THE MERIT SYSTEM DECREASES

MACHINE CONTROL

Historic civil service reform in this country began with the lower grades of employees and in many jurisdictions has never extended beyond them. In so far as it has succeeded in making them no longer mere pawns in the spoils game, it has helped to make the direct primary possible. Granting, for the sake of our argument, that the merit system has been haltingly and half-heartedly applied in many jurisdictions, that under the guise of civil service regulations political pull still works and party service is still demanded, the indisputable fact remains that it has weakened the "rings" and increased the efficacy of the direct primary as an instrument of revolt. Suppose that the large army of public employees, estimated at almost 3,000,000 for the national, state and local governments, were still in the grip of the spoils system as our fathers knew it. Each one would have to be a faithful, if not willing, worker in the party vineyard. Picture them added to the already large body of ward and county workers. The thought appalls one. A suggestion of what would result is found in those countries where not even lip worship is paid to the merit system, and where the whole public personnel, civil and military, are political serfs of the dominant party. The chance for spontaneous self-development of public opinion would be nil.

But while civil service reform has aided the direct primary as an engine of democracy, further progress is indispensable if the latter is to work well. The merit system in the lower grades has been obstructed by our failure to apply it in the higher grades of administrative appointments. Whether or not the higher executives can be selected by competitive examination is

debatable but does not concern us here. The important thing is that they be selected on the basis of executive ability and not as beneficiaries for party service. Until the higher administrative offices are amenable to the merit system, politics will continue to infest the lower grades; and so long will the organized army of the professional politician stand mobilized against a really popular nominating system.

Thus the short ballot idea, involving as it does more direct executive responsibility, reënforces and accelerates the merit system. And only through the merit system can we attain to the clear air in which the issues, about which public opinion crystallizes, can have free play. A well organized state machine backed up by a few thousand faithful municipal and county employes is too great an opponent for any form of direct primary successfully to withstand.

PRESENT COUNTY GOVERNMENT SUBVERSIVE OF POPULAR NOMINATIONS

County government is the last refuge of old-fashioned, selfish politics. In it survives, more than in any other governmental unit, the antiquated political organization. It typifies in the pure state the evils discussed above, unaffected by efforts towards change. It knows not civil service reform; it is untroubled by administrative reorganization. Its spoils have been aptly termed the base of political supplies. The state machine is a ganglion of which the county machines are the cells. The county court house is the primary unit of the state machine.

The vast expenditures of county government in the United States are considered as rightful spoils for the dominant party. Party good feeling and camaraderie are never disturbed by considerations of efficiency with the administrative discipline which it en

tails. Its functions being of a routine nature and its subject matter never dramatic, the county is allowed to drift on undisturbed. Activities in which it fails conspicuously may be taken away; the county itself is never reformed.

If the county primary had succeeded, it would have been nothing short of marvelous. The best argument against a return to the convention system is that such a system is based upon county organizations which feed at the court house.

ment is so changed that the political organization as such, is deprived of its unfair advantage. The long ballot and the spoils system (administration for political purposes) are the principal constituents of this unfair advantage. The field in which they operate today with greatest profit and least interference is county government. Deprived of this unfair advantage, we have nothing to fear from political organizations, which are necessary and useful. We can then view the pre-primary slate made up at the pre-primary

UNFAIR ADVANTAGE

The thesis of this article is that the direct primary will never be what we want it to be, until our form of govern

with equanimity. If popular elections are beneficial, there is nothing illogical about the direct primary.

It ought to have a fair trial.

Ο

UR government is founded upon the theory that the people are sufficiently intelligent to control their own government. The argument I shall make is based upon the truth of this assumption. The direct primary is simply a method by which the will of the people can be ascertained in the selection of those who shall make and administer the laws under which all of the people must live. There is nothing sacred about it. If a better method can be devised I would not hesitate to abandon it and throw it aside. Neither will I claim that it is perfect. It has many weaknesses and imperfections. Until we can find a better system we ought to devote our energies toward its improvement by making whatever amendments experience demonstrates are necessary, always having in view the fundamental principle that we are trying to devise a plan by which the people will come as nearly as possible into the control of their own government. We must not expect perfection. We cannot hope to devise a plan that will make it impossible for mistakes to occur. We cannot by law change human nature. Selfish, designing, and even dishonest men will sometimes be able to deceive a majority of the people, however intelligent and careful they may be. Every government, whatever may be the system of nominating candidates for office, ought to provide by law for the recall of its officials by the people. If the people should make a mistake they will correct it. If a public servant has been faithful and true to his trust, it will not be necessary for him to seek the approval of party bosses and machine

politicians for his own vindication. The direct primary is in fact a part of the system of our election machinery. It is just as important, and often more important, than the official election which follows. A people who are qualified to vote for candidates at the general election are likewise qualified to select those candidates at the direct primary election. It requires no more intelligence to vote at that election than it does at the regular election. To deny to the citizen the right to select candidates and to confine his suffrage rights solely to a decision as between candidates after they have been selected is, in reality, at least a partial denial of the right of suffrage. It very often means that the voter is given the right only to decide between two evils. The right, therefore, to select candidates is fundamental in a free government, and whenever this right is denied or curtailed, the government is being placed beyond the control of the people.

OBJECTIONS TO THE DIRECT PRIMARY

No better defense can be made of the direct primary than to consider the objections that are made to it. In doing this, it must be remembered that up to this time we have had but two systems. One is the old convention system and the other is the newer and more modern system of the direct primary. Those who are opposed to the latter, advocate the return to the convention system, and in doing this they point out various objections to the direct primary, which, they argue, are sufficient reason for discarding it. It is my purpose now to consider some of

these objections. Some of them, instead of being objections to the direct primary, are in reality arguments in its favor. Other objections made are only partially sound, while some of them are untrue in fact. If we are seeking better government and have no ulterior motive whatever, we ought to be constructive in our criticism. This I shall try my best to be. I am seeking to find the best system of nominating candidates. The defects of the direct primary system, even in its crude state, are so much less than the wrongs and evils of the convention system, that an intelligent people will not hesitate to adopt it rather than the long used and universally condemned convention system, and devote their energies in a fair and honest way to the enactment of laws that shall, as far as possible, eliminate the defects of the primary.

DOES THE DIRECT PRIMARY LOWER PARTY RESPONSIBILITY AND DECREASE THE PARTY SPIRIT?

One of the objections that is always made to the direct primary is that it takes away party responsibility.and breaks down party control. This objection is perhaps the most important of any that are made against the direct primary. Politicians, political bosses, corporations and combinations seeking special privilege and exceptional favor at the hands of legislatures and executive officials, always urge this as the first reason why the direct primary should be abolished. But this objection thus given against the direct primary I frankly offer as one of the best reasons for its retention.

The

direct primary will lower party responsibility. In its stead it establishes individual responsibility. It does lessen allegiance to party and increase individual independence, both as to the public official and as to the private

citizen. It takes away the power of the party leader or boss and places the responsibility for control upon the individual. It lessens party spirit and decreases partisanship. These are some of the reasons why the primary should be retained and extended. A party is only an instrumentality of government. Whenever, through party control, a public official casts any vote or performs any official act that is not in harmony with his own conscientious convictions, then the party spirit has become an instrument of injury to the body politic rather than a blessing. Laws enacted through such influences not only do not express the wishes and the will of the citizens, but it is in this way that bad laws are placed upon the statute book and good laws are often defeated. A public official should in the performance of his official duties be entirely non-partisan. Whenever he is otherwise, he is in reality placing his party above his country. He is doing what he conscientiously believes to be wrong with the people at large, in order that he may be right with his party.

The country Owes most of its progress to the independent voter, and it is a subject of great congratulation that his number is increasing at a wonderfully rapid rate. Partisanship blinds not only the public official but the ordinary citizen and tends to lead him away from good government. In a Republican stronghold, the machine politician deceives the people by asserting that he is an Abraham Lincoln Republican, while in the Democratic locality, the same class-official seeks to carry public favor by claiming a political relationship to Thomas Jefferson. It is the party spirit that enables these men to cover up their shortcomings. It is the party spirit on the part of the voter that causes him to be moved by such appeals. Party allegiance and

party control if carried to their logical end, would eliminate the independent voter entirely; and incidentally, it ought to be said that the independent voter is always condemned by the politicians and those in control of political parties.

The direct primary is comparatively new. The one circumstance more than any other that brought it into life was the evil in our government that came from the spirit of party. This evil grew from a small beginning and gradually increased until it pervaded and controlled our government. The means through which this evil spirit could most successfully work was the party convention. Its danger was seen long before it had reached a point where its evil was felt. Its demoralizing influence upon popular government was forcibly predicted by George Washington. He warned his countrymen in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. In speaking of party spirit in his Farewell Address, he said:

It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and, sooner or later, the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purpose of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.

He declared it was not only the duty but to the interest of a wise people to dis

courage and to restrain the party spirit. Again he said:

and in governments of a monarchial cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent it bursting into a flame, lest instead of warning, it should consume.

The direct primary does not seek the destruction of party, but it places its control directly in the hands of the voter. It lowers party responsibility, and to a certain extent takes away party government by placing country above party. If the primary had done nothing more than the one thing of substituting individual responsibility for party responsibility, thus doing away with party control, it would have given sufficient reason for its existence. DOES THE DIRECT PRIMARY GIVE THE NEWSPAPERS TOO MUCH POWER?

Another objection made to the direct primary is that it results in giving control over nominations to the newspapers. There is no doubt that the direct primary increases the influence and power of some newspapers. The newspaper that is true to its name, gives first of all, the news-unbiased, uncensored, and unprejudiced-and one whose editorial policy is open and fair will have its influence in political matters increased by the primary. This, however, is a good rather than a bad thing. The newspaper that publishes the truth and gives a true report of political news ought to have its power and its influence increased. The