minor state officers and the direct primary in the selection of the chief executive and lieutenant-governor. The fact that the direct primary adds additional expense to an already overburdened political machine is used as argument in favor of the convention. Mr. Dunlap says that in theory the primary is the ideal manner of nomination, but where there is no enforcement of the laws and its penalties are full of loopholes, the direct primary becomes impotent and but a shadow of what it really should be. If there could be awakened a determination to enforce our election laws, then the direct primary would be best. Opinions of Newspaper Editors The opinion of the editors is a tie upon this question. The following editors are in favor of the convention: Mr. Sherman of the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Times, Mr. Thompson of the Idaho Daily Statesman, Mr. Cheney of the Minneapolis Journal and Mr. Sanford of the Reno Evening Gazette. According to Mr. Thompson, under the convention plan, the undesirable candidates can be eliminated for the good of the ticket, and, further, there are men who would accept a convention nomination who would have nothing to do with a direct primary. He also believes that a platform cannot be brought into harmony with candidates and candidates into harmony with the platform except by a convention. Opinion is also expressed that under the convention system it is possible to eliminate personal antagonisms and bring about harmony and draft a good man for office. In the convention the party's policy can be determined, instead of leaving the task to an individual, as in the case of the primary. The result would be that the people of the state would vote intelligently on issues and locate responsibility. The fear of control through combinations is given as a reason why the direct primary is preferable to the convention. The Hon. Josephus Daniels of the News and Observer of North Carolina, believes that the direct primary gives a better chance to the people than the state convention. He holds that the primary fails only when the people lack interest, or when the party machine is so powerful that the people feel that there is no opportunity to win against the bosses. Opinions of Professors of Political The instructors in the science of government by a majority of one favor the party nominating convention as against the direct primary. Professor Phillips favors the former, as does the professor of political science at Williams College, Professor Loeb of the University of Missouri, Professor Maxey of Western Reserve University, Professor Geiser of Oberlin College, Professor Hall of the University of Wisconsin. Professor Hall says that in his judgment the convention plan is decidedly preferable because: (1) It provides for majority control; (2) it makes for party solidarity and responsibility; (3) it places a premium upon leadership of the party, rather than upon irresponsible newspapers, and the caprice of a popular election where no public opinion can exist. He holds that many excellent candidates have been chosen upon the advice of party leaders, who never would have been candidates under the primary system. Professor Geiser of Oberlin College, is inclined to favor the convention plan if the long ballot is retained, but only if it is. Five professors favor the direct primary. They are: Professors West of Leland Stanford University, Ray of Northwestern University, Fairlie of the University of Illinois, Haines of the University of Texas and Laube of the University of Washington. Opinion is expressed that if the old convention system was restored, fewer voters would take the trouble to go to the polls to choose delegates than go now to the primaries to directly nominate their candidates. People must not be allowed to forget the rottenness of the old convention system which is now being lugged forward by the political machinists as a substitute for the direct primary. It is pointed out that the party nominating convention has notoriously delivered the state into hands of special interests and their party agents. IV. IS PARTY RESPONSIBILITY OB- MORE VALUE TO OUR SYSTEM OF Opinions of Governors A majority of the governors replying to this question consider the direct primary of more value than the party convention. The seven who oppose the convention are: Governors Russell, Dixon, McKelvie, Boyle, Davis, Blaine and Carey. They suggest the following reasons why the primary is preferable: The state's business is not the party's business, it is the people's business; it is not possible to have representative government through any method other than the direct primary, and if the method of making nominations under the direct primary is hedged about with the proper safeguards, it is still possible to maintain party responsibility, and yet put the work of nominating candidates more directly in the hands of the people. Governor Shoup of Colorado states that the direct primary has failed of its purpose, and should be revised or modified. He favors the convention system. Governor Mabey of Utah is the other who favors the convention as against the direct primary. Opinions of Chairmen of Political Of the eleven chairmen of political parties giving their opinions upon this question, eight favor the nominating convention and three oppose it. The following favor the convention: Mr. Lynch, Democrat; Mr. Lyman, Democrat; Mr. Kennedy, Republican; Mr. Harris, Republican; Mr. VanHorne, Republican; Mr. Fisher, Democrat; Mr. Pollard, Democrat; and Mr. Dunlap, Democrat. Mr. Pollard is of the opinion that the party, whose tag all the candidates bear, can claim no responsibility for the action of the candidate under the primary law. Mr. Fisher believes that the best government is composed of two strong political parties, each watching the other and each ready to go before the people and lay bare the record of each, therefore allowing the people to choose the party giving them the best government. He says that the difficulty with the direct primary in Tennessee is that many people will not vote so as to be free to vote as they desire in the regular election. This tends to destroy party unity and when party unity is destroyed, the government has been struck a tremendous blow. Opinion is also expressed that the party responsibility obtained through the party nominating convention is more valuable to our system of government than the primary with its reserve power. Three chairmen oppose the nominating convention. They are Mr. Cady, Republican; Mr. Hurley, Democrat; and Mr. Rogers, Republican. It is maintained that party responsibility is secondary to the responsibility of the officer to his constituency, and that party responsibility is as often avoided through the convention as it is assumed. Most of the trouble from political evils is due to the general inertia on the part of the public and to the great energy and astuteness on the part of the professional politician. Opinions of Newspaper Editors Four of the editors favor party responsibility of the convention, and three favor the direct primary. Mr. Sherman of the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Times advocates a combination of party responsibility with the initiative power of the direct primary. He holds that the worst feature of the primary is the fact that the voters are. so poorly informed regarding the candidates. The result is that we often get worse candidates than we would through the old party convention. The convention is also held favorably by Mr. Thompson of the Idaho Statesman, Mr. Cheney of the Minneapolis Journal and Mr. Sanford of the Reno Evening Gazette. It is maintained that party responsibility is much to be desired, and that through the primary system the public loses the services of men who are unwilling to offer themselves as voluntary candidates, but whose candidacy could be obtained through convention nominations. Mr. Sanford believes that a sense of responsibility prevails in a convention which is not to be found to the same extent in a direct primary. Mr. Jones of the Nebraska State Journal, Mr. Newbranch of the Omaha World-Herald, and Mr. Kelly of the Sioux City Tribune take the opposite point of view. Mr. Newbranch maintains that popular power is a bigger thing than party responsibility. According to Mr. Kelly, party expediency always overrules responsibility and pledges, and party personal responsibility is not so binding as personal responsibility. Opinions of Professors of Political Of the eleven instructors in political science giving their opinions, eight consider the reserve power secured by the direct primary of more value than party responsibility. Those who favor party responsibility through the conventions are, Professors Phillips, Loeb and Hall. They hold that the party is a specialized institution, and ought to take care of the function of nominations better than the people. Furthermore, any method other than party responsibility imposes too many burdens upon the elector, presupposes too much continuous interest and observation of his representatives, and too intimate a knowledge of the details of the various offices which are now filled by popular election. Eight of the professors favor the reserve power of the direct primary. They are: Professors West, Ray, Fairlie, Maxey, Geiser, Haines, Laube and the professor of political science at Williams College. Professor Ray believes that the party responsibility which went with the convention system is a good deal exaggerated. The politician realizes that the term "Responsibility" is a good talking point in trying to "sell" again to the public the old convention system under which bossism and machine rule flourished as under no other system. The opinion is expressed that party responsibility is of less than no value where the responsibility does not run through the party to the electorate. The party nominating system in practice destroyed the responsibility by delivering the agencies of government into the hands of political corruptionists. Reform of Presidential Nominating Methods By P. ORMAN RAY, PH.D. Professor Political Science, Northwestern University THE HE nomination of presidential candidates has given rise to some of the most baffling problems in the whole field of American government and politics-problems which challenge the ingenuity of party leaders and professional politicians, on the one hand, and of disinterested political scientists, on the other. Unfortunately, however, little has been attempted and still less has been accomplished in an endeavor to reach a solution which is consistent with twentieth century ideals of democracy. HAPHAZARD METHODS Without serious deviation from the truth, one may say that our methods of selecting presidential candidates, like Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin, have "just grow'd." Not even in the heyday of the old congressional caucus; nor later when the delegate convention was hailed as the ideal organ for expressing the vox populi; nor in the last dozen years, which have witnessed the grafting of the direct primary upon the convention system, has there been united and sustained effort on the part of press, politicians, or publicists, to develop a rational method for the selection of candidates for the highest office within the gift of the American people. Until very recently each party has been, and in the main still is, a law unto itself in the matter of nominating its candidates; and that law, as reflected in the rules and proceedings of the national nominating conventions of the major parties, has been more largely the result of haphazard growth than of a conscious or deliberate effort to provide means for full and free expression of the sentiment of the mass of party voters. IGNORANCE OF THE VOTER Popular ignorance and indifference regarding presidential nominating processes are astonishing and would be almost incredible were it not for the fact that, as things now are, the ordinary voter's influence in the winnowing of the aspirants for the presidential nomination is almost nil. Certainly, taking the country by and large, it can scarcely be gainsaid that Mr. Average Voter has practically no direct influence in determining the presidential and vice-presidential nominees of his party. That is all done for him by an extra-legal and irresponsible national convention composed of delegates who are personally unknown to him, for whom he may have had no opportunity to vote, with whose presidential preferences or political views he may be wholly unacquainted, and whose organization and proceedings in national convention are governed by no law, state or national. As a result the only real influence which the average voter has in the choice of President and VicePresident is exercised on presidential election day. Even then, all that he can do is to indicate his preference between the candidates which the Democratic and the Republican national conventions have seen fit to submit for his formal approval; or, if dissatisfied with these, he may exercise the inestimable privilege of "throwing away" his ballot by voting for the candidates of some third party whose running probably will not have the slightest influence upon the result presidential aspirants; and because of the election. PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY LAWS The national convention system, however sound in theory, as an embodiment or application of the representative principle to the selection of party candidates and as supplying a certain kind of leadership in party affairs, has, nevertheless, in actual practice, become thoroughly discredited and is today an object of very general suspicion. As a protest against the relegation of the electorate to the position of a mere ratifying body, mere ratifying body, and as a repudiation of the tacit assumption that although the voters are admittedly competent to elect their President and Vice-President, they are incapable of nominating them directly, nearly half of the states have enacted during the past twelve years what are called presidential primary laws. Though varying greatly in details, they all have this in common: they are attempts, crude to be sure but on the whole sincere, to give the rank and file of party voters a more direct voice in naming presidential candidates than they have previously enjoyed. Underlying all the presidential primary laws are two definite principles: first, that delegates to a national convention shall be elected as directly as possible by the voters; and, second, that the voters shall be given an opportunity, as directly as possible, to impress upon the delegates their choice for presidential candidates. Many supporters of the national convention system who concede the desirability of a more direct method of choosing delegates than has prevailed generally in the past, nevertheless are unalterably opposed to the presidential primary because, as they claim, the people are incapable of choosing wisely among the various better selections can be made for them by a "deliberative" body, like the national convention, representing all parts of the country. runs the To this contention advocates of the presidential primary reply that the people are rather more likely to choose wisely their candidates for President and Vice-President than their candidates for the less conspicuous state, county, or local offices, to which the direct primary method is very generally applied. Indeed, so argument, "there is no other political office which the people watch as closely as they do the contest for the first place on the national tickets of the great political parties every four years; the result is that in no other phase of political activity is the average voter better qualified than he is to choose candidates for President of The voters, the United States."1 to be sure, may not always choose wisely their candidates for President and Vice-President, any more than they always make wise selections for state and local offices. But those who claim the presidential primary is sound in principle, insist that it is better that the people should make their own mistakes than that they should be required to endure the mistakes which a handful of convention manipulators may make for them. They reiterate that if the voters can be trusted to choose between candidates for office, they can be trusted to choose between candidates for nomination. "Grant the blunders and confess the disappointments, the true question is whether the presidential primary properly safeguarded, is not better fitted than the old way to satisfy the people that their wishes are respected in the election of their rulers. To create such a feeling of satisfaction is one 1 Outlook, C, 164 (1912). |