who advocate it have at every step had to contest the way with political machines, and all of the power and resourcefulness of these machines has been used to defeat the direct primary. Where they have not been successful in defeating the law, they have sometimes succeeded in keeping in the law objectionable features, placed there often for the sole and only purpose of making the law objectionable.

CONCLUSION

It can be safely stated that the great majority of the American people are in favor of the direct primary, and that politicians, men seeking a selfish advantage, political machines, and combinations of special interests, constitute the vast majority of those who are opposed to it. It has some objectionable features, but upon examination it is found that practically every one of these applies with equal force to the convention. Many of these objections can be entirely eliminated as far as the direct primary is concerned, and practically all of them can be partially eliminated. The direct primary re

lieves the party and party_machinery of a great deal of its responsibility, and places this responsibility upon the individual voter. The intelligent American citizen assumes this responsibility with a firm determination of performing his full duty by informing himself upon all the questions pertaining to government. It therefore results in a more intelligent electorate, and as this intelligence increases, it results in better government. Experience will bring about improvement as the necessity is shown to exist by practice. It will not bring the millennium and it will not cure all of the defects of government, but it will relieve many of the admitted evils and act as a great school of education for the common citizen. The artificial enthusiasm created by the convention system which makes it easy to deceive the people will give way to the enlightened judgment of reason that will pervade the firesides and homes of a thinking, patriotic people. A citizenship that is sufficiently intelligent to vote at a general election will never surrender to others the right to name the candidates at that election.

THE

HE most significant fact revealed by a study of the direct primary is that one cannot carefully view it in theory and practice from its various angles without a hesitating skepticism as to its merits and defects. Concerning no political question is thoughtful opinion more divided. Though this great experiment in popular control has been in operation under our very eyes for three decades, the conclusions concerning its virtue vary from a faith which sees in it the near approach of the political millennium, to a pessimism which foreshadows the end of the present form of democracy. Neither has public opinion nor have legislative bodies come to any definite conclusions concerning the value of the primary as an agent to bring government nearer the people.

New York, one of the first states to adopt the direct primary idea, has returned to the convention system for the nomination of candidates for the United States Senate, for elective state officers and for justices of the Supreme Court; while representatives to Congress, to both branches of the state assembly, to county and city offices are still chosen in general at the direct primaries. Opinion as to the wisdom of this change is as diverse as the methods of nomination itself. Idaho has tried the direct primary, found it wanting and has returned to the convention system for state officials with apparently general satisfaction in the return to the simpler method. Limitations upon space forbid an extensive account of the recent changes in the states, but it is safe to say that at present in most of the states

where the direct primary has been state-wide and applying to all elective offices within the state, there is a general movement to return to the convention system either for general state and judicial offices, or for a modification of the law in some form toward a deliberative process such as a convention affords.

Nor can it be truly said, as many writers assert, that the opposition to the primary comes almost entirely from the politicians or machine men of the party. It varies with the state and the interests affected. In South Dakota we have perhaps the best example where the politicians and the machine organization have attempted to defeat the will of the people. There a struggle of eighteen years against the machine resulted in what seems to be a victory for the politicians, for during that period four direct votes of the people in favor of a real direct primary were as often set aside by political manipulations of doubtful methods and even by court decisions. But to say that opposition to the direct primary always or even generally comes only through sinister influence, is to simplify the problem beyond recognition and come to conclusions that a study of the undercurrents of the movement does not justify.

REASONS FOR OPPOSITION TO PRIMARY IN CALIFORNIA

A summary of opinions collected last summer from some of the most representative and thoughtful men and women in various parts of California, where the primary idea in some form

has been in operation for half a century, stated in general terms, bases opposition upon the following facts:

(1) that it lowers party responsi

bility;

(2) that it breaks down the party-
government principle;

(3) that it is too expensive;
(4) that the campaign extends over
too long a period of time, thus
taking too much time of
candidates seeking reelection

that should be devoted to the
duties of their office;
(5) that it results in government
by newspapers, and,

(6) that it creates a ballot that makes intelligent voting impossible.

All of the above are valid reasons for opposing the direct primary; and, it may be said in passing, too little attention has been given by those interested in good government to these phases of the problem, for they involve principles that are fundamental. Moreover, one may readily admit that opposition to a defective device or system, adopted to secure popular control of government, does not imply a desire to return to a former system equally bad. But the first essential to any improvement of present conditions is a recognition of the terms involved in the problem. With this in mind, I shall attempt in this paper to deal with principles rather than with statistics of votes, employing the latter only by way of illustration.

WHEREIN THE PRIMARY HAS FAILED

But whatever the defects or merits of the primary have been or may be in securing party responsibility and through it government responsible to the people-a sine qua non to all good government-it is not likely that the present primary laws will be generally

repealed and the convention system in its old form adopted in its place. Of some things, however, we may now The primary has not fulfilled the exspeak with comparative certainty. pectations of its early advocates; it has not brought forward better candidates in general; it has made elections more expensive; it has not increased the popular interest in elections to the extent that was antici

pated; it has not rid our political system of the boss; it has made it easier for the demagogue; it has degraded the press; and most important of all, it has, by adding a long list of names to the ballot, made it impossible for even the most intelligent and conscientious citizen to express a discriminating choice at the primary polls.

THE PRIMARY BALLOT IN CLEVELAND

Why, one is inclined to ask at the outset, even discuss the question of party responsibility or quality of candidates, or any other question pertaining to popular control of government, when the chief agency through which the voter has access to his political institutions is so cumbersome that he cannot operate it? Why theorize concerning the results of a system which in fact cannot be applied to the purpose for which it is intended? For example, in the last Ohio primary (August 8, 1922) the voter of Cleveland who received the Republican primary ballot was asked to choose candidates for 43 offices from a list of about 175 names. The choice included one candidate for governor out of a total of nine candidates; one lieutenant-governor out of eight candidates-in these offices not an impossible task; but it also included a selection of six senators out of twentyfour candidates, and sixteen representatives out of eighty candidates; and in both of these cases obviously

an impossible task was imposed, when one considers the total number of names on the ballot and the fiveminute time limit that may be imposed upon each voter in marking the ballot. While the illustration here given is taken from the largest city in the state, similar situations present themselves in Cincinnati, Toledo, Columbus and Dayton; and in village and rural communities the difference in favor of a more intelligent vote is one of small degree.

IN THE VILLAGE OF OBERLIN

A somewhat extensive personal inquiry among the voters in the village of Oberlin, having a population of about 5,000, revealed the fact that not a single voter who was asked whether he had been able to make a discriminating choice for every office on the primary ballot answered in the affirmative; not even the members of the party committee, though their knowledge of the candidates was more extensive than that of the average voter, could give adequate information concerning all of the names on their own party ballot. These are facts that must be faced in every consideration of the question of party responsibility, and in every attempt to bring government more directly under popular control; for the conditions imposed by these facts must be overcome before even the most enlightened electorate can gain access to those who control and administer the institutions and laws of a community or state.

PARTY RESPONSIBILITY

Party responsibility seems to have been lessened by the fact that in destroying the power of the machine it has taken the core of the party. This is shown by the practical disappearance of the Democratic Party from Wisconsin, where the political contest is now waged

between the Progressives headed by LaFollette and the old-time Republicans who were defeated in the last primaries. It has also lowered party cohesion and therefore responsibility, by taking from the organization the power of selecting candidates, thus causing a general loss of interest in the final outcome of election. When every one may easily become a candidate, interest wanes by the mere fact of numerous names of uninteresting and commonplace candidates who appeal neither to the imagination nor the intelligence of the average voter. The professional politician who runs for office makes an appeal to party loyalty through methods which, however unethical or degrading they may be, at least make for party spirit and devotion to the cause of an historic tradition connecting itself with Lincoln or Jackson.

EFFECT ON PARTY ORGANIZATION

The very idea, in fact, of the primary is based upon a revolt from the organization. In the very nature of the case, where the organization does not select the candidates it does not and cannot be held responsible to the voters for the quality of candidates selected, nor for their faithful performance of duty while in office. From an extensive inquiry among practical politicians, from those who favored and those who were opposed to the primary, I have found a general agreement to the effect that the primary tended to break up parties, weaken the party organization and therefore to dissipate responsibility. That this is true may be seen from the fact that where a candidate is strong enough to get himself nominated against the wishes of the party organization, he invariably appeals not only to the voter of his own party, but also to the independent and even the opposition

party. Thus in the last election in Ohio, a candidate for the General Assembly who received the nomination on the Republican ticket at the primary, sent one of his workers to a Democratic political meeting to appeal for votes. The fact that such a candidate is refused the endorsement of the party leaders in the machine organization necessarily makes for non-cooperation.

IS THE PARTY SYSTEM DOOMED? An important question then, in view of actual operation of nominating methods, is whether party organization and the party idea of government still have that sustaining virtue claimed for them which enables the average voter to get access through the party to the political institutions of the country, which in theory he is supposed to control. There are those who frankly say that the party system in the old sense is doomed and that some other institution or system will take its place. Nor is such a position without reason. There are evidences at hand to support this view in every country where the party system prevails; and while a general discussion of party government in foreign countries would lead us too far afield, it would be interesting and instructive to analyze the causes and motives for the formation of "blocs" and "coalitions" on the Continent and in England today. There may be nothing absolutely new under the sun, yet it may be seriously doubted whether a mere "post-war" allusion explains the motives that underlie the fall of dynasties, the quick change of ministries and the disregard of the representative idea of government as manifested in Soviet Russia. It is, of course, not strange that many of the governments of Europe could not long survive the cataclysmic crises of the Great War.

But the careful student of current politics, while he may be unable to explain, cannot fail to observe in the chaos of the political world today something very foreign to the old political order, whether for good or ill history alone can tell.

EVIDENCES OF PARTY DISSOLUTION

Confining our observations to party responsibility in America, it may be instructive to examine the motives or forces which under normal conditions unite men into a political party. Aside from the general tendency to react to a common stimulus, which may be in many cases neither more nor less than a desire to be on the winning or popular side; or aside from the inability to overcome the fatalistic trend of the multitude so difficult in all popular governments, what has hitherto kept a party together? Professor C. E. Merriam, in his excellent work on The American Party System summarizes the motives of party action as "habit, response to leaders, personal or group interest, economic or otherwise, the sense of community responsibility, the response to the appeal of the formula, specific gratification of desire for political-social contacts."

DISREGARD OF PARTY BY CERTAIN CANDIDATES

But even if we accept these varied motives as the cohesive power that makes for party unity and party spirit, the reason for adherence to a particular party is still unexplained; for similar motives might be urged as a cause for a break or revolt from a party instead of adherence to it. Why, for example, in the recent primaries in many states, have Republican or Democratic candidates at primaries rebuked their respective parties by the advocacy of principles which in no way, other than name, conformed to the tradi