Practical experience would seem to indicate that altruistic efforts to enlighten the political ignorance of the voter who is an intelligent man, to be effective at all, must consist of non-partisan, direct, and personal criticisms of candidates’ qualifications and records. Even then not much can be done unless the election is for a single important office and the election district is wieldy[6] in size. Whenever the candidates about whom the voter is to be informed are only four or five out of two or three hundred running for fifty different offices, the information and criticism lose much of their force. If the altruistic effort were directed toward informing the electorate about candidates for unimportant and inconspicuous offices, not only would funds fail to be forthcoming, but its voice would be unheeded and unheard. Thus the limitations upon the effectiveness of the efforts of altruistic voters’ leagues are very definitely fixed.
Of course, newspapers wield a great influence in elections, even when partisan in the dissemination of news regarding candidates and in their comments upon the news. But this exhibition of partisanship occurs largely with reference to the head of the ticket or to candidates for two or three of the most important offices. The influence of a newspaper in advising and directing the voter how to vote when he is ignorant of the qualifications of the candidates and has heard no public discussion in regard to them, depends upon much the same considerations as does the influence of the altruistic voters’ league. To be an effective adviser to the voter as to candidates for subordinate offices, about whom there is no public discussion, a newspaper must be to some extent at least non-partisan. It must be direct and explicit in its recommendations and characterization of the candidates. It must concentrate its efforts on some one point in the ballot and let everything else go. These rules are as a matter of fact regularly observed by newspapers. The practice of them very much limits the actual scope of a newspaper’s power as an adviser and director of the politically ignorant voter.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] I.e., “one not so large but that the candidate who is willing to run may be known with a fair degree of ease by the electorate and be able with the least expense to make a personal canvass” (see [chap. xii, p. 148]).
CHAPTER VI
ABOLITION OF THE PARTY CIRCLE AND PARTY COLUMN
In a rough way it has long been perceived that the party circle and party column on ballots are a vital part of the machinery necessary to direct the politically ignorant voter how to vote. If the voter is not only politically ignorant but also illiterate, the party circle is about all he can use, and only by directing his attention to that can he be told what to do. If the politically ignorant voter is an intelligent man he needs the party column at least so that he may take its suggestion when he attempts to vote for candidates about whom he knows nothing. It is not strange, therefore, that, in the war on politocracy, the abolition of both the party circle and the party column have been proposed. The more remarkable fact is that such a proposal has received so little support. The fact is that with our long ballots the abolition of the party circle and the party column would result either in a clumsy restoration of the party column by the furnishing of party lists to the individual voter, or else in a disfranchisement of the voter so startling and complete, and a governmental chaos so much more inimical to good government than the extra-legal politocracy, that popular support for such a movement has been generally withheld.
SPECIMEN BALLOT. 10th Congressional, 7th Senatorial District.
Imagine, for instance, the party circle and party column abolished for the state and local offices on the long ballot in Cook County reproduced, ante, opposite [p. 29]. We should then have a ballot with a single column to fill 34 offices, with 181 candidates, the Republican, Democratic, Prohibitionist, Socialist, Social Labor, and Progressive, all lumped together. The large majority of voters could not rely upon their own knowledge of the candidates to make an intelligent choice. The burden upon the voter is too great. If the electorate voted at random there would arise a political chaos in officeholding. The voter would be least likely to do this. If the voter felt he could not vote at all he would be plainly and utterly disfranchised. The voter would undoubtedly enter the voting booth with a party list in his hand as the most rational method of securing advice as to whom to vote for. That would be in effect a restoration of the party column which had been abolished. No wonder then that popular sentiment cannot be aroused over the general abolition of the party circle and the party column where the excessively long ballot is placed before large numbers of voters at frequent intervals.