separated by wide territorial areas. This necessitated the adoption of what has become the district system of electing single delegates. Such a system still has its justification in many respects, and especially in a country like that of the United States, which comprises. millions of square miles, a seven day's journey by fastest rail, dissimiliar sections in climate, resources, products and peoples. But why this system should survive to the present day in the election of city legislatures is one of the enigmas of politics, to be solved only by reference to their traditions and inertia of mankind. In the United States and new countries there are not even historical reasons for the adoption of this system. With them the transition from primary assemblies to representative assemblies was made simply by way of imitation. It was to England that the framers of our municipal constitutions turned their attention when our cities had advanced beyond a size convenient for the ancient popular assembly. It is therefore in the origin of English cities that we shall find the explanation for the origin of the district system.

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The earliest records seem to indicate that English cities were merely concentrated hundreds and shires. Says Stubbs*, "The "burh" of the Anglo-Saxon period was simply a more strictly organized form of the township. It was prabably in a more defensible position; had a ditch or mound instead of the quickset hedge or "tun" from which the township took its name; and as the "tun” was originally the fenced homestead of the cultivator, the "burh" was the fortified house or courtyard of the mighty man, the king, the magistrate or the noble. In these the idea of the free township was retained; municipal authority depended on no different organisation; the presiding magistrate was the gerefa; in mercantile places, such as London or Bath, the port-gerefa; in others the wic-gerefa or the tun-gerefa simply. The constitution of the larger towns re-embled that of the hundred rather than that of the township; and in fact, each such town generally contained several parish churches with a township organisation belonging to each." In Norman times the larger cities were organised like counties with their sheriff, their country court, composed of all the freeholders of the county and the conventional representatives from the townships. Here we have the original councilmen elected from the minor districts. But the city was not at all an organic body with recognised common interests. It was a curious mixture of all the different interests which happened to be thrown together in the neighborhood. For example in primitive London, "there were the original military tenants of the crown, with their independent manors and the agricultural' serfs; there were the parishes governed by the bishop, the chapter and the monasteries; and there were the guilds administered by their own officers, and administering their own property. It was for the most part an aristocratic constitution, and had its unity not in the municipal principle but in the shire." Over all these jarring interests the sheriff presided as the representative of the king.

But the circumstances of the times and the needs of defence drew the residents nearer

together in common interests. This appears first in the development of the guilds of merchants. Through commerce they gained wealth, this brought political power, and soon the merchant guild absorbed the law-making power of the entire city, its charter became the city charter, and its maire the city mayor. "In the reign of Henry II. there can be little doubt that the possession of a merchant guild had become the sign and token of municipal independence; that it was in fact, if not in theory, the governing body of the town in which it was allowed to exist."+

In still later times, when manufactures arose into prominence alongside merchandising, new guilds were organised representing different trades. There were the weaver, the shoemaker, the goldsmith, the butchers and many others. Each of the craft-guilds had its own alderman, or president. They soon demanded a share in the city government, which was finally granted, and their aldermen were given the right to sit together as a lawmaking body, each representing his own guild. In the reign of Edward II., all the citizens were obliged to be enrolled among the trade-guilds, and in the reign of Edward III. the election of the city magistrates was transferred from the representatives of the wardmoots to the trading companies." Ş Thus to-day "London, and the municipal system

generally, has in the mayor a relic of the communal idea, in the alderman the representative of the guild, and in the councillors of the wards, the successors to the rights of the most ancient township system."

The question arises, how did it come about that so rational a system as the election of aldermen by the different organised interests of the cities should have been displaced by the arbitrary system of election by territorial districts? The answer is brief. The ancient system itself was practically an election by wards, because the different trades were all grouped together, each in its own district of the city. And when the federation of guilds was abolished and elections thrown open to a widened suffrage, it seemed wholly natural to continue that district system, which was seen to be in vogue elsewhere.

When American cities adopted representative government they adopted the English system. The transition is vividly portrayed in the history of Boston.† Until the year 1822 the government of Boston had been a primary assembly. On the first of May, 1822, the population had grown to 45,000, the qualified voters to 7,000 or 8,000. In that year the general court of Massachusetts drew up a charter entitled "An Act establishing the city of Boston." It was presented to the voters of Boston and accepted by a vote of 2,797 to 1,881. "As authorising the first departure from the system of local `government which had been in operation nearly two centuries, it was regarded as a measure of the very highest importance. Not a few of the old residents who had fought under the eyes of Samuel Adams in the town meetings, looked upon the act which divided their great folk-mote into twelve separate and silent gatherings, where men delegated their rights to others, as the beginning of the end of Democratic government."‡

Had the people of Boston and of the American cities while copying the English district system, also copied the English custom of free choice of candidates irrespective of residence, the system would not have been so arbitrary in its results, nor so destructive to aldermanic ability.

Little need be said about the difference between the problems of representation in cities in its origin and its present development. The city is above all political organisations a unit in itself. Aldermen and councillors do not represent wards-they represent the city. The ward has no place in city politics except perhaps as an administrative division. It is well recognised that cities present the most aggravated failures of American politics, and so far as the legislative branch is concerned, the following pages will attempt to show that the failure lies mainly in this unnatural partition into petty districts.

CHAPTER II.

THE FAILURE OF LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES.

The American people have succeeded fairly well in the organisation of the executive and judicial departments of their government, but there is a universal feeling that the lawmaking bodies are a painful failure. This applies to all grades of legislatures, municipal. state and federal. The newspapers are supposed to say what is popular, and, judging from their sayings, nothing is more popular than denunciation of aldermen, state representatives and congressmen. These diatribes do not extend to other officers of government, but are healed upon the legislators. Every winter when Congress is in session, the business interests are reported to be in a gasp of agony until it adjourns. And the cry that goes up towards the latter days of a state legislature's session, is sickening. A Sacramento daily has just earned the petty spite of the California legislature by printing across its title page in glaring type the words "Thank God the legislature adjourns to day". And the San Francisco Bulletin is quoted as recently saying "It is not possible to speak in measured terms of the thing that goes by the name of legislature in this state (California). It has of late years been the vilest deliberative body in the world. The assemblage has become

+See Bigbee, The City Government of Boston, in Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science, 5th series, page 22.

Bigbee, page 23.

one of bandits instead of law-makers. Everything within its prasp for years has been for sale. The commissions to high office which it confers are the outward and visible signs of felony rather than of careful and wise selection." Every state in the Union can furnish examples more or less approaching to this.

These outcries are not made alone in a spirit of partisanship, but respectable party papers denounce unsparingly legislatures whose majorities are of their own political com plexion. The people at large join in the attack. They have come thoroughly to distrust. their law-makers, charges of corruption and bribery are so abundant as to be taken as a matter of course. The honored historical name of alderman has become a stigma of suspicion and disgrace.

As might be expected this distrust has shown itself in many far-reaching constitutional changes. The powers of state and city legislatures have been clipped and trimmed and shorn until they offer no inducements for ambition. The powers of governors, mayors and administrative boards have been correspondingly increased. The growing popularity of the executive veto is one of the startliing facts of the times. Cities have been known to turn out in mass-meetings to illuminate the heavens with bonfires in honor of a mayor's veto which has rescued them from outrages and robberies perpetrated by their own lawfully elected "city fathers." The latest reform in municipal constitutions has been the transfer of many legislative functions and a great deal of the legislative discretion from the city councils to the mayors. This has been done on the plea of concentrating responsi bility, and there are many people who would be glad to see municipal legislatures abolished altogether and their duties handed over to the mayor and his cabinet.

The recent constitutions of the new states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Mont ina and Washington, may be taken as a consensus of the American people at the present time regarding the character and functions of State legislatures. Says an observing writer,* "The work of the four conventions brings into sharp relief the essential difference between the tendency and the character of political changes in England and in the United States. In England every reform in government for a thousand years has had for its immediate purpose the limitation of the powers of the executive; in the United States since 1776 the opinion has steadily grown that it is safer to limit the powers of the legislature and to increase the powers of the executive. Englishmen distrust the Crown and grant almost unlimited powers to Parliament; Americans distrust the legislature, especially the state legislatures, and give great powers to their president and their governors. The articles in the new state constitutions on the "legislative Department" are long and detailed. They seem to be composed by the framers in order to declare what the respective legislatures cannot be permitted to do. The perusal of these new constitutions suggests that the people have lost confidence in their state legislatures, and that the conventions, responsive to this feeling, have sought to anticipate great evils by limiting the powers of the legislature, or by substantially limiting them in declaring by what procedure the legislature shall act, on what it shall not act, and to what extent it may act. The chief limitations on the legislature are with respect to special or private legislation, corporations, political corruption among members, taxation, and power to use the credit of the state.

"Among administrative officers (all of them filled by popular election) are several of economic significance, as those of insurance, railroad, agriculture, and labour, prison and public land commissions. The first state constitutions knew nothing of such offices.. When are considered the demands upon the modern legislature, and the character of that legislature, according to the confessions of the American people in their state constitutions, the tendency to short legislative sessions once in two years is expressive of a hope of escape from both "over-legislation," which is merely the activity of zealous, but as is sometimes the case, incompetent men, and inadequate legislation which is the confession of mere politicians. It may be that the creation of bureaus in the modern state government is practically the solution of the problem how to escape the danger of a session of the legislation.

The judiciary, too, has gained materially at the expense of the legislatures, both in the express provisions of constitutions and in the popular approval. Conscious of the feelings of the people, judges have steadily encroached upon the very fields of legislative discretion, and, reluctantly it may be, have more and more assumed the right to set aside legislative

*F. N. Thorpe in Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science, September 1891.

enactments. This has become boldly apparent in numerous recent decisions overthrowing such peculiarly political statutes as those which redistrict a state for the election of legislative representatives. This interference of the judiciary, however justifiable the reasons, can only be fraught with danger to itself. It is thereby forced into the political arena, where are the heated questions of political expediency, at the expense of its integrity in the field where administration and justice alone are its sphere. Nevertheless, the judiciary is forced by the people to take this step, as a further limitation upon their discredited legislatures. This whole movement is portrayed by Mr. Horace Davis, in the following words: "The executive, all powerful at the beginning (of colonial history) was reduced to a mere shadow of its former glory, and in these later days is regaining some of its lost power. The legislature, at first weak, afterwards absorbed the powers of the other departments, but is now much reduced again. Throughout all these changes the dignity and power of the judges have steadily increased. .Their greatest power, most amazing to Europeans, is the authority to set aside a statute which they hold to be in conflict with the written constitution. No other courts in the world possess this unique power. The scope of this power to declare a law unconstitutional, is much broadened by the modern tendency to limit legislation. The early constitutions were very brief, containing little more than a bill of rights and a skeleton of the government, leaving all details to the descretion of the legislature. Now all this is changed, the bounds of the different departments are carefully defined, and the power of the legislature is jealously curbed. particularly in the domain of special legislation. It will be seen at a glance that this enlarges the relative power of the courts. It limits the legislature, and widens the field of the judiciary at one stroke."

These tendencies to restrict the legislature which are showing themselves so unmistakably, and this demoralization of legislative bodies, must be viewed as the most alarming features of American politics. Just as the duties of legislation are increasing as never before, in order to meet the growing vital wants of a hewilderingly complex civilization, the essential organs for performing those duties are felt to be in a state of collapse. The legislature controls the purse, the very life-blood of the city, the state, the nation. It can block every other department. It ought to stand nearest to the lives, the wishes, the wisdom of the people. It is their necessary organ for constituting, guiding, watching and supporting all the departments of government. Above them all, then, it ought to be eminently representative. But it is the least representative of all. Surely, then, for the American people above all others, and in a high degree, too, for all nations who depend upon representative institutions, it is pertinent to inquire carefully into the fundamental nature of these institutions, the causes of their failures and the means if any can be found, which will adapt them to the exigencies of modern times. It will likely be found that there is no simple reform that will revive them. Many different reforms must cooperate in so complex and momentous a problem. But there is at least one feature that reaches the fundamental nature of these institutions, with which all the others are intimately related and out of which they grow. This feature is the system of electing each representative by a single district established on territorial lines. As has been shown, this is an inheritance from the past, when representation was in its infancy and when its problems were very different from those of the present. It was adopted without any political philosophising, and has been inherited, like complexion and hair and real estate, without any questioning. To-day is the time to test it and see whether it suits new conditions, and if it is found wanting to devise a system which shall be based on solid foundations adapted to modern needs.

CHAPTER III.

THE SINGLE MEMBERED DISTRICT.

The position of the modern voter who essays to independence of choice is well known to be an unenviable one. When he comes to the polls to cast his vote he finds that there

* American Constitutions-Johns Hopkins University studies in History and Political Science, 3rd series, pages 55, 59.

is just one candidate to be chosen for any given office. He finds that through the machinery of the political party with which he has been accustomed to vote, there is one candidate offered to him. There are practically but two candidates in the field—those of the two great parties. It is known to every one that one of these two will be elected. If the voter is dissatisfied for any reason with the nominee of his own party there are three courses open to him: to vote for the opposing candidate, to vote for a third candidate, or to stay at home. It is likely that his dissatisfaction with the opposing candidate is far more extreme than for his own party's. Only in periods of exceptional unrest or as a protest against an exceptionally corrupt candidate do large numbers of voters make so radical a revolt as to go entirely over to the enemy. The great majority of the dissatisfied simply stay at home. This is their only comfortable way of condemning their party's nominee. But should they be intensely exasperated, or should they be of an uncompromising turn of mind, they may go to the extreme of nominating and voting for a third candidate. In this case their offence is even worse than if they vote for the principal opposing candidate. They indeed give him a half vote, just as they do when they stay at home, but they gain the opprobrium of a "crank" and the scorn of having "thrown their votes away." More bitter than the hatred towards rivals, says Bryce,* is the hatred of Boss and Ring towards those members of the party who do not desire and are not to be appeased by a share of the spoils, but who agitate for what they call reformn. They are natural and permanent enemies; nothing but the extinction of the Boss himself and of bossdom altogether will satisfy them. They are, moreover, the common enemies of both parties. Hence in ring-governed cities professionals of both parties will sometimes unite against the reformers, or will rather let their opponents secure a place than win it for themselves by the help of the "independent vote." Devotion to "party government," as they understand it, can hardly go further."

In this way the party machine is the master of the situation. It alone can name the candidate, the only check upon it is the fear of the bolt on the part of the voters. This fear is reduced to a minimum. Though there may be loud protests and a vigorous show of independence it is well known that most of the protesters will fall into line on election day rather than see the other party win.

Add to the foregoing the fact that districts are bounded more or less arbitrarily, so as to include heterogeneous elements of population, and that boundaries are frequently changed, and we have an additional reason for the supremacy of the party organization. The voters have very few interests in common. They see little of each other; they have few o those general and social relations that would accustom them to join and work togetherf They do not meet in mass meetings as in the old New England town meeting, where individuals of all parties come together and discuss in public the affairs of their district, and the qualifications of candidates before the candidates are nominated. They must therefore look to their party organization for the dictation of a policy and the designation of a candidate. It is in the party that they find their common meeting place.

The party organization is a more or less close corporation composed of a series of practically self-perpetuating committees, the committees corresponding to the different election areas. The party primary of the smallest division the township or the ward—is the foundation of the system. But the primary is in the hands of its standing committee. A very small percentage of the party voters, for some reason or another, attend the primaries. The majority of the party voters are too busily employed in private callings, or they find the work of primaries and conventions distasteful, or they are systematically barred out. In cities the percentage ranges from two to ten. In the townships from ten to forty. A majority of the voters in these primaries, then, elect delegates to the nominating conventions or nominate local candidates. This is the case with both the ruling parties. These candidates are the only ones between whom the voters can choose at the elections. The nominating convention is therefore practically the electing convention. If this be so, we are faced by the fact that our public officials instead of being elected by a majority of the voters, as is fondly supposed, are elected by a minority of a minority of a majority. And in case the election is determined by a plurality vote or a sufficiently large number of voters have absented themselves from the polls, the candidate is elected by a minority of a minority of a minority.

Amer. Com. vol. II, page 3.