a small one. Till then how can we make people in Philadelphia agitate themselves over the choice of a Common Councilor who is only one-one hundred and forty-ninth of one-half of the city legislature! That candidates should be conspicuous is vital. The people must be able to see what they are doing; they must know the candidates otherwise they are not in control of the situation, but are only going through the motions of controlling. It may be objected that to take the minor offices off the state ticket for instance and make them appointive by the Governor would be giving too much power to the Governor. Well, somebody, we rarely know who, practically appoints them now. To have them appointed by a recognized legally-constituted authority is surely better than to have them selected by a self-established coterie of politicians in a convention committee room. There is no great peril in concentrating power, provided we watch what is done with it. (Suppose we were electing by popular vote not only the President and Vice-President of the United States, but the cabinet, the Supreme Court and the other Federal Judges, the Federal marshals, district-attorneys and postmasters! Can you see how our American political superstitions would block all efforts to secure the present conspicuous responsibility?) How an overdose of electing creates oligarchy is illustrated in Tammany Hall, which would appear to be in its form of internal government the most perfect democracy conceivable. But the primary ballot contains from 300 to 1,000 names and bossism is thereby intrenched absolutely. The Short Ballot in Operation Fighting misgovernment now is like fighting the wind. We must get on a basis where the good intentions of the average voter find intelligent expression on the entire ballot so as to produce good government as a normal condition, i. e., good government which regularly gets re-elected as a matter of course by overwhelming majorities without a great fight. Impossible in this country? No! Galveston has it with its government by a Commission of Five. This Commission has without scandal carried through tremendous public improvements (raising the ground level to prevent another flood), and at the same time has reduced the public debt and the tax rate. That is good administration. More than that, it gets re-elected by overwhelming majorities and has not been in peril at any election. The "Old Crowd" that misgoverned this city for years holds only 20 per cent. of the vote now, and concedes without contest the reelection of three of the five good commissioners. And the total campaign expenses of electing the right men are only $350. It has been thought that this was the fruit of correct organization, analogous to a business corporation with its board of directors. But there are many other elected commissions and boards in the United States-"County Commissions," "Boards of Education," "Trustees of the Sanitary District," "Boards of Assessors," etc.—and they are not conspicuously successful, but in fact such organization often serves only to scatter responsibility and shelter corruption. No! Good government is entirely a matter of getting the right men in the first place. Nothing else is so vital. No system, however ingenious, will make bad men give good government or keep good men from getting superior results. To get the right men is first of all a matter of arranging for the maximum amount of concentrated public scrutiny at the election. Were it otherwise, we would find misgovernment in British cities which, except for this feature are ideally organized from an American grafter's point of view. The British city authorities are hampered most unjustly by a hostile House of Lords, their machinery of government is ancient and complicated, and their big councils with committees exercising executive management over the departments, with ample opportunity for concealment of wrongdoing, with no restraining civil service examinations, with one-tenth of the laboring population on the municipal pay rolls would apparently provide an impregnable paradise for the American politician of the lowest type. But the ballot for an English municipal election can be covered by the palm of the hand. It contains usually the names of two candidates for one office, member of the Council for the ward. (The Council elects the Mayor, the Aldermen and all other city officers.) Blind voting on so short a ballot is hardly conceivable. Every voter is a complete politician in our sense of the word. The entire intelligence of the community is in harness, pulling, of course, toward good government. An American ward politician in this barren environment, unaided by any vast blind vote, could only win by corrupting a plurality of the whole electorate, a thing that is easily suppressed by law even if it were not otherwise a manifest impossibility. So there are no ward politicians in England, no professional politics, and misgovernment is abnormal. This is a typical official ballot (actual size) for an English election. It shows the names of two candidates for a single office-Councilor from the ward. The people simply make one choice, and accordingly know just what they are doing on election day. The scrutiny of the people thus concentrated bars out unfit candidates almost automatically. Similarly Galveston concentrated the attention of the voters sharply upon candidates for only five offices, all very important. The press could give adequate attention to every one and in consequence every intelligent voter in his easy chair at home formed opinions on the whole five and had a definite notion of the personality of every candidate. In such a situation the ward politician had no function. There was no ignorant laissez-faire, no mesh of detail for him to trade upon. He became no more powerful than any other citizen, and his only strength lay in whatever genuine leadership he possessed. Moreover, if he nominated men who could stand the fierce limelight and get elected, they would, ipso facto, probably be men who would resist his attempt to control them afterward. Or if they did cater to him it would be difficult to do his bidding right in the concentrated glare of publicity where the responsibility could be and, what is much more vital, would be, correctly placed by every voter. And so the profession of politics went out of existence in Galveston and the ward politician who had misgoverned the city for generations went snarling into oblivion. The Galveston plan might be better yet if the Commissioners were elected one at a time for long terms in rotation. Then the public scrutiny at election time would focus still more searchingly on the candidates and merit would increase still further in value as a political asset. "Politics," seeking re-entrance into Galveston, would make department heads, etc., elective ("make them directly responsible to the people and let the pee-pul rule"). Suppose that they should increase the Commission to thirty members elected "at large" with variegated powers and functions. Straightway tickets, cooked up by "leaders," would reappear, and the voter, facing a huge list of names, most of which he had hardly heard of would impotently "take program" and concede control to a little but active minority, the politicians. But suppose again that the enlarged commission be elected not "at large," but by wards, one member to a ward. The voter again has only one decision to make, instead of thirty. Newspaper publicity is weakened by division, but this weakness is now repaired by neighborhood acquaintance and the candidate's opportunity to make himself personally known to a large portion of his constituency. Once more, the voter registers an opinion instead of blindly ratifying the work of a party organization. The ward politician is again left without a function. His popularity may avail in certain wards, and he may thus elect some of the commission, but he will not have from any citizen who is intelligent enough to do his own thinking that blind acquiescence which in other conditions had been the bedrock of his power. Conclusion Just how we are to get rid of the great undigested part of our long ballot is a small matter so long as we get rid of it somehow. Govern a city by a big Board of Aldermen, if you like, or by a Commission as small as you dare make it. Readjust State constitutions in any way you please. Terms of tenure in office can be lengthened. Many officers, now elected, can be appointed by those we do elect. But manage somehow to get our eggs into a few baskets-the baskets that we watch. For remember we are not governed by public opinion, but by public-opinionas-expressed-through-the-pencil-point-of-the-Average-Voter-in-his-electionbooth. And that may be a vastly different thing! Public opinion can only work in broad masses, clumsily but with tremendous force. To make a multitude of delicate decisions is beyond its blunt powers. It can't play the tune it has in mind upon our complicated political instrument. But give it a keyboard simple enough for its huge, slow hands, and it will thump out the right notes with precision! There is nothing the matter with Americans. We are by far the most intelligent electorate in the world. We are not apathetic. Apathy is a purely relative matter depending on how much is asked. Ask much of the people and you will see more apathy than if you ask little. If the people of Glasgow were asked to attend caucuses, primaries, conventions and rallies in support of the best candidates for Coroner, they too would stay home by their firesides and let the worst man have it. If they had our long ballot they would be in a worse mess than we are with it. And if we, on the other hand, could get their handy short ballot, we too would use it creditably. For our human nature is no worse than theirs. The Scotch immigrant in our midst is no more active a citizen than the rest of us. We are not indifferent. We do want good government. And we can win back our final freedom on a short ballot basis! A INDEX Abbott, A. C., The Essentials of Suc- Accounts. See Finance and Local Adams, Henry C., on taxation in Adams, John, judicial appointments, Adams Express Company, lawsuit, Admission of new states. See States. Alabama, direct primary in, 306; Albany (N. Y.), railway terminus, 534. 80, 453, 456, 457; to state con- 457, 459; Fourteenth, 47, 78, 372, American Academy of Political Science, American Association for Labor Legis- American Bar Association, 289, 295; American Fair Trade League, policy, American Federationist, 578, 579, 590. 578-580, 590; lawsuit, 150; school American Medical Association, Jour- American Political Science Review, American Publishers' Association, 576; American Society of Mechanical En- American Year-Book, 365, 451, 554. Andrews, John B., A National System Animal Industry, Bureau of, 194, 198; Appeals, Circuit Court of, organiza- 660 INDEX and Federal Trade Commission, | Baltimore and Ohio Railway, lawsuit, Appointing power, of president, 14- Apportionment, basis of, 47. Arbitration, federal, 27; treaties for, Archbald, Robert W., impeached, 83. Army, of United States, administra- Associated Press, functions of, 39. 575- Atlantic Coast Line, suit against, 210, Audit of federal taxation, 108, 109. B Baldwin, Simeon E., on the Constitu- Ballot, various forms, 307-309. See 135, 511. Banking and Currency Committee, in Barnes, H. Edgar, and Milner, B. A., Beard, Charles A., views on elections, 295. Beard, Charles A. and Shultz, Birl E., Iowa, 451. Boycott, and the Clayton Act, 149– 151, 173, 177, 294. 1 |