the
people would usually ignore the judges and
allow bosses to put into office any reasonably
respectable c andidate E x cep t in some pie
t ur e s que emergency the ofli c e does not i n
t e r e s t the people enough to make them come
out and be counted
The proponents o f an appointive j udiciary
point t o actual results T hey c an show that
New Jersey with its appointed j udges has
a higher and abler class o f men on the bench
than New York whe r e j udicial nominations
are com monly said to be purchasable fr om
Tammany for one hund r ed and fifty thousand
doll ar s apiece The Federal judiciary is con
s i de r e d by lawyers t o be superior in hones t y
and ability to the elected j udiciary of most
o f the states despite the modesty of the F ederal
salar ies
B ut there is wide complaint that the a p
pointed judges are habitually rea ctionary and
lag behind the spi r it of the times Things which
seemed j ust yester day are counted unj ust
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10 2
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BALLO T PRINCIPLES
TA T E
LE
GI S LA T UR E S
State legislatu res play a large part in deciding
interesting policies but state legislators indi
vidually play a ve r y smal l par t in deciding
them Great as is the powe r of the whole legis
la t ur e it is successfully subdivided t o extine
tion among an unduly large number of mem
bers The best brains o f the state are not in
the legislatures and will n o t g o there when
they can The governorship will attr act the
ablest men at great personal sacrifice but the
off er of a seat among the law make r s will n o t
for a moment tempt them from their p r ivate
careers The legislatures are full of beard l ess
lawyers to whom the salary small as it is is
important while thei r p r ivate practice is getting
star ted To be a legislator is n ot the ultimate
goal of their careers but a pot boiler o f the
early stages E ven the public leade r s fig h t
ing for popular p r inciples often p r efe r n ot t o
accept a legislative nomination but t o do their
work in getting desirable laws enacted fr om
outside Ofte n a party committee will search
to find a desirable man w h o is wi ll ing t o a c
cept the post ; fo r it is n o light thing for a man
o f ability to halt his private p r ogress t o take
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FI T S AND MI SFI TS
103
public ofli c e in which there is so li ttle pr ivate
satisfaction or public recog nition Men will
take an office in which they anticipate no
glory if they c an really feel that what they do
there serves their fellow men but they find few
such opportunities in a state legislature The
power is so slight ! An assemblyman in New
York for example is only one one hundred and
fif tieth of one half of a legislature that is
hedged in by elaborate constitutional r e s tr ic
tions and subject to the governor s veto
N o one can blame him if he returns to his con
s t it ue n t s with none of his purposes achieved
His powers are negative rather than positive
and hence he cannot win public attention b e
cause his position is uninteresting
I once asked several hundred voters in
B rooklyn on the day after election day if they
knew the names of the candidates for assem
the most in de pe n d
b ly m e n in their district
ent district in the state
and o f those who
were willing to reveal their ignorance only
s ixteen per cent could give the names of both
candidates This w a s in a year when wide
agitation had brought the legislature into
unusual prominence I am certain that most
o f the voters had opinions to expres s on the
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SHORT— BALLO T
104
PRINCIPLES
issue of D ire ct Nominations
for whi ch
Governor Hughes had been fighting ; but in
votin g wi thout k now ing the attitude of their
own assemblymen on the subje ct they were
certainly not exp ressing t hese opin ions The
people in many cases must have been voting
again st the thing they wanted to support
The legislature I repeat determines interes t
ing policies but the individual legislator does
not play a large part therein and the F irst
L imitation of Democr acy is exceeded ; the
i c e is not Visible
ofl
Now legislators cannot be made appoin t i ve
To leave them elective and diminish their im
portance by providing other ways of law
making such as the initiative and referendum
is to di vert what littl e l ight now shines upo n
them and if the logic of the preceding chap
ters is accurate such movements are in the
wrong direction useful though they may be
as expedients to meet present conditions
A better diagnosis of the failure of legisla
tures to satisfy public opinion may be based
on that symptom in B rooklyn where the
people were thin k ing on e way and voting a n
“
”
other
D elegated gover nment or represent ~
ati ve governm ent we are being told h a s
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SH ORT
1 06
—
BALL OT PRINCIPLES
control so that when the people have a wish
it will be to the interest of legislators to obey
and obey quickly
At present the legislator has no motive to
“
inquire Will my vote on thi s measure please
”
for his constituents will
m y c onstituents ?
not even notice how he voted although they
may be interested in the meas ure How diff er
ent is the governor s position ! His decision
wi l l set a million voters talking and his
strength with the people fluctuates every time
he signs or vetoes a bil l which interes ts them
The voters constantly stand at the go vernor s
elbow overseeing his work prodding sug
criticising applauding jeering or
g e s t in g
demanding
and o n election day V oting !
An d thereby depends much that is impor tant
to the governor
not merely continuan ce in
offi ce but vindication honor satisfaction a
politi c al career all that is involved in c on s pic
The rewards for ser ving the
n ous success
people to their satisfaction are sweet and the
penalties for bad service are bitter
for a
governor
I f we could get our legislative representa
t ive s into a similar environment we should
have less to complain of Theoretically the
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FI TS AND MI SFI TS
1 07
legislator who votes the unpopular way gets
punished as the gove r nor does Practically
he does not suffer at all The typical voter
chee r s on the progress of a popular measure
at t he C apitol damns the governor who op
poses it but has nothing to say even on the
b allot on election day in derogation of the
obscure legislative representatives wh o also
oppose it This comparative immunity from
popular disapproval makes defiance of popular
desires easy for our legislatures and consti
t ute s an unlighte d environment so unhealthy
“
as to account fully for a failure of repr esent
Of course it fails ! Re pr e
a ti v e government
government in our states has no
s e n t a t ive
where been tr ied as yet under conditions which
give it a ghost of a show for success !
N ow suppose w e go in imagination to the
opposite extreme with our legislatures and
increase the importance of the individual mem
bers until they tower up into publ ic View as
governors do and become correspondingly
sensitive ! That would mean reducing the
total number of members to say thirty in a
large state like New Yor k or ten in a little state
like M aryland I t would mean also an end
of the tangle foot double chamber plan and
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10 8
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BALLOT PRINCIPLES
the members would sit as a single body as a
constitutional convention does with the abil
ity to act swiftly for good or i l l R emove also
the elaborate limitations of the state c on s t it u
tion leaving only the simplest outlines so that
the courts would not have to be incessantly
thr owi ng statutes into the waste basket The n to
be a legislator would be a big honor ! The people
would be up on tiptoe to see that the candidates
suited them Newspapers instead of editori
ally condemning the corruption of the legisla
ture in the broad general te r ms which now hit
nobody would be talking about R epresenta
tive Smith s folly in trying to defeat this bill
and Representative Jones s continued stu
p idit y in urging that on e ; while the mere sus
p ic i on of dishonorable conduct by any r e pr e
s e n t a t iv e would start mass meetings all over
his district
Of course the reduction in size of the legis
la t ur e must take into account the necessity
of keeping the districts wieldy H o w much too
far we should be going in cutting the Ne w
York State legislatu r e to thirty members and
o n e house I do n o t know
B ut we ought to go
far enough in that direction to attract t o each
member such a glare of natural public scrutiny
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1 10
—
BALLO T PRINCIPLES
all owed to appoint th e rest of th e prese nt state
ticket
In other states there is wide v ariation New
Jersey has no elective admin istrative offices
ex c ept the governor There is not even an
elective lieutenant governor O hi o Illinois
C alifornia South D akota O klahoma and
most of the remaining states go to the other
extreme and make the voters choose a great
mass of pe tty state officers such as the state
prin ter trustees of the state un iversity dairy
and food commissioner etc The choice Of
whi ch officers to e le c t and which to appoint
s e ems to have been entirely capricious
In all cases these ofli c e r s are invisible I f by
a printer s error one of these little offi cers
should be omitted fr om the ballot the voters
if not notified would vote the ticket and be
none the wiser I f the Democrati c nominee for
state engineer in New York were by a printer s
error slipped into the Republi c an c olumn he
would be elected with the Republi c ans unless
the voters could be warned ; and there would
be a pretty legal tangle t o determine whether
the multitude w ho voted a straight ticket
were supposed t o know what they were doing
or not
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FIT S
MI SFI TS
11 1
A conscientious voter trying to accomplish
the unnatural and uninteresting task of fin d
ing out which of the various candidates for
state treasurer was best fitted for his job
would be unable to discover enough informa
tion about them in the newspapers to justify
the formation of an opinion O f general public
criticism and counter criticism there is none
A candidate can get elected without mak ing
a single public speech to plead that he is s u
perior in qualifications for the office
The people voting as they think best when
they know what they think and blin dly e n
d or s i n g the party machine in the case of the
obscure offices are doing wisely Voting a
straight ticket is at least better than voting
at random for a par ty machine is somewhat
responsible and somewhat desirous of making
a good showing B ut the fact that the g reat
body of voters will support any respectable
figure whom the party machine decides to
nominate leaves to the machine complete dis
cretion in the matter Accordingly at state
conventions the choice of candidate for gov
e r n or is almost solely dependent upon what the
people will think and the choice of minor
offices is almost solely dependent upon what
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SH ORT
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BALLOT PRINCIPLES
a few politicians think The whole matter is
settled by a dozen men in the conventions of
the t w o p r incipal parties ; and whi l e there may
be some doubt as t o which o f the two party
groups will win
a matter in which the me r it
o f these mino r nominations p l ays only an i n
significant par t
there is n o doubt that these
t w o groups hold between them a perfect and
unassailable monopoly There is no possibility
of a successful independent ungrouped candi
dacy fo r a minor state ofli c e to act as a check
upon the exercise of the bosses discretion
Under either the convention system or any
other nominating plan the absence of the people
f rom the whole discussion leaves control in the
hands of the few w h o are interested enough
t o take a hand in the matter
The p l an of having the people select these
mino r state officials has been attempted and
has failed The expe r iment has been thor oughly
made and the plan has n o t worked That fa c t
is sufficient reason for its abandonment The
contrary idea o f appealing to the people by
exhortation and p r ayer to take an inte r est in
an uninte resting thing is futile Human nature
may alter in that direction some day but we
cannot wait to see !
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1 14
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
named the eligible list for the gove r norship
name also an eligible list fo r lieutenant g o v
-
e r n or ?
I s n t it true that often the people o f your
state have compelled the nomination of a cham
pion of ce rtain policies and ideals for the g o v
e r n o r s hip and have indolently permitted the
party to name on the same ticket for lieutenant
gove rnor some party hack whose policies and
ideal s we r e j ust the opposite ? H o w often
have the people elected a lieutenant gove r nor
whom they would n ot have app r oved of fo r a
moment if dur ing the campaign a se r ious i ll
ness of his supe r io r had b r ought him o ut o f his
“
obscur ity into that fierce light which beats
upon the th r one
T he election of a man whom the people
would not favor if they knew him demon
strates that the voters have not functioned at
the polls as the constitutional convention
wanted them to The intentions of those w h o
devised the plan we r e good but when tr ied
the plan did n ot result in popular control
Ther e is no appealing from the test of prae
tice to reason and theory The office is not
Visible
I n offering a theory to explain the results of
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FI T S
AND MI SFI TS
115
the tes t of practice I am adding only non
essential comment for the comfort of the stub
“
born reasoner w h o says
Drat it
the idea
”
ought to work anyhow ! NO I t ought not to
be expected to work in View of the fact that
one v ital factor in the plan is a mass of h u
man beings w h o as a t present constituted do
no t interest themselves in uninteresting things
except under compulsion And the people are
too big to be spanked
Should we really be disturbed if the death
of a lieutenant governor at the beg inning of
his term left the succession to an official whom
the people did not elect ?
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CHI E F
E ! E C U TI
V ES
In the case of governo r or president the
offi c e is visible The district except in the
smalles t states is not wieldy Our relative
success a s a people in controlling those ofli c e s
demonstrates that Visibility is more vital than
wieldin ess of district E ven though we must
use the poli t i cians ow n machinery to estab
lish a hopeful nomination independent c am
p a ig n s for the governorship or presidency b e
ing almost impossibly di fficult we have often
specified the very man who should be chosen
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SH ORT
1 16
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
and almost always ar e obeyed in our require
ments as to the type of man who shall be se
le c t e d N ever theless in ve r y many cases the
conditions ar e far fr om being satisfactory and
the people find that they are sharing the c o n
trol of these officers with sin ister self established
coter ies of political specialists
Yet the ve r y men wh o express horror at the
short ball ot doctr ine fear ing that it leads
towar d autocracy and kings would take most
offense at any p r oposal t o dispense with o ur
powerful chief executive B ut if the people
ar e t o have unthreatened and complete c on
t rol ove r all sour ces o f govern m ental authority
some way must be found by which the people
can dispense with the help of the professional
politician when un de r taking t o hi r e a good
man for governor
There ar e var ious ways of managing it
and I grant y o u in advance w e shall never
adopt any of them O ne way
a bad on e
is t o distr ict the state and let elector s be chosen
fr om each distr ict l ater t o meet deliber ate and
select a chief magist r ate I n the case of the
President and Vice President of the U nited
S tates this was done B ut the popular mind
hurdled ove r the barriers and insisted on dis
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1 18
SH ORT
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BALLO T PRINCIPLES
and in new kind o f parties based unshakably
on genuine principles w e must seek the solu
tion of the remain in g political awkwardnesses
of the people
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C HAPTE R
RAM SHA C!
LE
VIII
GOV ERNMEN T
compliance wi th the foregoing Limi~
t a tion s of Democ r acy may not be enough
to carry us all the way to popular control Re
spect for these L imitations puts the people in
the driver s seat where they can readi l y reach
a n d operate all the controlling leve r s
B ut
suppose the governmental organization be like
on e of those first unreliable coffee mi l l ca r s of
the earliest days of the automobile industry so
loose and weakly j ointed that it is incapable of
obeying the people e ffectivel y no matte r how
hard they work the levers ? S uch a government
is the most supinely disobedient government
imaginable and a government that is likely to
di sobey so contin ually cannot be called a de
A RE
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m oc r a e y
!
The favorite and cleverest American method
of balki ng the people in this fashion is based on
checks and
o ur ancient supe r stitious belief in
“
”
”
balances and the separation of power s An
imaginary instance helps to keep us clear of old
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SH ORT
120
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLE S
fallacies s o let us do some supposing S uppose
the peop l e o f th is count ry are to send to E u r ope
a gr oup of popul a r rep resentatives to conduct
ce rtain impor tant negotiations and labors
H aving elected the right men by adherence to
the T w o L imitations we have been discussing
d o we then p r oceed to allow them t o sit as one
body hire their own expert help execute their
own decisions and take responsibility fo r s e c ur
ing for us the resul ts we want ? O h n o ! F orsooth
we must pick out one membe r from that dele
g a ti on isolate him and give him power to undo
the work of al l the others with a veto ! Then w e
must divide the r emainder into t w o houses so as
t o multip l y chances for disag reement and make
it har d for a bad measu r e t o get th r ough Then
as there wi l l be ce rtain clerks and financial offi
c i a ls needed t o handle detai l s o f this wo r k we
wi l l ourselves pick out othe r members of the
de l egation call them cle rk tr easu r er etc and
give them certain independent powers of ove r
sight and interference And when w e shipped
this complicated ramshackle organi zation to
E urope we should expect it t o handle its work
efficiently without deadlocks hold ups delays
or quarrels !
Why it is organi zed for inefficiency ! If that
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SH ORT
122
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
sit on several separate statutory pedestals
”
”
”
B oard of Works
called C ouncil
M ayor
” “
”
“
Tax C omm ission
Comptroller etc each
having power to slap the face of the others and
when the people fail to secure obedience to their
wi ll they must bur row thr ough a labyrinth
of detail to find out w h o is responsible for the
hold up The plan so multiplies the blocking
power of honest disagreements that the gov
e r n m e n t like an automobile with a separate
motor at every wheel is almost incapable of
that orderly harmony which is necessary for
efficient low fr i c t ion e d action
A city so organized might have and often
does have a S hort B allot with no obscur e
offices and Wieldy distr icts B ut without a rea
“
sonable U nification of Powers to enable it to
obey the people it may simply quiver under
the je rked levers and helplessly fail to move as
directed
To be sure if we have elected the right me n
they may waive their di ff erences may not take
advantage of opportunities to block and check
when they ar e in the minority may not use
the chances to betray the people without get
ting spotted B ut in a complete democracy
the mechanism must be designed so that har
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RA MSHAC ! LE G O VERNMEN T
123
m on y of action c an be compelled n ot merely
urged
“
Unification of Powers makes it possible
to se c ure the necessary clear publi c loca tion of
responsibility I n our city plan of govern
ment for in stance responsibility is obscured
W hen some thin g goes wrong the people blam e
the mayor the mayor tells them to blame the
council the council t ells them to blame the
board of works and the board of works blames
the mayor thus sending the people around a
c ircle without giving them any satisfa ction
E ach officer in the circle may really have a v alid
ex c use an d might conceivably ask and secure
r e ejle c t ion year after year while the people are
v ainly trying to enforce their will Making an
officer s responsibility in visible is as undesirable
as m ak ing the officer himself in visible The
pra ctical solution somet imes is for the people to
secure unity of c ontrol by allowing a boss to put
in power puppets who wi ll yield to his dictation
and then hold the boss morally responsible !
There is obviously a loss in the ability of the
people to hold an official accountable if they
themsel ves choose his subordinates
The
stockholders of a corporation who choose not
m erely the dire ctors but also the business man
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SH ORT
124
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
ager wo uld not thus gain additional control
over the business but would lose In choosing
the manager they are di minishing the power
o f their othe r servants the directors and are
fu rnishing the latter with an opportunity to say
”
“
I t s n ot our fault when things go wr ong
L ikewise in our cities which elect a council and
”
mayor the people have no more power than
the people of a city whi ch elects only a council
I n the latter case the people s council is more
power ful
that s all and the c on tr ol by the
people which is the real thing we are after is
the more complete in the simpler plan
The innate inefficiency of even the simplest
instance of separated power s is seen in cities
gover ned by mayor and council where the
mayor s selections of his executive helpers r e
qui r e confir mation by the council while the
council makes ordinances and approp r iations
and levi es the taxes Gener ally an exchange
o f functions ensues
The members of the coun
cil not being held responsible for the conduct of
the administrative departments either legally
or in the popular m ind proceed to inter fe r e
recklessly with departmental appointments
refusing to cooperate with the mayor until
thei r friends have been given lucrative posi
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SH ORT
126
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
pin g a graf t may in some circumstances actually
be g reater than the resultin g advantage war
rants The civic inertia in many an A merican
city has vanished immediately upon the adop
tion of the sensitive C ommission Plan of Go v
O ur people seem to have been made
e rn m e n t
”
ove r says an expe rienced ofli c ia l and ex mayor
“
of Des M oines
They are inte r ested in m u
n i c ip a l matters n o w and are willing to sub
sc r ibe money and energy for city improvement
with an un fla gg in g enthusiasm we never saw
”
before
An other ingenious A merican way of balking
the people even when they fin d themselves at
the controlling levers of a workable car is to
tie the steer ing wheel State constitutional c on
v e n t ion s which assume l egislative functions and
c rystallize their humanly defective foresight
into rigid w ritten documents often do this So
do l egislatures which hand down to cities spe
c ific a lly enume r ated and limited powers and
charters which in fle xib ly regulate administra
tion down t o its details so that every imp r ove
ment in e fli e ie n c y calls for the passage of a
special enab l ing act or amendment by remote
and uncomprehending legislators The idea of
thus tying up the steering wheel and shortening
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RAM SH AC ! LE G O VERNMEN T
1 27
its turning arc is to make it certain that the car
“
”
will go straight ahead
Straight ahead may
lead over bumps and stones and through deep
speed slackening sand F lexibility is essential
to responsiveness and real control The elective
public servants who constitute the people s
steering wheel are not servants at all if they
are bound hand and foot by red tape Consti
t ut ion s unless made primitively short and sim
ple or made of rubber by great ease of amend
ment as in Ok lahoma are often n ot g uarantees
of liberty but rather denials of popular con
trol O ften we see roun dabout evasion of a
state constitution frankly managed and j usti
fie d as a triumph of the popula r will over an
obstacle !
S imple and thoroughly unified governments
that can do things simple state constitutions
municipal home rule and county home rule on
the new C alifornia plan which allows each
county to devise and run its o wn government
all these and more things too are among the
requirements that demand consideration in
“
”
building a democracy that will de m oc
the gove r n
C ondensing the idea further
This is a
m e n t m us t be s tr on g a n d un ha m pe r e d
Third L imitation of D emocracy
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S H ORT
128
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
Weak disjointed ramshackle governments
are more than eve r undemocratic in these days
of the great private cor porations which in their
wealth and resources loom over our feeble pub
lic organizations and make the latter look like
infants pol icing giants C onsidering how the
people a re contesting with private powers for
the control of privilege and the natural sources
of wealth the demand for stronger governments
unhampered governments that c a n O bey b e
comes part of the unwr itten modern bill of
rights You will find when you speak of gov
e r n m e n t a l simp l ification to a politician he will
“
”
c ry
That s confe rring too much power !
O ne of his cr onies that famous beast called
“
Pr ivi l ege will say the same for Pr ivilege
dearl y l oves to race with a slow wheezy ma
chine that runs uncertainly and stops i r e
quently for readj ustments and repai r s ! B ut
your champion of popular rights will not shiver
a bit The people wi l l pe rhaps want t o wait till
they are surely in contr ol They have seen
othe r untrusted forces controlling so much in
the past that to increase the strength of the g ov
e r n m e n ts begets fear of misuse of the enlarged
powers So no doubt we shall have to be con
tent w ith getting the S hor t B allot first When
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C HAPTER
PA RTI E S
A ND
WH !
I!
T H EY
C ANNO T
BE
RES P ON S I B LE
the clumsiness and complexity of
politics l eave the bulk of the people
staring hel p l essly into its shadowy j ungle
those few vol unteers who leave other occupa
tions and g o in and maste r the ramifications
“
and practical detai l s of it ar e called politi
”
cians
Or to reve rse the definition a politi
c i a n is a citizen who knows what he is doing
o n election day
Wh en a political system is incomplete
stretching only part way toward the up
reachin g people w h o are supposed to Operate
it the necessary improvised in f ormal volun
tee r machinery that fills the gap is called a
“
”
political machine
When a considerable number of the people
come to believe in a cer tain state policy in dis
tinction t o others of the people who disbelieve
“
in it the groups are called parties
A party to be e fle c tive needs some sort of
H EN
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PART IES
1 31
organization t o bring about unity of action
among its members
hence the formation of
party machinery and of party machines The
machines in operating a governmental mech an
ism s o c omplicated that their actions are not
subject to adequate review by the rank and file
of the party acquire the opportunity to use
unchecked discretion in the name of the par ty
and become more powerful than the party
O riginally intended to be only the obedient
steering engine of the ship responsive to the
touch of the wheel on the captain s bridge the
party machine has become conscious of its
power t o dir ect the ship and has done so there
by acquiring Virtual command The object of
a party is the installation of a principle in the
government The object of a party machine
is continuance in power The party and the
machine are two very d ifle r e n t things
The R epublican party for example was at
the time of its foundation a genuine party
founded for a specific purpose This object was
and after a few
s uccessfully accomplis h ed
years when all danger that the nation m i ght
undo the work was safely past all reason for
the further exi stence of the Republican party
had v anished Fro m that time on the Repub
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BALLO T PRINCIPLES
SH ORT
1 32
—
lican party w a s not a true party at all inas
much as its members were not a g roup of voters
bonded together to establish a principle Ne w
questions arose upon whi ch Republicans were
not all agreed ; the party lines no longer fol
lowed certain planes of natural cleavage of
”
“
opinion and the party became an artificial
and purposeless union of m ore or less un c on
genial voters B ut the powerful par ty machines
were still existent and had no thought of con
senting to be sen t to the s crap heap Then ce
forward the Republican party w a s only a ma
chine plus a n enr ollment of more or less willing
habit dr iven voters A Republican victory after
the war meant the tr iumph of no particul a r
principle but only the success of a machi ne i n
grasping power From a position of power in
the machi ne the high minded men w h o founded
it for a purpose were soo n displa ced in favor
of men who were more effective m achinists
S o far a s possible new principles were sup
pressed lest they di vide the party s follow in g
When issues became too important to be ei ther
ign ored or straddled the Republi c an party
would take one side the D emo cratic party
the other A ll good Republicans were expecte d
to adj us t their ideas a ccordingly and become
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SH ORT
1 34
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
Persistent arg uing by reformer s in our cities
has convinced the people that national policies
have no bear ing upon city policies and the
fact that a man approves R epublican national
policies is n o reason why he should app r ove
“
what happen t o be Republican city policies
B ut although we have been less often urged
to r ecognize it there is no natural unity b e
tween state and national parties either We
ought in theory to have one set of national
par ties battling on national policies othe r sets
of state parties dividing on state issues sets of
par ties in each county each city each township
F or on each o f these pol itical batt l e fie lds the
g r ouping of men accor ding t o their opinions
wi ll p r oduce di fferent combinations To make
the same company fight as a unit for so many
differ ent causes means inevitably that some
of the soldie r s will be on sides they do not
really favor and thus public opinion is sup
pressed
In fact it is only logical to carry the idea
furthe r When the cor one r is made elective
it is to be presumed that there is Opportunity
ther e for a di ff erence of opinion that for in
stance the people are expected to di vi de on such
is sues as whether to elect a coroner who pro
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PART I ES
1 35
poses to buy an automobile to answer calls
quickly or to elect his opponent w h o will save
money and let the cases wait while he comes by
str eet car No issues conce rning the cor oner
ship can possibly be allied t o issues concerning
the county clerkship the sheriff s office or the
surrogate s or any other office Accordingly
if parties ar e to consist of people who agree
on a given policy we must have separ ate par
ties for every offi ce ! O f cou r se this is absolutely
imp r acticable but it serves to illustrate h o w
utte rl y impossible it is for any such comp l i ~
with its multiplicity
c a t e d system as ours
o f elective offices t o be at all these points of
contact with the people r esponsive to their
movements Lo ng ballots so far fr om making
the gove r nment sensitive to public opinion
actually balk and bewilde r public opinion
making it ce r tain that multitudes will ever be
voting against their own desi r es
Unable to operate so complicated a key
board the people have done the next best
thing and have delegated their functions whole
sale to the party machines Average voters
use their ow n j udgment s o far as they have
light and put responsibility for a ll the rest of
the work upon the party Fe w v oters in large
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S H ORT
136
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
communities can name all the men they vote
for o n any el ection day They vote fo r gover
no rs mayors and presidents in accor dance
with we ll conside red opinions but for the
”
“
invisib l e state t reasurers membe r s of legis
la tur e s county c l erks city solicitors etc
they vote a straight ticket without even read
ing the names I t would do them small good
if they did read the names for the minor Offices
rar ely have enough to do with interesting
policies to fu rnish food for discussion and in
consequence the newspape r s pay little atten
tion to them If the pa rty label we r e unexpect
most voter s
e dly omitted fr om the ba ll ot
would pore over the l ist of nam es helplessly
and would consider themse l ves cleve r if they
could so much as recollect which o f the minor
candidates had been nominated by their party
There is no idea in the citizen s mind of c om
par ing the candidates man for man and se
leeting the best man in each case H e lacks the
information on which t o base an opinion and
in voting a straight ticket he expresses none
except t o show that he conside r s the bosses in
hi s part y more r eliab l e than the gang that
runs the othe r party Theoretically if his party
nomi nates a bad man for county clerk it will
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SH ORT
1 38
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
ing for a share of the pie of patronage This
coterie becomes the c l earing house a slate
is prepared that balances up the conflicting
claims as evenly as possible r esulting usually
in division regardless of the merit of candidates
and the slate is pre
o n a geographical basis
sented to the convention and accepted intact
The bosslet who has wrested from the com
m it te e the right to name the attorney gen
eral of the state naturally expects that the
nominee after election wi ll be duly grateful
and will repay him out o f the t r easury of the
state The payment may be in the form of j obs
that are easy enough to l eave time for political
”
activity or in the fo r m o f influence that
can be privately marketed to seekers of privi
lege I t is all Very simple and very familiar
and it all has its r oot in the fact that the people
have not been s e lecting such o fli c ia ls but have
only been e lecting them The party machine
has acquired and is exercising a power that
properly should remain in the hands of the
people
N ow to give a pa rty machine the righ t t o
make a nominat ion is n ot giving it any power
whatever if that nomination is to be adequately
scrutinized and if also there is chance for a
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PARTIES
139
compe t i tor to en ter the con tes t A corrupt
machine is powerless to do evil under such
circumstances and is not in the least danger
ous B ut when scrut iny is wanting the ma
chine is left with unchecked discretion and
that is power
great power
I can safely pur chase apples from any mer
chant if I am allowed to subject the entire
barrel to adequate examination B ut if the
merchants know I c annot do more than look
at the top of the barrel sooner o r later some
merchant w ill pu t bricks in the bottom and I
shall be cheated My nat ural recourse is to
trade only at a shop where my experience has
been satisfactory
W e patronize the party shop in this w a y
when we acquire the habit of voting a ticket
with a c ertain label B ut there is this dis t in c
tion ! the apple shop remains in the same hands
year after year ; if the rival merchant wants to
cheat me he c annot easily acquire control of
the store where I trade and thus get into a
posi tion where he can take advan tage of my
confiden ce
B u t the politi c al shop is cons tantly changin g
hands The controlling spirits in it to day are
only a m i n ority to morrow R arely does a state
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SH ORT
1 40
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
now per mit a p ar ty to be a close corporation
The parties are gove rned u l timatel y by the
rank and fi l e
a topsy tu r vy ar my in which
the gener al s are e l ected by the captains and
the captains by the p r ivates And the p r ivates
consist of anybody w h o wants to j oin A politi
cal machine cannot resist contamination Any
man honest or otherwise may j oin it and
must be welcomed I n many states the law
specifically p r otects him in the privilege of e n
roll ing and of shar ing in the inte rnal govern
ment o f the party
T o place political power in such unguarded
exposur e is to make it ce r tain that the power
wi l l sooner or later fall into the hands of cor
rupt m e n The whole process is automatic and
inevitable The opportunity to cheat will a t
tract the cheater s
and the cheaters must be
we l comed To say that the dominant political
machine in eve ry community is corrupt is n o
reflection on the community or even o n the
it is only another way of saying
machine
that the dominant machine is the o n e that
gets corr upted The moment it acqui r es power
the g r afters begin t o j oin it There is n o a dv a n
tage in corrupting a party that is in a hopeless
min ority
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BALLO T PRINCIPLES
S H OR T
142
—
to shoulder with men who had not taken the
ideals of the Union seriously who clamor ed for
patronage and demanded that the officials
whom they had elected allow them to sack the
to w n exactly as Tammany had in the past
When the elected ofli c ial s proved ungrateful
and unwil ling to create a permanent Citizens
Union machine and support it out o f the city
tre a sury these helpers we r e bitte rly aggrieved
and the Union was r ent with internal warfare
The al tr uists won eventually but only after
a long fight in which the party s political
streng th was recklessly sacrificed to save the
p r incipl e
In Philadelphia the state law governing
primary p r ocedur e makes entrance to a party
quick and easy The reformers organize a r e
form party and nominate reform candidates
Immediately the grafters enroll in the new
party and the next time the party makes
nominations the r eformers find themselves
outvoted by their n e w and unwelcome asso
ciates and the reform party nom inates gr afters
T hereupon the true reformers hold an indigna
tion meeting adopt a new name establish a
new party leav ing the p revious one to an early
death
and the procedure is repeated
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PART I ES
143
There are two answers to the difficulty
O ne is to deprive the part y of all power by sub
j c eting its nominations to popular examination
unde r such circumstances that every imp r oper
nomination will be easily detected and wi ll
result in the immediate offering Of something
more satisfactory by active or latent political
competitor s F ull obedience to the L imitations
of D emocracy would place the people in a
political environment wher e they cou l d at any
moment dispense with unfaithful leadership
and th us make cheating unprofitable
B ut in a previous chapter I ag r eed that we
were never likely t o dispense with elected
presidents and governors the unwieldiness of
whose districts will always leave some work
for political machines We must eventually
adopt also another expedient
namely build
machines right side up and make guarded
leaders responsible for the party policies leav
ing the people fancy fr ee t o rally t o the party
of whichever leaders w i n their confidence
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C HAPTE R !
LEADER S H I P PART I E S
H E government should be a democracy
but the party shoul d be an autoc r acy
And cur iously enough to make the parties
autoc r atic will help to make the government
a democr acy
I n no other w a y except by
clumsy initiative and referendum devices can
we separate the peop l e into principle united
g roups to be c ounted at elections so that their
wi shes can be accurate l y determined
At p r esent writing ( 19 11) there is in the
United States a strong insurgent progressi v e
movement led by certain men in C ongress
w ith a probable majo r ity of the people in the
country ready to follow their leaders h ip T h e
Pr ogressives are dissatisfied with both the
o ld parties and suspicious of their manage
ments If no new par ty is formed lack of
organization and direction w ill leave the Pro
g r e s s iv e s scattered confused and far less e f
fe c t i v e than their numbers entitle them t o be
If a new party is formed on the t r aditional
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S H ORT
146
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
or professional progress
Accordingly t heir
w o r k must be li m ited in amount and sporadic
I t cannot be incessant and thorough
Against them are the se l f seekers to whom
a p rinciple seems wholly academic and ama
t e ur i s h
T o them success m e a n s a live l ihood
and a caree r whe reas t o the voluntee r s suc
cess i s a t the c os t of l ive l ihood and caree r T o
the professional int r igue circumvention o f
ideals and petty political detai l s ar e a normal
par t of the day s wo rk The man with the
fewest ideal s has the fewest handicaps in the
peanut pol itics incident to factional st rife
If the P rogressives form a party of the old
type the refor e this party wil l not long r emain
tr ue to its ideals and the Prog ressives will
soon be again without a ral l ying point Just
as in New Yo rk State n ow certain Republican
distr ict conventions declar e against the p r o
posed Di r ect Nominations la w while in a d
j oining dist ricts other Republican conventions
are favoring the measu re so the Progressive
party would soon be a p r inciple dodging o r di
v i d e d machine plus a misce ll aneous en r ol l ment
instead of a great union of believe r s in certain
p r inciples
The Pr ogressives are in fact simply the fol
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LEAD ERSH IP PART I ES
1 47
lowers of certain conspicuous well k nown and
well beloved leaders Why not recognize the
fact fr an k ly and build on it ?
S uppose a group of these leaders who have
perfect mutual confidence for m themselves
“
”
into The Progressive C ommittee
They
agree that their membership in that commit
tee shall be unassailable They fill by appoint
ment all vacancies in their ow n number that
may occur by death or resignation When con
g r e s s i on a l elections approach they meet and
draw up the Progressive platform of the year
detailing those legis l ative proposals which
they be l ieve should be enacted by the next
C ongr ess When this platform is published the
desire to win the support o f Prog r essive voter s
will lead some candidates publicly to endor se
the platform S ometimes these candidate s
will be since r e sometimes n ot In some dis
t r i c ts all candidates will endorse the platform ;
in other districts all the candidates will dodge
it o r oppose it The P rogressive C o m mittee
after due examination of conditions and can
did a te s in the various dist r icts issues its e n
dor s e m e n t t o on e man in each ( calling a new
candidate into the field if necessar y) saying
“
to the people This man in your district has
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SH ORT- BALLO T
148
PRINCIPLES
subscribed to the Progressive platform ; we
be l ieve him sincere and capable ; w e hope y o u
”
wil l elect hi m
If the Progressive C ommittee did truly
enjoy the confidence of the Progressive vote rs
this hoisting of the col ors would rally the party
e fle c ti v e ly year after year
True Progressives wou l d be glad to find i n
the field a candidate who represented them a c
c ur a te ly and would have no reason to wo rr y
about the procedure that brought him the r e
Anti Progressives on the other hand would
be helpless to perve rt the Progressive par ty
for the Progressive Committee is self chosen
and there is no way of attacking it except i n
fr ont To their hypoc ritical protests agains t
exclusion from a share in the c ontrol the C om
“
m itt e e serenely says !
Take your complain t
to the people ! F orm a rival party on any lines
y ou like and attract followers to you r flag
”
if you can
There could be n o objection to
having ea ch substantial division of Opi n i on
among the people led by its self appoi nted
committee
The followers of these leaders do not choose
the leaders by intra par ty elections or for mally
determine where the par ty shall m arch yet
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S H ORT
15 0
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLE S
We ar e n ot s o very far from this even now
In many cities the r e ar e al r eady nominating
bodies such as the rebuilt Citizens U nion i n
New York C ity which are p r actically cl osed
against invasion The plan is the result o f ex
pe r ie n c e wherein the impossibility of maintain
ing pure refo rm par ties has been amply demon
The direct primaries have opened
s t r a te d
up new political fields where the absence of
party labels f r om the ballot has clea r ed the
w a y for free leadership I n these primary fights
real pol itics has appeared in favorable con
t r ast t o the ar tificial for mal t r umpe r y of so
many final e l ections ; and men have been chosen
“
by the voter s because they we r e N ew I dea
”
“
”
“
Republicans o r L a F ollette men o r Anti
“
”
Rai lroad or L ocal option advocates The
peop l e have not r esented attempts at leader
ship but have welcomed them and even cried
o ut for them ; and when they found a publi c
man in whom they trusted they have forced
him to speak and guide them when perhaps
he would r athe r have kept silent
Often the fol l owe r s of a ce r tain informal g r oup
o f l eaders
seeking t o advance a certain idea
fight for thei r candidates in the primar ies of
both parties The development of the primary
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LEAD ERSH IP PART IES
15 1
as a batt le g round will make the meaningles s
party di v isions seem more meaningless than
e ver and the next logical step will be the non
partisan primary and the non partisan final
ele ction ballot wiping out the strategi c a d
vantage which the machines now possess The
“
”
attitude of v oters toward the regul ar nomi
nees in the primary fi ghts when they lack the
san ctity of the part y labe l is mu ch more freely
critical The typical politician is usually more
e ffective as a manipulator of machinery than
as a leader of the people
Slightly different in method but iden ti cal
in their fun ction of leadership are the ci vi c
organizations which are so governed that con
t a m in a t ion can be resisted by excluding un w e l
come appli c ants for membership a s a so cial
club does These o rganizations working for a
principle win outside suppor t among the voters
and their endorsement becomes valuable to can
dida te s It is only one step further for these or
g a n iza t ion s to foster satisfacto r y nominations
or even t o nominate offic i a lly in their own name
The idea of par ties controlled from above
instead of from below is thus not so new as i t
probably looked when first outli ned at the b e
ginning of this discussion
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SH ORT
152
—
B ALLO T PRINCIPLES
In England the plan has been in use In
each of the parties a central self established
committee selects the candidates for each dis
t riet (in E ngland candidates need n ot be r esi
dents of thei r distr icts ) and sends them out to
campaign for the votes T h e convenience and
simp l icity o f the p r ocedure from the stand
point of both the vote r s and the leaders is in
its favor and as we become more fami l ia r with
fr ee fo r all direct primary fights on a g r eat
“
scale I think this leadership type of party
wil l become inc reasingly common
I t is a rathe r essential featu re o f this plan
that the par ties shall be as f ree as possib l e
to form and dissolve in the most informal
fashion They need n ot be and apparently
had better n o t be recognized in la w or regu
lated except as to their expenditur es A can
d id a t e who makes s o little impression on the
popular consciousness that the vote r s need a
label t o identify him on the ballot ought not
t o be elected at all ; for such a condition im
plies a n in vi sibility that is both dangerous and
undemocratic The ballots in othe r countries
never carry any party labels One of the best
features of short ballots will undoubted l y be
the fact that they can be non partisan without
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C H APTER
! I
NOM I NATI ON PRO C EDURE
an enormous mass of statutory law
Ame rican states have been attempting
to int r oduce fai r play into the myriad factional
battles incident t o the operation of poli tical
parties as at present organized I t was thought
that if orderliness we r e intr oduced the aver
age A merican wou l d find political details less
repu l sive and would take hold and see to it
that the party nominees were more s a t is fa c
tory To a ce rtain extent the hope has been
justified by r esults B ut sometimes this p r o
c e d ur e only opened the doo r s wide r t o the easy
entr ance o f corr upt men and made swifter
the contamination o f whichever par ty acqui r ed
dom inance The new p r ocedur e could n o t make
uninte resting things inter esting
That the
method of nominating the co r oner was fair
t o all was n ot enough t o make the big busy
pub l ic take an inte r est in it and s o the r emain
ing fe w w h o w e r e interested continued to find
small difli c ulty in having thei r own way The
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NOMINAT ION PROC EDU RE
155
whole attempt to enable the people to protect
the pre cious party label from capture was a very
incom plete success because the people failed
to play their part according to the beautiful
theory A wiser reform would have been to
make the party label less worth c apturing by
shortening the final election ballot until th e
voters looked for the candidate instead of hi s
label
To plough a little deeper into the subje ct
the problem m ay be quartered a ccordi n g to the
nature of the offi ce as follows
Nom i nations of
l Invisible ofli c e r s from un wiel dy di s tr ict s ;
2 I n vi s ib le offic e rs from Wie ldy districts ;
3 V isibl e Offic e rs from unwie l dy di s tri c t s ;
4 V isibl e offi ce rs from Wi e ldy distri cts
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I n the first two classes the fact that the
offi cers are shut off from public view (by their
in s ign i fic a n c e or un de b a t a b le n e s s of chara cter
or by the confusion of many simultaneous con
tests ) means that the public will have no opin
ion to express and nothing is gained by the
provi sion of better procedure for the expres
s ion of this non exi stent O pinio n
I n the third class direct primaries m ay be Of
great v alue ; but they are really in this c as e
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SH ORT
156
—
BALLO T PRINCIPLES
simply weeding out elections wherein the
people are a rbitrar ily divided into two par ts
“
”
“
called respectively Republican and D emo
”
cratic
To have a non partisan ballot with
all nominations made by petition and allow
the two leading candidates to appear on the
ballot in the final election woul d be merely
a change of form not of principle M uch evi
den ce of the danger incident to unwieldy
districts is developed in direct primary con
tests for governor ; and candidates c omplai n
bitterly of the difficulty and expense of c o n
ducting an adequate state wide can v ass with
out the help of experienced ready made v ote
getting m achines
The fourth class illustrates how respe c t for
our first two L imitations of Demo cracy clears
away difficulties F or any proced ure will suf
fic e that will get the candidates names on the
ofl
i e ial ballot subject to such reasonable
restri ction as will exclude cranks and other
c andidates who have no real following The
ballot c an be non partisan for if the o ffice is
Visible the voter will n ot beg for a label to
guide him
Thi s dispenses with primaries
and the state regulation of parties altoge ther
although a double election or a preferenti a l bal
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S H OR T
158
—
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
ber of candidates who would be able to get
five thousand signatures in B oston witho ut
overlapping V oter s w h o were fearful lest
some favor ite of their s would need their signa
ture were the r efore char y of signing for any
As a
o n e else and ended by signing fo r no one
r esult o f these handicaps there were final l y
only four candidates on the ballot for mayor
although several times as many men undertook
to qualify T h e cost constituted the real ba r
r ie r T wo of the candidates received fewer
votes than the number of names on their
petitions
I t is t o be questioned if nomination by peti
tion can stand the st r ain of regular use I t
w a s r epo r ted in 19 10 that in Los Angeles some
o n e opened an o ffice and conducted a business
in the prepar ation of petitions for candidates
and referenda movements with a corps of e
pe rt canvasse r s to go forth and collect sig
natur es ou behal f o f anybody and anything at
s o much a thousand
There is nothing un be
lie v a b le in the r epo rt and its plausibility de
m on s t r a t e s h o w meaningless petitions may be
President R oosevelt once remarked to a Visi
t or w h o flourished a petition in support of his
“
request !
Petition ? Petitions mean nothing !
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NOMINAT ION PROC ED URE
15 9
”
I could get up a petition to have you hanged !
A nother illustration is the success of the I n
dependence Le ague i n getting thousands of
signers for the petitions that put the names
of Hearst s candidates on the official b al lots
of certain western counties in which the party
received not a single vote in the subsequent
election
A s a demonstration that a candidate has a
following and is entitled to a place on the bal
lot for the convenience of his followers the pe
tition is a failure
The petition then must be reckoned as
simply an arbitrar y barr ier compounded of
useless labor expense and delay and risk of
legal error the surmounting of which indicates
persisten ce in the candidate A n y barrier which
will keep out silly candidatures would suffi c e
and woul d save a lot of fruitless e xpe n di
ture
I n parts of C anada and in New ! ealand
the c andidate must make a deposit of money
fifty to two hundr ed dollars as an earnest of
his serious intentions and if he fails to get a
decent proportion of the votes on election day
the city keeps the money as paymen t for ha v
ing bee n bothered by him
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SH ORT
160
BALLO T PRINCIPLES
—
The forfeit should be as large as experience
may show is necessary to exclude cranks and
no larger The requirements will not embar
ras s the candidate of small means for it need
n o t be required o f him until j ust long enough
before the election to allow the ballot printer
to do his wor k B y that time the campaign
will be almost closed and the candidate will
k now beyond a doubt whether he is a facto r
in the contest If he is afr aid that he will not
get the r equired ten or twenty per cent of the
votes the pe ril of forfeit will be an induce
ment to drop out This will be a good thing
for eve rybody especia ll y the voter s whose
votes ar e less likely t o be wasted on for lo r n
hopes If he cannot satisfy some money lender
that he will get the requi r ed m i n i m um of votes
he wi l l certainly be unable to get a p lur a li ty
If he has real hopes o f victory he will have no
serious diffi culty in borr owing the necessary
cash for a fe w days and the use of it even at
usur ious interest will involve far less e xpe n
“
dit ur e than the getting up of a big
N otary
”
P ub li c k e d petition
Under these circums tan ces the real formal
ity of nomination would occu r when the candi
date began to tell the neighbors of his ambi
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C HAPTER ! II
S
C ON C LU I ON
now my dear reader we have our
practical form of democ r acy all com
p le te ! B y means o f disregarding all detail and
handling the elements of democracy as if they
were al l p r imitively simple and free from
myr iad r am ifications o ur imaginary recon
str uction has all the fascination of the panacea
To the reader who thinks the plan really com
This little
p le te I off e r a rest r aining hand
book is only a so rt o f compass I t points to
the nor th but it may lead a too devout b e
liever not to the magnetic pole o f truth but
plumb up against the wall of the hous e next
door I t points north but the proper route
is de vious and much exploration will be needed
to find it
T o the reader who is sure that at some point
fam i liar to him the prope r r oute lies athwart
“
my compass need l e I say ! Perhaps and for
a little while ; but I have confidence that you
will find your self winding presently north
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CONC LUSION
163
again that permanent progress will be meas
ur e d along the comp as s line and that when you
d o find it advantageous to go to the right or
left it is because that leads to a better north
”
ward r oad
I anticipate the cr iticism that my book is
but scantily supplied with evidence and I
h a sten to say that I know it The tr ouble w ith
a fact is that it is never found pu r e but is a l
ways alloyed and if I essayed to stop and note
all exceptions anticipate all misunderstand
ings and measure all qualifications this would
be a ten volume treatise and you would never
read it I am n ot trying to compile the e vi
dence If I have made you see reasonableness
in these doctrines I shall be satisfied I have
simply sketched the idea on the back of an old
envelope and the working plans must be draw n
by abler architects with better equipment I
hope some day to see the book written in
which these crude outlines of mine w
ill be
straightened measured a n d supplied with the
needed details
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My expe r ience with politicians in sundry little
tilts I have had with them leads me to believe
that to them this book like any other discus
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SH ORT
1 64
—
B ALLO T PRINCIPLES
’
sion that takes a bird s eye View of their pro
fe s s i on wil l be incomprehensible I can make
far easier headway with the man w h o is not
s o near the fo r est that the trees obscu r e his
Vision I have found the politicians utter ly
unaware that there are any fundamentals un
d e r ly in g their existence
Le t me tell y ou Mr P olitician w h o y o u
are and what you are and why ! It will serve
t o the l istening reader as a summing up of
this volume
! o u Mr Politician are a unique A merican
pheno m enon ! I n any othe r democ r atic country
y o u would find yourself with nothing t o d o
! o u wou l d find that in other lands politic s
“
corresponds t o the wor d civics in this coun
tr y that it conce rns policies rather than politi
cal machiner y and is respectable instead of
despised
B ut in this country y ou a r e necessary The
designer s of our governmental institutions
sitting in constitutional conventions and char
ter commissions provided ce rtain work for
the people t o do
and the people did n t d o
it I t was arr anged that cor oners should be
selected by the people but the people went
home to bed and l eft the r ival candidates
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SH ORT
1 66
BAL LO T PRINCIPLES
—
You fought the other less faithful
guardians of the treasure t o protect ou r inte r
ests and we on l y damned y o u indiscr iminately
as thei r fel l ow conspirator The damage that
y o u permitted was as nothing to the damage
y ou p revented
B y electing only Visible officers and fr om
W ie l dy distr icts politics can be simplified so
that the people the candidates and the state
will pe rfo r m all the work that is t o be done
leaving y o u n o function The r e can be n o poli
tical specialists when ther e is nothing t o be a
political special ist in ! As I lay y o u in your
grave there passes from o ur Ame rican life a
picturesque and original characte r genial use
ful unthanked !
Of cou r se this is only a theoretical obituary !
“
”
And unti l we get a democ r acy that de m oc s
please Mr Po l itician please stay above the
s od
maintaining your wobbly oligar chy to
prevent governmental chaos and collapse !
s i b i li ty .
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T hat
the people have left the government to
be run by politicians is creditable t o the for
mer s good sense I magine some less substantial
e l ecto r ate such as t h e more me r cu r ial p op ula
tion of a L atin republic assailed with frenzied
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CONCLUSION
1 67
appeals t o leave business and go into poli
”
tics They might do it to the utter de m or a liz a
tion of industry prior to each election And we
“
should say ! How deplor able ! What a bad
sense of proportion they show in fussing with
caucuses and rallies when they ought t o be
plo ug h i n g t h e fields and caring for their fami
”
lies ! O f the enthusiastic volunteer we should
say ! The time he devotes to unpaid work in
politics could better be used in paid work at
his business s o that he coul d give his child r en
”
a better schoo l ing or his wife a new hat ; and
we should be right I t is because they a r e
doing their duty that the Ameri can people do
D uty to the family out
n o t go into politics
weighs duty to the state
Yet in no way is this rightly to be construed
as applause for civic laziness I t is not a j usti
fic a t i on of the man w h o thinks only of his o w n
affairs and ignores those of the community We
are getting rather away from such narrow self
“
i s h n e s s W e talk of conservation of national
” “
resources
regulation of the labor of women
”
“
and children
the prevention of tub e r c u
”
losis
these things are o ur real politics
The citizen does have duties in such dir ections
”
B ut peanut politics that unique American
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S H ORT
1 68
BALLOT PRINCIPLES
—
institution is a diffe r ent matter I t is not the
people s paramount duty to fr et over whether
Jones or S mith shall be made a delegate to a
convention to nominate a candidate for a petty
aldermanic post o r whether the B r own faction
or the Robinson c r owd shall control the p a
“
tr onage of the county cle rk s office !
Taking
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an inte r est in po l itics ought to mean some
thing bigger than hanging around political
headquarters or learning the names o f the
county committee or getting up chowde r
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parties The citizen owes no duty to peanut
politics except to get it abolished in favor of
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the big common welfare kind of politics tha t
lies beyond
Wh at good sense the American pe ople have
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sho w n in silently ignoring peanut politics
and refusing t o believe that the p r ivilege of
electing the register of deeds was the kind of
liber ty the Pilgr im fathers crossed the sea for !
A people who stick resolutely to their fir e s id e s
and thei r wo rk
yes to money making
and stubbornly wait for politics t o come to
them are showing a sober instinctive common
sense that is sounder than the logic of those
w h o scold them
I promised in the first chapter to land y o u
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L ENV OI
my fr iend reader what shall we
d o about it ? Shall the book go o n the
shelf and be classed as the academic proposal
o f a d r eamer ? O r is it to be a flag to follow ?
I v e sta rted al r eady
In thi s year 1 9 1 1 certain things are begin
ning that y o u as a r eade r of this little volume
this year or l ate r should k now of The S hort
B all ot Organization has been formed t o ex
plain the S hort B allot principle to the A me ri
can people
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The President is W OODRO W W I L S ON of
Princeton N J
The V ice Presidents ar e
W I NST ON C H UR C H I LL C ornish N H
H ORA C E E D EMIN G New Yo rk N Y
B E N B L IND SE Y Denver C olo
W I LLIA M S U R E N Or egon C ity O re
W I LLIAM A LLE N W H I TE Emporia ! a n
C LIN T ON RO GERS W OODRUFF Phila de l
phia P a
The Advisory B oard are
LA WRENC E F ABBOT T New York N Y
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L ENVOI
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171
H ENRY J ONE S F ORD Princeton N J
R I C H ARD S CH I LD S N ew York City
NO RMAN H APGOOD New York City
W OODROW W I LS ON Princeton N J
The author is Secretary with offices at 383
F ourth Avenue Ne w York
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Provision is made for the enrollment in our
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list of S hort B allot Advocates of any one
w h o believes in the Short B allot principle N o
E nrolled advocates
dues or duties
ther e
are twelve thous and of them now receive oc
c a s i on a l bulletins of Oppo r tunities to help and
to them our publications are free
We have been organized only a year at this
w riting but we have seeded the country with
pamphlets and publi city
and we are begin
ning to reap alr eady
Are you with us ?
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