The number of places to be filled by election being very large, ordinary citizens will find it hard to form an opinion as to the men best qualified for the offices. Their minds will be distracted among the multiplicity of places. In large cities particularly, where people know little about their neighbours, the names of most candidates will be unknown to them, and there will be no materials, except the recommendation of a party organization, available for determining the respective fitness of the candidates put forward by the several parties.

Most of the elected officials are poorly paid. Of those above enumerated in Ohio, none, not even the governor, receives more than $4000 (£800) a year, the majority very much less. The duties of most offices require no conspicuous ability, but can be discharged by any honest man of good sense and business habits. Hence they will not (unless where they carry large fees or important patronage) be sought by persons of ability and energy, because such persons can do better for themselves in private business; it will be hard to say which of the many candidates is the best; the selection will rouse little stir among the people at large.

Those who have had experience of public meetings know that to make them go off well, it is as desirable to have the proceedings prearranged as it is to have a play rehearsed. You must select beforehand not only your chairman, but also your speakers. Your resolutions must be ready framed; you must be prepared to meet the case of an adverse resolution or hostile amendment. This is still more advisable where the meeting is intended to transact some business, instead of merely expressing its opinion; and when certain persons are to be selected for any duty, prearrangement becomes not merely convenient but indispensable in the interests of the meeting itself, and of the business which it has to dispatch. "Does not prearrangement practically curtail the freedom of the meeting?" Certainly it does. But the alternative is confusion and a hasty unconsidered decision. Crowds need to be led; if you do not lead them they will go astray, will follow the most plausible speaker, will break into fractions and accomplish nothing. Hence if a primary is to discharge properly its function of selecting candidates for office or a number of delegates to a nominating convention, it is necessary to have a list of candi

And for the reasons

dates or delegates settled beforehand. already given, the more numerous the offices and the delegates, and the less interesting the duties they have to discharge, so much the more necessary is it to have such lists settled; and so much the more likely to be accepted by those present is the list proposed.

The reasons have already been stated which make the list of candidates put forth by a primary or by a nominating convention carry great weight with the voters. They are the chosen standard-bearers of the party. A European may remark that the citizens are not bound by the nomination; they may still vote for whom they will. If a bad candidate is nominated, he may be passed over. That is easy enough where, as in England, there are only one or two offices to be filled at an election, where these few offices are important enough to excite general interest, and where therefore the candidates are likely to be men of mark. But in America the offices are numerous, they are mostly unimportant, and the candidates are usually obscure. Accordingly guidance is welcome, and the party as a whole votes for the person who receives the party nomination from the organization authorized to express the party view. Hence the high importance attached to "getting the nomination"; hence the care bestowed on constructing the nominating machinery; hence the need for prearranging the lists of delegates to be submitted to the primary, and of candidates to come before the convention.

I have sought in these chapters firstly to state how the nominating machine is constituted, and what work it has to do, then to suggest some of the consequences which the quantity and nature of that work may be expected to entail. We may now go on to see how in practice the work turns out to be done.

CHAPTER LXII

HOW THE MACHINE WORKS

NOTHING Seems fairer or more conformable to the genius of democratic institutions than the system I have described, whereby the choice of party candidates for office is vested in the mass of the party itself. A plan which selects the candidate likely to command the greatest support is calculated to prevent the dissension and consequent waste of strength which the appearance of rival candidates of the same party involves; while the popular character of that method excludes the dictation of a clique, and recognizes the sovereignty of the people. It is a method simple, uniform, and agreeable throughout to its leading principle.

To understand how it actually works one must distinguish between two kinds of constituencies or voting areas. One kind is to be found in the great cities-places whose population exceeds, speaking roughly, 100,000 souls, of which there are more than thirty in the Union. The other kind includes constituencies in small cities and rural districts. What I have to say will refer chiefly to the Northern States-i.e. the former Free States, because the phenomena of the Southern States are still exceptional, owing to the vast population of ignorant negroes, among whom the whites, or rather the better sort of whites, still stand as an aristocracy.

The tests by which one may try the results of the system of selecting candidates are two. Is the choice of candidates for office really free-i.e. does it represent the unbiassed wish and mind of the voters generally? Are the offices filled by men of probity and capacity sufficient for the duties?

In the country generally, i.e. in the rural districts and small cities, both these tests are tolerably well satisfied. It is true that many of the voters do not attend the primaries.

VOL. II

H

97

The selection of delegates and candidates is left to be made by that section of the population which chiefly interests itself in politics; and in this section local attorneys and office-seekers have much influence. The persons who seek the post of delegate, as well as those who seek office, are seldom the most energetic and intelligent citizens; but that is because such men have something better to do. An observer from Europe who looks to see men of rank and culture holding the same place in State and local government as they do in England, especially rural England, or in Italy, or even in parts of rural France and Switzerland, will be disappointed. But democracies must be democratic. Equality will have its perfect work; and you cannot expect citizens pervaded by its spirit to go cap in hand to their richer neighbours begging them to act as delegates, or city or county officials, or congressmen. This much may be said, that although there is in America no difference of rank in the European sense, superior wealth or intelligence does not prejudice a man's candidature, and in most places improves its chance. If such men are not commonly chosen it is for the same reason which makes them comparatively scarce among the town-councillors of English municipalities. In these primaries and conventions the business is always prearranged - that is to say, the local party committee come prepared with their list of delegates or candidates. This list is usually, but not invariably, accepted: or if serious opposition appears, alterations may be made to disarm it, and preserve the unity of the party. The delegates and candidates chosen are generally the members of the local committee, their friends or creatures. Except in very small places, they are rarely the best men. But neither are they the worst. In moderately-sized communities men's characters are known and the presence of a bad man in office brings on his fellow-citizens evils which they are not too numerous to feel individually. Hence tolerable nominations are made, the general sentiment of the locality is not outraged; and although the nominating machinery is worked rather in the name of the people than by the people, the people are willing to have it so, knowing that they can interfere if necessary to prevent serious harm.

In large cities the results are different because the circumstances are different. We find there, besides the conditions

previously enumerated, viz. numerous offices, frequent elections, universal suffrage, an absence of stimulating issues, three others of great moment

A vast population of ignorant immigrants.

The leading men all intensely occupied with business. Communities so large that people know little of one another, and that the interest of each individual in good government is comparatively small.

Any one can see how these conditions affect the problem. The immigrants vote, that is, they obtain votes after three or four years' residence at most (often less), but they are not fit for the suffrage.1 They know nothing of the institutions of the country, of its statesmen, of its political issues. Neither from Central Europe nor from Ireland do they bring much knowledge of the methods of free government, and from Ireland they bring a suspicion of all government. Incompetent to give an intelligent vote, but soon finding that their vote has a value, they fall into the hands of the party organizations, whose officers enrol them in their lists, and undertake to fetch them to the polls. I was taken to watch the process of citizenmaking in New York. Droves of squalid men, who looked as if they had just emerged from an emigrant ship, and had perhaps done so only a few weeks before, for the law prescribing a certain term of residence is frequently violated, were brought up to a magistrate by the ward agent of the party which had captured them, declared their allegiance to the United States, and were forthwith placed on the roll. Such a sacrifice of common sense to abstract principles has seldom been made by any country. Nobody pretends that such persons are fit for civic duty, or will be dangerous if kept for a time in pupilage, but neither party will incur the odium of pro

1 Federal law prescribes a residence of five years as the prerequisite for naturalization, but the laws of not a few Western States enable a vote to be acquired in a shorter term by one who is not a United States citizen. See Chapter XXVIII. ante. And in some States, persons who have not completed their five years are often fraudulently naturalized.

2 It is even alleged that many of the immigrants (especially Italians) brought over to be employed on railroad making and other similar works come under what are virtually contracts to cast their votes in a particular way, and do so cast them, possibly returning to Europe after some months or years, richer by the payment they have received for their votes as well as for their labour.