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mary. Maine leaves the basis of representation, time, place, and call for the state convention in the hands of the state committee, as does Washington, where the committee could apparently constitute itself the platform agency. In practice the Democrats have elected their delegates in county mass conventions and this year they adopted a still broader plan of recognizing any person who appeared at the state convention as a delegate, and assigned him to the proper county, which was given a proportionate vote, the strength of which in the convention he did not affect.

PRIMARY NOMINEES CONSTITUTE
PLATFORM AUTHORITY

In many states the nominees of the primary, associated usually with a larger or smaller group of party officials, constitute the platform authority. In Wisconsin the candidates for state offices and for state senate and assembly nominated by each party at the primary, and the holding senators whose term extends beyond the first Monday of the ensuing year, frame the platform. California

admits also the candidates for congressional office and allows the election of delegates from districts to which no holdover senator belongs. New Hampshire includes ad hoc or regular delegates elected at the primary. Colorado adds the state chairman. But there are really three platforms in a Colorado campaign. The state assembly of each party which has power to designate aspirants

for the various state nominations, drafts a platform in general terms which most aspirants for nomination endorse, in order to secure votes in the primary election; then there are the personal platforms of the primary nominees; and finally the official plat

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form adopted as above stated. party council in Kansas consists of the same candidates as in Wisconsin and in addition candidates for United States senator and representative, holding United States senators, the national committeeman, and the chairmen of the county committees. In Kansas also, at least in presidential years, it seems that a preliminary convention, unofficial, offers suggestions to the party council and perhaps to the primary voters. This year such a Democratic convention proposed from one to eight candidates for the several state offices. The Arizona plan, and also the Montana and Missouri plans, are almost identical with the Kansas scheme, except for the inclusion of the state committeemen instead of the county chairmen. New Jersey includes the state committeemen but not the candidates for national office. Moreover, state committeemen are directly elected at the primary, one from each county, only twenty-one in all. The election law compilation of Minnesota for 1920 still carried the provision for a party council which included the nominees of each party for the state legislature, although non-partisan nomination had been provided for members of the legislature in 1913. What the practice was under this law is not known to the writer.

Although the Maryland law provides for a state convention it makes no reference to a party platform. Delaware and Connecticut, without the

direct primary, apparently make no mention of a platform agency, nor was any law on the subject found in the Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Kentucky, or Arkansas statutes. Party rules may provide for platforms as in Arkansas, where the Democratic practice is almost the same as that established by law in Nebraska. The primary rules of the Democratic Party in Virginia refer to conventions but not to platforms. The Pennsylvania law makes no provision for state conventions nor platforms. Although the rules of the Republican Party provide for a platform promulgated by the state committee, the committee has never functioned in this respect. In some years the pre-primary platforms of the candidates are used and in other years the campaign is conducted under the national platform. Wyoming and Ohio statutes make no provision for platforms in "off" years, i.e., other than presidential. In Ohio, party rules seem to call for a sort of party council in these off years. In Maryland this year the Republican platform was not printed in pamphlet form, nor in Wisconsin the Democratic. The first state convention in ten years was held this year in Alabama. There have been no platforms in Tennessee since the adoption of the direct primary. While the direct primary system in Oregon does not prohibit conventions for the making of platforms, the parties have not made them. Aspirants for nomination may submit with their designating petitions a one-hundred-word statement of principles and select a twelve-word slogan to appear on the primary ballot.

1 Hale Smith, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Colorado and Secretary of the Democratic State Committee, and to the governor-elect.

VARIED FORMS OF PLATFORM
AUTHORITY

In summary, it may be said that the platform authority may be a convention of delegates elected and meeting before the primary, or a convention of delegates elected at the primary and meeting afterward; the members may be directly chosen by the voters or indirectly by subsidiary conventions;

and again these conventions may or may not have authority to propose candidates for nomination at the primary, as in South Dakota or Minnesota; or may or may not have power to make final nominations as in New York, Michigan, Indiana and Idaho; or in Connecticut, New Mexico and other states which have never adopted the direct primary. Or the platform authority may consist of the candidates for state office, or these and also the candidates for national office, or either or both along with a number of party officials.

It is next to impossible to learn much about the forces at work back of the formal platform-making machinery attempting to influence or determine the platform content. It is probable that resolutions committees almost everywhere hear proposals from individuals and organizations outside the party. It is a matter of common knowledge that the platform drafts are usually prepared by one or more individuals before the meeting of the resolutions committee or party council and that the latter act only as more or less critical revising bodies. The leaders of the parties probably have little trouble as a rule in carrying out within limits their ideas. In the Democratic Party in Michigan, the state chairman through correspondence and interviews with prominent party men, gains a view of the probable position of the party on various questions. His draft of a platform is hurriedly and superficially considered by a resolutions committee and only once in twelve years has an amendment to its report been offered on the floor of the convention. In Maryland the Republican state chairman follows much the same plan. In New Jersey the state chairman writes the skeleton of a platform after two conferences with leading citizens, which is elaborated after discussion by a larger group at of men and women the day before the meeting of the state convention (counta cil?) a committee of which conducts a hearing and usually secures the adoption of this platform as read to the convention just before its adjournment. The Illinois Republican chairman writes that "many interests are present at conventions, urging, cajoling and sometimes threatening. These may be labor unions, business interests, teachers, physicians, fraternal orders, welfare societies and other organizations, some of which ■ exist only on paper. They usually work openly and frankly and do not confine themselves to one party."

The writer does not recall any provision of state law designed to prevent bribery or improper influence over the platform authority. It is conceivable,

- however, that the content of a party platform might determine the outcome of an election. In Iowa the party organization of 3,500 persons is thought to be the most important influence back of the official machinery. It is reported that the New Hampshire Republican platform was given to the newspapers in its final form twentyfour hours before the convention (council) met. The Democratic platform committee consisted of an exUnited States representative and member of the shipping board, five women, an ex-governor, an Episcopal rector prominent as the friend of striking textile workers, a state bank commissioner, three farmers, a leading corporation lawyer, an official of the state federation of labor and a young French lawyer regarded as a leader among his people. It must be admitted that such a group, so adequately representative of all phases of opinion, should be able to draft a platform that would look in all directions at the same time. Obviously in states where

the direct primary has been adopted, but the party delegate convention retained as the platform authority, no attempt has been made to gear the candidates to the party principles. The degree to which the party organization has in such cases been kept in the control of the opponents of the primary, even when the members of the state committee are elected directly at the primary, is remarkable. Nevertheless, in such cases the primary nominees probably exercise great influence over the content of the platform. This year in Nebraska the Republican candidates for state offices met once or twice before the convention to consider the position they wished the party to take in the campaign. The convention was very receptive to their suggestions although it is said conventions have not always been

SO.

EFFECT OF DIRECT PRIMARY ON PARTY PLATFORM

The general effect of the direct primary on the party platform may be considered at this point. In Alabama, platforms are said to have fallen into a state of innocuous desuetude; in Illinois, the delegates are content to leave the platform—“superfluous and of no consequence"-to the successful candidate at the primary; in Arkansas, the tendency is for the counties to say, "the governor has been nominated and we will send his friends to the state convention," which usually adopts his recommendations; in Kansas, the primary is said to have had no effect on the platform, nor in Michigan "except to permit candidates to dodge responsibility to their party"; in North Dakota, the platform-makers generally consult with the nominees and the primary has rendered the platform less "sacred"; in Arizona the primary has beneficially affected platform making (the platforms in Arizona this year seem to be quite adequately described, however, as composed of "glittering generalities"); in Maryland the primary throws the initiative more into the party officials' hands; in Colorado it has made at least the preliminary platform more general; in Iowa it has "somewhat destroyed it," or has caused platforms to be ignored, since candidates define their own platforms and might as well officially frame them, or has caused platforms to be superfluous; in Washington platforms are simply "sugar to catch flies" (but see above) since as long as the candidate refuses to acknowledge party control there can be no platforms expressing a real conviction upon big vital questions. The advisory plan in Washington showed a weakness in that the state chairmen found difficulty in getting together a working committee and when the advisory platforms reached the resolutions committees of the conventions, one point only was kept in mind, "Will this get the voters, and what will the reaction be?" The platforms adopted read nicely but there was a similarity in all the platforms on all the general principles enunciated. From New Jersey comes the opinion that prior to 1911, the date of the adoption of the direct primary for state offices, state platforms were largely made for suckers, but that now the platforms made by candidates have meant very nearly what they said and a performance on the pledges is always brought forward by the party in power as an argument for its retention. This correspondent and another note that the Republican nominee for governor carried through the convention his personal platform on utilities in spite of some opposition from the party leaders. This quotation from an Oregon irreconcilable may be worth while: ". hence we

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have no organized body in a party which may adopt a platform. Each self-appointed saviour of the 'dear peepul' mixes up his own molasses when he becomes a candidate in the primary election; nominated, usually runs his own campaign, the state committee and county committees trailing along behind, endeavoring to keep up some semblance of party organization; elected, he gives the people an individual responsibility and not a party responsibility in the administration of the affairs of his office, and upon the expiration of his term becomes the object of cut-throat attack upon the part of other members of his so-called party who seek to defeat him for renomination; in office, he builds his own personal machine, and the regular party organization takes the 'hindmost.” This year a convention of nominees and members of state and county committees was called and a platform adopted, all of which was so much time wasted because of a fight upon the K. K. K. and the school bill.

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The Iowa situation this year was interesting. It seems that the party managers, convinced that Brookhart would not receive the 35 per cent of the party primary vote required to constitute a nomination, devoted their efforts to electing delegates to control the state convention, which they thought would be called upon to nominate. Consequently about 80 per cent of the convention was opposed to Brookhart, the party nominee. However, one writer states that the platform was that of a minority of the party, and Brookhart the nominee of a majority, although he received about 40 per cent of the vote and had four or five opponents. At any rate, the convention did not endorse nor denounce Brookhart, and softened its platform in order to avoid an open party split.

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+ by the "interests," if Brookhart is to be believed. One writer says that Brookhart accepted the platform, another that the people elected an extremely radical Republican on a conservative platform in preference to a conservative Democrat on a radical platform. One view is that the majority of the people of Iowa did not accept Brookhart's program, but that he was elected because he had obtained the Republican nomination, which is equivalent to an election. Here, then, is where party regularity in action spelled progressive success. No doubt the Non-Partisan Leaguers owe something elsewhere to party regularity. It seems that 80,000 fewer votes were cast for senator than for governor, and that the Republican governor had a majority of 250,000 while Brookhart's was only 150,000.

PLATFORMS REDUCED TO
INSIGNIFICANCE

Granted that platforms ever meant anything, we have succeeded in reducing them in the main to insignificance, although a strong statement comes from Arizona, which one cannot avoid thinking is either naive or partisan: "Nothing was adopted in the platform that was not intended in good faith to be performed after election by the party and officers." Some voices are raised in Washington, New Jersey, Iowa, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Maryland to the effect that platforms carry considerable weight in campaigns. From three or four states comes the suggestion that platforms are of little moment when the parties are not evenly matched. An Iowa editor believes that since labor, farmers, and chambers

of commerce have become so well organized, the platforms have more influence than ever before. But majority opinion holds the platforms in slight esteem. "The voters in the general elections know nothing of the platform and care nothing about it," from Arkansas, matches the following from Michigan, "I should venture to say that not one voter in a thousand in Michigan ever reads a party platform."

And is this not encouraging to the reformer? Is not an assumption of the meaninglessness of platforms and of party differences involved in ticketsplitting when practiced as to party candidates within the same field of government, and in the movement for the Massachusetts ballot? Else what consistency among the few hundred thousand Californians who in 1916 voted for a senator to make laws and a president to veto them? Or in Nebraska this year, where Kansas' position on the industrial court is duplicated on the "code"? If parties have not principles, how can voters be expected to read platforms which might not correspond to principles even if such there were? We seem to have fairly definitely decided to give up an attempt at party government for the present in the states, several of them, at least, as we have done in so many cities. If this is so, then any legal provision whatever for a common presentation of principles or program by two or more candidates would seem to be folly, whether by convention or by party council.

Several party leaders from Michigan, Maryland, New York, Washington, Oregon, North Dakota and Ohiooppose a candidates' platform on the ground that the “party members" or "voters" or "people" should determine the principles upon which they wish their candidates to stand.

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