In brief outline this is what has occurred: As the population of the country has grown and communities and states have passed more and more beyond the frontier stage of development, the decentralization of governmental power has constantly increased and the elective principle has been more and more extensively applied. As a consequence the burden placed upon the electorate has become more and more onerous. The voter has been called upon to vote more often and for an increasing number of officers. He must theoretically examine into the qualifications of a large number of candidates at frequent intervals. This has placed upon intelligent voting an enormous educational qualification. The task of the voter to obtain sufficient information about candidates long ago passed beyond what even the very intelligent citizen could fulfil and still maintain his place in competitive industry. The result is that the voter, though extremely intelligent in general, comes to the polls in utter ignorance of candidates and their qualifications for office. Nevertheless, he insists, in spite of his political ignorance, upon voting for someone. He takes his voting seriously and endeavors to make a show of voting intelligently. This attitude necessarily requires him to secure advice from someone as to whom to vote for. At once there is created the opportunity for the adviser to the voter. He first appears naturally as a local leader whom the electorate trusts. Soon, however, there arises the man who makes advising the politically ignorant voter his profession. Then this professional adviser becomes more of a director to the politically ignorant voter. This process goes on in every electoral district where the voter is politically ignorant enough to need some advice. It is not long before there is developed a hierarchy of professional advisers and directors to the politically ignorant voter. Sometimes there are competing hierarchies of such advisers and directors. One or the other, however, is the more generally successful, or both by agreement divide the privilege of advising the politically ignorant voter how to vote—each helping the other in its exclusive territory. Those who direct the politically ignorant majority how to vote have filled the state and municipal offices with those who are loyal to them first and to the governed afterward. The leaders of the successful organization of advisers and directors to the politically ignorant electorate have become an extra-legal but none the less real government. A decentralized legal government has been replaced by a centralized extra-legal government. Thus the power of government has again drifted into the hands of the few. These, pursuant to well-known human characteristics, use that power selfishly. The decentralized character of the legal governmental power, the fact that only part of the offices are filled at any time, and the enormous advantage which comes from having a standing army of advisers and directors to guide the mass of politically ignorant voters, make it difficult to replace at the polls with real representatives of the electorate the appointees of this extra-legal government. We have, therefore, come finally to a well-defined extra-legal but none the less real government of the few, by the few, and for the few, at the expense and against the wish of the many. We have, in a word, achieved the establishment of a substantial unpopular government.
In form the politically ignorant voter is aided by the altruistic advice of those who know who should be elected. In form the voter can take the advice or not as he pleases. In reality, however, and in actual practice, the power of the electorate to fill the state and municipal offices has been confided by the politically ignorant majority to the leaders in the successful hierarchy of professional advisers and directors to the politically ignorant voter. The elector, by being required to vote too much, has been compelled to surrender to a large extent his right to vote at all, and to permit others to cast his ballot as they see fit. Formerly people were disfranchised when they were given no opportunity to vote. Today they are disfranchised by being required to vote too much. Formerly the legal rulers of the disfranchised masses were selected for them by the few without equivocation. Today our legal rulers are selected for us by the few through the subterfuge of the masses casting their ballots according to the directions of the few. In other forms of unpopular government the central figure has been the monarch, the autocrat, the oligarch, or the aristocrat. In ours it is the politocrat. We have avoided monarchy, autocracy, oligarchy, and aristocracy, only to find ourselves tightly in the grasp of a politocracy.
So startling a conclusion with respect to our governmental condition invites a detailed consideration of each step upon which that conclusion is founded.
Section 2
The Burden upon the Electorate—The Inverted Pyramid of Governmental and Electoral Districts—The Offices to Be Filled and the Number of Electors in Each District
No doubt the average American voter in most districts will readily concede the great burden of his political duties. But unless he has analyzed his particular situation he will hardly realize how great is that burden. Of course, the condition of voters in different places will differ in detail, but the important features are much the same everywhere. For the sake of example I will analyze my own situation as a voter of the Village of Winnetka, Township of New Trier, County of Cook, and State of Illinois.[2]
I am one of about 600 voters in a village which elects each spring, on one day, about one-half of the following officers: a president, 6 trustees, a clerk, a treasurer, a marshal and collector, 2 police magistrates, and 6 library trustees; and on another day, shortly afterward, a common-school trustee.
I am one of about 2,000 voters in a township which elects, on the same day that the principal village officers are elected, but at a different polling place, about one-half of the following officers: a supervisor, a clerk, an assessor, a collector, a commissioner of highways, 5 justices of the peace, 5 constables, and a poundmaster; and at a later day (but on the same day that the trustee for common schools is elected), 2 high-school trustees.
I am one of about 18,000 voters to elect one member of the state Senate every four years and 3 members of the House of Representatives of the state legislature every two years at the regular November election.
I am one of about 28,000 voters who elect 5 county commissioners at the regular November election every other year.
I am one of about 42,000 voters who elect one member of Congress at the regular November election and one member of the State Board of Equalization every two years.