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was confined to either party, it might be possible to hold it in check by voting for the nominees of the other; but the present system practically confines the choice of the people to the candidates of the two principal parties, all of them having been selected and nominated by similar methods, and therefore characterized by a similar lack of unselfish patriotism and moral principle. However dissatisfied the voters may be with the candidates of their own party, they are naturally disposed to believe that the candidates of the other party, having been chosen in the same way, are at least as bad. They have therefore no means of expressing their preference for better men, and their votes must be determined by the attractions of a more or less 'unsatisfactory and 'untrustworthy political platform, rather than by any considerations of personal honor or fitness.

Under such a system, if a candidate belongs to a party which happens to be on the most popular side of some leading question, like the tariff or silver coinage, his lack of integrity or personal ability must be very glaring to prevent his election. And when he takes his seat in a legislative body, and it becomes his duty to make a careful study of some important question, to sift the evidence and reach a wise and just conclusion, he, who should be like an impartial judge or an unprejudiced juryman, may find that he is only the bond servant of the leaders of his party, a mere automaton for the registering of their decrees. It is in this way that our legislative assemblies are slowly losing their character as deliberative bodies, and yielding more and more to the dictation of irresponsible partisan chiefs, or the decrees of a secret caucus.

While it is true that there are many 'exceptional instances, and occasional popular uprisings, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that our general submission to the rule of political parties tends to lower our moral standards, corrupt our people, and subject our National, State, and Municipal governments to a class of men who care far more for personal and partisan success than for either the honor or material interests of those they profess to

serve.

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

By Professor J. R. Commons. From Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 1892.

An earnest effort to abolish the “gerrymander” will probably lead to the conclusion that the district system must be abandoned. To do this in Congressional elections, it will not be necessary to return to the system of a general state ticket elected by the majority party of each state, which was the custom in the first quarter of the century, and which is still employed in the case of the presidential electors. A modification of that discarded system could be adopted by introducing some simple device of proportional representation.

Proportional representation is not a new thing in politics, although it has heretofore received but limited application. Twenty years ago there was abundant discussion of plans for minority and proportional representation, and out of the discussion in our own country a crude plan of cumulative voting was adopted by some of the municipalities of Pennsylvania, and for the election of members of the lower house of the Illinois legislature. This plan is still in force. It has been recently applied to all private corporations by the new constitutions of Kentucky, North and South Dakota and Montana. The Illinois system for the election of state representatives was submitted to the people by the Constitutional Convention of South Dakota, but was defeated at the polls. In Denmark, another plan of minority representation has been in force since 1856. But the most important application of proportional representation has been made by the Canton of Neuchatel, in Switzerland, and

more recently by the Canton of Ticino. Something like the Swiss plan could be profitably adopted in the election of all our representative assemblies and boards.

For Congressional elections, let each state elect its entire quota of representatives on a general ticket. Let each party in the state convention nominate the entire list, or as many candidates as it could probably elect, adding a few names for favorable contingencies. Then, in canvassing the returns, let the representatives be assigned to each party in proportion to the popular vote of the party, giving preference to the candidates according to their standing on the vote.

For example, Ohio, in the elections of 1890, cast 713,152 votes for Congressmen. The number of Congressmen to be elected was twenty-one. This gives a quota of 33,959 votes to each Congressman. The Republicans cast 362,624 votes, which gives them ten representatives and a remainder of 23,034 votes. The Democrats cast 350,528 votes, giving them ten representatives and a remainder of 10,928 votes. The Prohibition vote was 21,891, and the Union Labor vote 3,223. There being twenty-one representatives to elect, and the Republicans having a remainder above their ten quotas larger than the Democratic remainder, and larger than the total Prohibition or Union Labor vote, they get the additional representative. Thus, the Ohio delegation would stand eleven Republicans and ten Democrats. At present, under the gerrymander of 1890, it is seven Republicans and fourteen Democrats.

In the election of state legislatures, the state could be divided into districts, each electing five, seven, or some odd number of representatives, and the electors of each district would vote for the entire list of names on their party ticket, the quotas and proportions being obtained as above. For example, the county of Cuyahoga (including the city of Cleveland) sends repeatedly a solid delegation of six Republicans to the Ohio State Legislature, elected on a general county ticket, and not one Democrat. By the proportional system, there would be three Democrats and three Republicans. The county of Hamilton (including the city of Cincinnati) sends to the Sixty-ninth General Assembly a solid delega tion of nine Democrats. The Republicans of that county are unrepresented. With proportional voting, the delegation would stand five Democrats, four Republicans. Other counties in the state send one representative each. They could be grouped into districts of five, and could then vote on the proportional plan.

In cities, election districts for councils and boards of aldermen could be constructed on a similar basis. Where there are two branches of the city legislature, the smaller branch could be chosen on a general ticket for the city at large by the proportional system, and the more numerous branch by districts of five.

In all elections upon this plan, the different party tickets could be printed on a single ballot, according to the form of the Australian ballot. The order of names on each ticket would be determined by the state convention of each party, and this would indicate the order of preference of the party. Voters would not vote for individuals, but for the ticket. If individual voters took the liberty of changing the order of names, they would lose their vote altogether. This provision is necessary in order to simplify the counting of the ballots. But "bolters" could nominate a new ticket, and at the same time assist in electing the party ticket, simply by placing their first choice at the head of their ticket and following it by names taken from the regular ticket. If they were sufficiently numerous to comply with the law, the privilege could be obtained of having this new ticket printed separately on the Australian ballot. If, now, the voters of this ticket could command a quota of the entire vote, they would elect their first choice, and any remainder above the quota would go to the next name, thus helping to elect one of the regular party nominees. The new system would thus involve no waste of votes.

The plan here outlined is a modification of one devised by Dr. L. B. Tuckerman, of Cleveland, Ohio, who has developed it with special reference to the election of committees

by conventions or mass-meetings. In such assemblies the one-man power of the chairman is done away with, and each party can be fairly represented on committees by its own first choice.

To set forth all the advantages of proportional representation would require an extended study of politics and parties, and a careful weighing of remote causes. For the present, it is possible to point out only a few of the patent benefits it would confer. In the first place, the gerrymander would be absolutely abolished. No other feasible plan can be thought of that will do this. The gerrymander inheres in the district system. So long as it is possible to redistrict a state, it is hopeless to expect that a party in power will refrain from doing so to its own advantage. The changes in population necessitate redistricting at least once in ten years. If legislatures be prohibited from passing such an act within a period less than ten years, the party which happens to be in control of the legislature at the legal time will fasten its own gerrymander on the people for a decade, with no possible chance for redress. It is better to let the two parties play against each other.

Public opinion cannot stop the gerrymander, because public opinion rejoices in this kind of tit-for-tat. The fact that one party has infamously cut up the state is good reason for the other party to retrieve itself when it gets the power. If Congress should take the matter out of the hands of the State Legislature, it would be simply to do its own gerrymandering, while state and municipal gerrymandering would still go on as before. Constitutional restrictions, requiring equal population and contiguous territory, are easily evaded. Notwithstanding such restrictions, the populations of Congressional districts in New York vary from 107,844 to 312,404. In no state is the Constitution on this point observed. And as for contiguity, a glance at the diagram of the English district of North Carolina or the First and Third districts of South Carolina will show on what a slender thread this fiction may be made to hang.

It seems plain that with proportional representation abler men would be attracted into legislative careers. The area of choice would be enlarged, and the leaders of a party could not be driven from legislative halls where their ability is needed, as was done at the last Congressional election. The feeling of responsibility to the whole people would be increased in the leaders of parties, because they could stand on their record before the state at large, and not be compelled to dicker with petty local magnates. A man is at present elected to Congress, not on account of public service, but according to his ability in turning spoils and appropriations into his district. He does not represent before the country any great policy on which to stand or fall. He must depend on local wire-pulling and the exchange of favors. If he has done some distinguished service for his party, or has reached eminence in politics, the whole strength of the National party of the opposition is thrown into his district, and if possible, he is gerrymandered out of office.

Right here, however, will arise the principal popular objection to this plan, namely, that districts would not be represented. But a slight thought will show that this objection has no force. The gerrymander has taken nearly all the virtue out of a district that it may ever have possessed. There are few Congressional districts that have a unity of any kind, either economical, political, topographical, geographical or historical. The county of Huron, in Ohio, has been in five different combinations during the past twelve years, and now it is in the western part of a district one hundred and twenty miles long and twenty wide; its Congressional representative lives sixty miles away, and had, previous to the last gerrymander, very little knowledge of or interest in the county. In this, and hundreds of other cases, the candidates in some districts at the other end of the state are better known to the voters of the district than are the candidates in their own district. On the other hand, the state is a historical and political unit. Its great men belong to no one district. At present only two of them can go to the United States Senate, and others are shelved as governors, or are compelled to seek some Presidential appointment. Under proportional

representation those who are unavailable for Senators would lead their party delegations in the House.

Arguments for proportional representation have usually been advanced in behalf of minorities. But they are equally valid as a defence of the majority. Under the system of districts and primaries less than ten per cent. of the voters of a party often dictate the policy of the party. Machines and ward bosses are the party rulers, and the majority does not dare to "bolt" at the polls, because the opposite party would then come into power. Proportional representation would permit independent movements within the party without risking the defeat of the entire ticket, simply by allowing the nomination of a new ticket composed partly of independents and partly of the regular ticket. If the independent candidates are elected and there is a surplus of voters above the quota, the surplus goes to the regular ticket. The majority of the party would be benefited as often as the minority. The present system on the face of it means the rule of the minority. The gerrymander overthrows majority rule.

The fact that voters could not vote for individuals, but must cast their ballots for the straight ticket, may seem at first sight a serious objection. But the objection is not valid as against the present system, because even now the voter has no choice except between party tickets, while under the proposed plan independent movements are made possible without risking the complete defeat of the party.

Other objections might be noted. A small third party would be likely often to hold the balance of power. The probability is, however, that there would be no occasion for third parties, because reforms inside the old parties would promptly gain a hearing, and compromises would head off radical "bolts."

The strongest objections are those which come from inertia and the dread of change. Constitutional amendments will be necessary in some cases, though Congress has complete power in the matter of National representatives. Nevertheless, representative government is not something absolute and fixed in the nature of things. It is the result of circumstances and experiments without any great amount of political analysis or design. It grew out of the primitive mass-meeting, or folk-moot, simply because distant electors could not conveniently come up to the annual meetings. In the folk-moot the minority was, of course, fully represented. How they should be represented in the delegate assembly was at first a problem, but its solution was abandoned. The history of Colonel Maryland shows, in an interesting way, how this came about. The original deliberative and legislative body was a primary assembly, where any freeman might speak and vote. In the second assembly-1638 -voting by proxy was allowed to those freemen who could not be present in person. Abuses of this device led to the issuing of writs to the local divisions, instructing them to return representatives. But realizing that those who did not vote for the successful candidates would be unrepresented, individuals who were in the minority were allowed to appear in their own right. The third assembly was therefore an anomalous body, comprising the governor and his nominees, the duly elected representatives of localities, those individuals who had not consented to the election of representatives, and the proxies of other unrepresented individuals. Such a heterogenous mass was neither representative nor primary, and was so threatening to the representative element that the hope of minority representation was given up in despair and the assembly defined its own constitution by limiting popular representation to the elected deputies, and ruling out proxies. Doubtless other colonies went through similar experiences.

The system finally adopted is rigid in the extreme. It has endured because there has been no special strain. But the growing intensity of class divisions and the immensity of the interests involved call for a more elastic system. Proportional representation seems to meet this requirement in every essential particular.

THE CONSTITUTION AND ELECTORAL LAW OF THE KINGDOM

OF DENMARK.

Abstract and Analysis made and translated by R. J. Wicksteed, LL.D., B.C.L., &c. Barrister.

THE CONSTITUTION.

(Adopted 1849, revised and promulgated 28th July, 1866.)

Section 1. The form of government is a limited monarchy.

2. The legislative power is exercised concurrently by the King and the Rigsdag. The executive power belongs to the King. Judicial power is exercised by the tribunals.

13. The King appoints and dismisses his ministers.

15. The Assembly of the ministers forms the Council of State. The King presides.

19. The King each year convokes the Rigsdag, for its ordinary session.

20. He may summon the Rigsdag for an extraordinary session.

22. The King may dissolve one or both of the chambers of the Rigsdag.

24. The consent of the King is necessary to give the force of law to a resolution of the Rigsdag. The King orders its promulgation, and superintends its execution.

29. The Rigsdag is composed of two Chambers, the Folkething and the Landsthing.

30. Every person is an elector to the Folkething who possesses an unblemished reputation, who is a citizen, and of the full age of 30 years, provided always he is not in the service of a private person and has no household of his own; that he has not received or is not in receipt of public assistance, which he has not been forgiven or which he has not paid back; that he can dispose of his own property; that he has had a domicile for one year previous to the election, in the electoral district or town wherein he resides.

31. Any person is eligible to be returned as a member of the Folkething, with the exceptions one, two and three mentioned in the last preceding section, who possesses a blameless character, is a citizen, and is of the full age of 25 years.

32. The number of the members of the Folkething bears the proportion to that of the inhabitants of 1 to 16000. The elections are carried out in electoral districts. Each district elects a representative.

33. The members of the Folkething are elected for years. They receive a daily indemnity.

34. The number of the members of the Landsthing is 66,—of whom 12 are appointed by the King,--7 by Copenhagen, -and 45 by the electoral districts, 1 by Bornholm and 1 by Faroe.

35. No person can take part directly or indirectly in the elections of the Landsthing, unless he has fulfilled the conditions required of the electors of the Folkething.

36. In Copenhagen the united electors appoint electors of the second degree, in the proportion of 1 to 120. An equal number of electors of the second degree are appointed by the electors who the preceding year were in receipt of a taxable income of, at least, 2000 rixdollars. These two classes of electors of the second degree proceed together with the election of the Landsthing for Copenhagen.

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