to prey on other departments and is the creation of an official whose success will be measured in the public mind by his muckraking ability.

A legislature to enact and an executive to enforce the laws are foundation-stones of our government. Fear that by giving the executive full power to enforce the law he may do wrong is fear that the people have not intelligence or capacity to select their governor or their legislature, which may remove him. It is the fear of popular rule; of the hazard of democracy. Rule by the people can be better secured by giving to them simple means for exercising control through a single efficient and harmonious executive department, rather than by dividing that department in a manner that will destroy its harmony for fear that the people may sometimes be unfortunate in their choice.

BY MR. BALDWIN

I dissent from this so-called "Short Ballot Bill." However admirable the purpose, the means suggested are fallacious. The cure is worse than the ill. Centralized government might tend to economy, but it would inevitably bring discontent, and discontent destroys the mental poise of democracy. Popular government may not work for economy, but that is not sufficient reason for its destruction.

If the convention believe that oligarchy is better than democracy, let us be frank and tell the truth, and not deceive the people with a sugar-coated catch phrase. This plan would enthrone one man for four years. It would give him direct control of an army of more than 25,000 officers and employees. During his term he would direct state expenditures of more than $250,000,000. It would give such power as would have gladdened the heart of Alexander, the tyrant of Pheræ, or satiated the cupidity of that modern dictator, Castro of Venezuela.

The average voter does not understand the meaning of "Short Ballot." It is a cunning phrase. As applied to the needs of the people, it is not suggestive of its true significance. It does not satiate; it starves. It should not be called the "Short Ballot" but the "Short Ration." It does not give it takes away. It assumes incompetency, and proceeds on the theory that the people desire to surrender their voting rights.

Pure democracy, with its direct ballot, is impossible with 10,000,000 of people. Its opposite, an aristocracy or monarchy, is contrary to all our traditions. Our fathers gave us a middle course, representative government. To this let us cling. The constitution is the embodiment of the experience of the past. It needs repose, not change.

CHAPTER IX

A DISCUSSION OF THE AMENDMENTS OFFERED BY THE COMMITTEE ON THE GOVERNOR AND OTHER STATE OFFICERS-THE TANNER PROPOSAL

BY HON. ELIHU ROOT

[On August 30, 1915, the proposal introduced by Hon. Frederick C. Tanner, as chairman of the Committee on the Governor and Other State Officers, was made a special order for debate in the Committee of the Whole. During the debate, Hon. Elihu Root, president of the convention, who had relinquished the gavel, addressed the delegates from the floor in support of the proposal. The proposal, with some amendments, was subsequently advanced to the order of third reading, or final adoption, before the session closed. The remarks of Mr. Root, as they appear in the stenographic record, follow.]

MR. ROOT-Mr. Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN (HON. MARTIN SAXE)-Mr. Root.

MR. ROOT-I have had great doubt as to whether or not I should impose any remarks on this bill upon the convention, especially after my friend Mr. Quigg has so ingeniously made it difficult for me to speak; but I have been so long deeply interested in the subject of this bill, and I shall have so few opportunities hereafter, perhaps never another, that I cannot refrain from testifying to my faith upon the principles of government which underlie the measure that is before us, and putting upon this record for whatever it may be worth the conclusions which I have reached upon the teachings of long experience in many positions, through many years of participation in the public affairs of this State and in observation of them.

I wish, in the first place, to say something suggested by the question of my friend Mr. Brackett as to where this short ballot idea came from. It came up out of the dark, he says.

Let us see. In 1910, Governor Hughes, in his annual message.

said this to the legislature of the state: "There should be a reduction in the number of elective officers. The ends of democracy would be better attained to the extent that the attention of the voters may be fixed on comparatively two officers, the incumbents of which can be strictly accountable for administration. This will tend to promote efficiency in public office by increasing the effectiveness of the voter and by diminishing the opportunities of political manipulators to take advantage of the multiplicity of elective officers to perfect their schemes at the public expense. I am in favor of as few elective officers as may be consistent with proper accountability to the people, and the short ballot, which would be an improvement, I believe, in the state administration if the executive responsibility was centered in the governor who should appoint a cabinet of administrative heads, accountable to him and charged with the duties now devolved upon elective state officers."

Following that message from Governor Hughes, to whom a large part of the people of this state look with respect and honor, a resolution for the amendment to the constitution was introduced in the Assembly of 1910. That resolution provided for the appointment of all state officers, except the governor and the lieutenant-governor.

There was a hot contest upon the floor. Speaker Wadsworth, "Young Jim," came down from the Speaker's chair to advocate the measure, and Jesse Phillips, sitting before me, voted for it. And so it was in the practical affairs of this state, the movement out of which this bill had its start upon the floor of the state legislature.

Hughes and Wadsworth, one drawing from his experience as governor, and the other from his observation of public affairs, from the desk of the Speaker of the Assembly, were its sponsors. Time passed, and in 1912 the movement had gained such headway among the people of the state that the Republican Convention of that year declared its adherence to the principle of the short ballot, and the Progressive Convention, in framing that platform. under which 200,000-it is safe, is it not, to say 200,000 of the Republican voters of this state followed Roosevelt as their leader, rather than Taft?-the Progressive Convention, in framing that platform, declared: "We favor the short ballot principle and appropriate constitutional amendments."

So two parties, and all branches of the Republican party at least, committed themselves to the position that Hughes and Wadsworth took in the Assembly of 1910.

In 1913, after the great defeat of 1912, when the Republicans of the state were seeking to bring back to their support the multitudes that had gone off with the Progressive movement, when they were seeking to offer a program of constructive forward movement in which the Republican party should be the leader, Republicans met in a great mass meeting in the City of New York on the 5th of December of that year, 1913.

Nine hundred and seventy Republicans were there from all parts of the state. It was a crisis in the affairs of the Republican party. The party must commend itself to the people of the state, or it was gone. Twenty-eight members of this convention were there, and in that meeting, free to all, open to full discussion, after amendments had been offered, discussed and voted upon, this resolution was adopted:

"Whereas this practice (referring to the long ballot) is also in violation of the best principles of organization which require that the governor, who, under the constitution, is the responsible chief executive, should be so in fact and that he should have the power to select his official agents, therefore, be it

"Resolved, That we favor the application to the state government of the principle of the short ballot, which is that only those officers shall be elective which are important enough to attract and deserve public attention, and be it further

"Resolved, That in compliance with this principle we urge the representatives of the Republican party in this state, in the Senate and Assembly, to support a resolution, providing for the submission to the people of an amendment to the constitution, under which amendment it will be the duty of the governor to appoint. the secretary of state, the state treasurer, the comptroller, the attorney-general and the state engineer and surveyor, leaving only the governor and lieutenant-governor as elective executive officers."

That resolution, I say, after full discussion was unanimously adopted by the nine hundred and seventy representative Republicans who had met there to present to the people of the state a constructive programme for the party. Mr. Frederick C. Tanner is chairman of this Committee on Governor and Other State