persons whomsoever." Within thirty days after their election the committee must meet and select the state chairman and such other officers as may be deemed necessary to the conduct of party business. 4. In constituting the state committee, Massachusetts has provided a mixture of direct nomination for populous centres and selection by local convention for the other districts. The law of this state requires each party to elect a state committee annually; the rule of apportionment, similar to that of the Democratic party in New York, is that there shall be at least one member of the committee for each senatorial district; the selection of the members of the state committee is confided to party conventions in each senatorial district, except the Suffolk, first Hampden, third Middlesex districts, and certain other districts where the direct primary is required.1 5. The Iowa law of 1907 (section 27) provides that the central committee shall consist of not less than one member for each congressional district and shall be chosen in the state convention of the party regularly organized under the law of the state; but with the internal structure of the committee Iowa does not interfere: "The state central committee elected at said state convention may organize at pleasure for political work as is usual and customary with such committees, and shall continue to act until succeeded by another committee duly selected.” Descending from the state party organization to the great basic unit in the state machinery- the county organization 2 - we discover a more uniform tendency on the part of the state legislatures to regulate even to the most minute particulars. This, of course, is what was to have been expected, for it was formerly believed that, by the establishment of uniformity, regularity, and democratic control in the lower ranges of party operations, the representative and responsible character of the upper ranges would be secured. New York has provided that each party shall have a general committee for each county, chosen in cities of the first class by primary elections, and in other cities and villages to which the primary law is applicable by primaries, conventions, or other committees, as the rules of the party may 1 Massachusetts Laws Relating to Elections, 1907 (official publication), pp. 38, 148, and amendments. 2 Except, of course, in New England. determine. The members of the committee must be apportioned as among the units of representation as nearly as possible upon a basis of the party vote for governor; the time at which the committee must take office is determined by party rule except that it must not be later than the first day of January succeeding the election; the committee may make the rules of the party subject to the limitations imposed by the law; it must specify the names and addresses of its chairman and secretary within three days after its organization to the custodian of primary records and file with the same official a transcript of the rules and regulations of the party for the county within the same period after their adoption. It is thus evident that the New York law is designed to afford popular election of the controlling county organization and at the same time secure a definite body of rules on details for the guidance of the courts and other authorities, while leaving the party a large autonomy in making them. But, as every one knows, the county committee, in New York county, on account of its unwieldy size as now constituted, is of slight importance, power having passed, or rather continued to exist, in the smaller executive committee. In constituting the county committee, the law of Wisconsin follows a practice quite commonly accepted by party custom; it integrates the official representatives from the lower subdivisions of the county by providing that the county committee shall consist (except in certain populous counties) of the several committees from each election precinct in the county. The committee so constituted elects its own officers and provides its own rules. Although the Wisconsin law is scarcely more precise in its requirements than the regulations in New York, it must be remembered that the practice of nominating almost all candidates by direct ballot has stripped the county organization of its most important powers in connection with the assemblage and manipulation of nominating conventions. The Iowa law requires the election of the county committee by ballot, one member being chosen from each election precinct by the voters of the party. In Kansas, the precinct committeemen, one from each precinct, chosen by the party voters, constitute ex officio the county committee. V. Our state legislatures have not stopped with attempting 1 Primary Election Law, approved April 4, 1907, section 25. to secure democratic election of the regular party organization. Realizing from experience and common knowledge the extent to which conventions are dominated by party leaders, and candidates are nominated at their behest, our lawmakers have devised nomination by a "direct primary" which is really nomination by an election within the party. In this system the state furnishes to each party an official ballot. A member of a party who wishes to become a candidate for any office to which the law applies may have his name placed upon this official ballot of his party by securing a certain number of signatures to a petition. At the primary, therefore, each party member passes under review the several aspirants for nomination whose names appear on the ballot, and selects one whom he believes to represent best the standards and policy of his party. Such, at least, is the theory of the system. The laws on this subject fall into four general classes: those which provide for (1) nomination of delegates to conventions by ballot at the primary and permissive extension of the principle to certain candidates for office; (2) obligatory nomination of important local officers by ballot and the retention of the convention system for state officers; (3) obligatory direct nomination of United States Senators, and all officers, except minor local officers, by secret ballot; and (4) direct primary nomination for all important state and local officers, including United States senators, supplemented by the convention action in case any candidate does not receive the requisite percentage of votes; (5) nomination of local officers by ballot and permissive instruction of candidates for the office of delegate to the state convention. 1. A poor example of the first of these the optional method is afforded by the New York law. In case the general committee representing a party in any city or village to which the act applies, or in any county wholly within such city, or in any borough of such a city, adopts by a majority vote a rule that the nomination of that party's candidates for specified public offices to be filled wholly from such subdivision shall be made at the primary elections of the party, then while the rule is in force, the nominations for the specified public offices shall be made by the enrolled members of the party at the regular primary elections. The merit claimed for this permissive law is that it places freely within the power of a committee selected by direct party vote the right to determine whether candidates for certain offices shall be nominated by the popular vote of the party; but against this contention it is urged that the machine once in power cannot be broken by party vote, and the aid of the legislature must therefore be invoked. The New York law applies only to local offices and is really a dead letter. In a large number of states,' however, where the optional principle is in force, it has been applied to nearly all state and local officers and to the United States Senator. 2. The second type of law-providing direct nominations for local offices is to be found in Indiana, Massachu- ́ setts, Minnesota, Ohio, and New Jersey. The Minnesota law provides for an election of party nominees to be held in each election district "for the selection of party candidates for all elective offices, except offices of towns, villages, and cities of the fourth class, and state offices, and members of school, park, and library boards in cities having less than one hundred thousand inhabitants." Candidates whose nominations are not required to be made by primary election may be nominated by a delegate convention called for that purpose. 3. The third type of primary law 2-providing for direct nominations for United States Senator and nearly all officers-is exemplified in the Wisconsin law of 1907. All candidates for elective offices must be nominated at the primaries with the exceptions provided by the limits on the extension of the act. That is, the act does not apply to special elections to fill vacancies, to the office of state superintendent, to presidential electors, to county and district superintendents of schools, to town, village, and district school officers, nor to judicial officers, excepting police justices and justices of the peace in cities of the first, second, and third class. It is expressly provided that party candidates 1 The following states have direct nominations under optional laws and party rules: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia, and parts of North Carolina. 2 The following states now have such laws: California, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, Arizona. 3 No primary election shall be held in cities of the fourth class for nomination of municipal officers unless a petition asking for such primary election shall be filed with the signatures of twenty-five per cent of the voters of such city. for the office of United States Senator shall be nominated in accordance with the process devised for the nominations to state offices. 4. Iowa, in the election law of 1907, sought to obviate the defects in "plurality" nominations by a rather cumbersome set of provisions which taken collectively may be said to constitute the fourth type of direct nomination law. Section I of this act provides that the candidates of political parties for all offices which under the law are to be filled by the direct vote of the voters of the state at the general election in November (excepting candidates for the office of judge of the supreme court, district and superior courts, and including candidates for the office of senator in the Congress of the United States and for the office of presidential elector), shall be nominated by primary election. The aspirant of each political party for each office to be filled by the voters of any subdivision of the county, who receives the largest number of votes shall be declared nominated; aspirants for county, state district, and state offices receiving the highest number of votes, being not less than thirty-five per cent of the total party vote, shall be declared nominated. In case no aspirant of the party for such an office receives the requisite thirtyfive per cent of the votes, proper notice shall issue and nomination shall be by regularly constituted convention. This is an advance on the Wisconsin law in so far as it prevents any one having less than thirty-five per cent of the party vote from being the candidate for any office except the minor offices of the county divisions. 5. The fifth type of nominating system is to be found in the Pennsylvania primary law, as amended in May, 1907, which provided that candidates for offices of the commonwealth to be voted for by the electors of the state at large should be nominated by state conventions, and at the same time gave to each candidate for the position of delegate to the convention the right to have printed on his ballot the name of the candidate for public office whom he would support there. A majority of the direct primary laws in the United States provide that the person who receives the highest number of votes shall be declared the party candidate for the office which he seeks - thus making it possible to nominate by minority vote. That this is highly undesirable has long been evident even to the most ardent advocates of direct nomination. "It prevents," urges an able critic, "a number of candidates representing the majority |