In the country districts of the Republic they are usually men of good character, good ability, good health, alert, sleepless, strong-willed. They are men who have enough mental vitality to believe in something. When they cease to be effective they are dropped, and new men substituted by a sort of common consent. There are nearly two hundred thousand precinct committeemen in the United States.
These men are a part of American institutions in action. They work all the time. They talk politics and think politics in the midst of their business or their labor. Their casual conversation with or about every family within their jurisdiction keeps them constantly and freshly informed of the tendency of public opinion.
They know how each one of their neighbors feels on the subject of protection, or the Philippines, or civil service, or the currency. They know the views of every voter and every voter's wife on public men. They understand whether the people think this man honest and that man a mere pretender. The consensus of judgment of these precinct committeemen indicates with fair accuracy who is the "strongest man" for his party to nominate, and what policies will get the most votes among the people.
This is their preliminary work. When platforms have been formulated and candidates have been chosen, these men develop from the partizan passive to the partizan militant. They know those who, in their own party, are "weakening," and by the same token those who are "weakening" in the other party.
They know just what argument will reach each man, just what speaker the people of their respective sections want to hear upon public questions. They keep everybody supplied with the right kind of literature from their party's view-point.
They either take the poll of their precinct or see that it is taken; and that means the putting down in a book the name of each voter, his past political allegiance, his present political inclinations, the probable ballot he will cast, etc.
Not many of these men do this work for money or office. There are too many of them to hope for reward. Primarily they do it because they are naturally Americans, because they have the gift of government, because they like to help "run the show." They are useful elements of our political life, and they are modest. They seldom ask anything for themselves.
They do require, however, that their opinions shall be taken into account as to appointments to office made from their county, and of course they make their opinions felt in all nominating conventions. Without these men our "American institutions" would look beautiful on paper but they would work haltingly. They would move sluggishly. They might even rust, and fall to pieces from decay.
This much space has been given to the political precinct committeeman because, as I have said, he is a type. He is the man who sees that the "citizen" does not forget his citizenship. This great body of men, fresh from the people, of the people, living among the people, are perpetually renewed from the ranks of the people.
All this occurs, as has been said, by a process of natural selection. The same process selects from this great company of "workers" county, district, and state committeemen—county, district, and state chairmen. And the process continues until it culminates in our great National committees, headed by masterful captains of popular government, under whose generalship the enormous work of National and state campaigns is conducted.