FOOTNOTES:
[2] See [frontispiece].
[3] The ballot which the voter in Chicago faced at the same election was even larger. It was 19 × 31 inches and presented elections to 53 offices, exclusive of the presidential electors, and 267 names, exclusive of the presidential electors, to be voted upon. At the fall election in Cook County in 1910 the ballot was 17 × 20 inches. It presented 52 offices to be filled and 190 candidates for the voter to investigate.
[4] In Illinois, for instance, the following state and local offices are provided for in the state constitution, protected by the state constitution, and required by the constitution to be filled by election: governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, auditor of public accounts, state treasurer, superintendent of public instruction, attorney-general, judge of the Supreme Court, clerk of the Supreme Court; in counties outside of Cook County: the county judge, state’s attorney, sheriff, county clerk, treasurer, recorder, coroner, clerk of the Circuit Court, county superintendent of schools, judge of the Probate Court, judge of the Circuit Court; in Cook County: 15 county commissioners, judge of the County Court, 14 judges of the Circuit Court, 18 judges of the Superior Court, state’s attorney, recorder, coroner, sheriff, county treasurer, county clerk, clerk of the Circuit Court, clerk of the Superior Court, and county superintendent of schools. This includes all the state and local offices named in the long ballot printed opposite [p. 29], except 3 trustees for the state university, 3 representatives in Congress, 1 member of the State Board of Equalization, 2 members of the Board of Assessors, 1 member of the Board of Review, the county surveyor, and 3 trustees of the Sanitary District.
[5] Post, chap. xv.
PART II
THE WAR ON POLITOCRACY
CHAPTER III
DISSIPATION OF POLITICAL IGNORANCE BY SELF-TAUGHT POLITICAL EDUCATION
If extra-legal unpopular government by politocrats rests upon a condition of political ignorance on the part of the electorate, then it will be said that the obvious cure is to dissipate that ignorance by political education. It would not, however, be suggested that this political education be compulsory and at the expense of the state by competent teachers. That would irritate the electorate, be expensive, and probably end in the establishment of a state-paid boss. No! The political education of the voter must be self-taught. He must be aroused to more knowledge and a more conscientious performance of his political duties; more investigating of the qualifications of candidates and greater efforts to secure the proper sort of candidates. He must spend the time necessary to perform all his political duties and to do so intelligently enough to make an individual choice as to every candidate for every office at every election.
Many persons of intelligence will regard this as the only means of successful assault and permanent overthrow of extra-legal and unpopular government by politocrats. They are therefore content to sit still and await the millennium of self-taught political education which will enlighten the voter. The difficulty is that dissipation of political ignorance by such means will never occur. Since political education is not compulsory, we have to deal, not with the political knowledge which the voter might conceivably obtain, but that which he actually secures. The fact is the electorate is the sole judge of how much work it will do in securing political knowledge and performing political duties. On occasions it may be aroused to an exceptional activity; on other occasions it may do nothing at all. Obviously then, in order to obtain the highest percentage of intelligent voting on an average it is necessary that the political duties of the electorate be adjusted to the amount of self-taught and self-acquired political education that the electorate will generally and in the long run secure. If the political duties and education required are out of all proportion to what the electorate will obtain for itself, then political ignorance and neglect of political duties follows as a matter of course and is a fixed and continuing condition. It is futile then to insist upon the performance of duties which the electorate will not perform or the attainment of a political education which the electorate will not secure by its own efforts and which cannot be had in any other way. The proper course is to readjust the political duties of the voter so that what he is called upon to do he will accomplish with the minimum amount of ignorance in view of the effort which he himself is likely to develop to inform himself and make an intelligent choice.