Upon the basis of this indictment of the county convention system, the Republican voters of Crawford County, a rural community, whose largest town is Meadville, the county seat, proceeded to nominate their candidates by direct vote, under rules prepared by the county committee. These rules have been but slightly changed. The informality of a hat or open table drawer has been replaced by an official ballotbox, and an official ballot has taken the place of the tickets furnished by each candidate.
The "Crawford County plan," as it was generally called, was adopted by various localities in many States. In 1866 California and New York enacted laws to protect primaries and nominating caucuses from fraud. In 1871 Ohio and Pennsylvania enacted similar laws, followed by Missouri in 1875 and New Jersey in 1878. By 1890 over a dozen States had passed laws attempting to eliminate the grosser frauds attendant upon making nominations. In many instances it was made optional with the party whether the direct plan should supersede the delegate plan. Only in certain cities, however, was the primary made mandatory in these States. By far the larger areas retained the convention.
There is noticeable in these years a gradual increase in the amount of legislation concerning the nominating machinery—prescribing the days and hours for holding elections of delegates, the size of the polling-place, the nature of the ballotbox, the poll-list, who might participate in the choice of delegates, how the returns were to be made, and so on. By the time, then, that the Australian ballot came, with its profound changes, nearly all the States had attempted to remove the glaring abuses of the nominating system; and several of them officially recognized the direct primary. The State was reluctant to abolish the convention system entirely; and the Crawford County plan long remained merely optional. But in 1901 Minnesota enacted a state-wide, mandatory primary law. Mississippi followed in 1902, Wisconsin in 1903, and Oregon in 1904. This movement has swept the country.
Few States retain the nominating convention, and where it remains it is shackled by legal restrictions. The boss, however, has devised adequate means for controlling primaries, and a return to a modified convention system is being earnestly discussed in many States to circumvent the further ingenuity of the boss. A further step towards the state control of parties was taken when laws began to busy themselves with the conduct of the campaign. Corrupt Practices Acts began to assume bulk in the early nineties, to limit the expenditure of candidates, and to enumerate the objects for which campaign committees might legitimately spend money. These are usually personal traveling expenses of the candidates, rental of rooms for committees and halls for meetings, payment of musicians and speakers and their traveling expenses, printing campaign material, postage for distribution of letters, newspapers and printed matter, telephone and telegraph charges, political advertising, employing challengers at the polls, necessary clerk hire, and conveyances for bringing aged or infirm voters to the polls. The maximum amount that can be spent by candidates is fixed, and they are required to make under oath a detailed statement of their expenses in both primary and general elections. The various committees, also, must make detailed reports of the funds they handle, the amount, the contributors, and the expenditures. Corporations are forbidden to contribute, and the amount that candidates themselves may give is limited in many States. These exactions are reinforced by stringent laws against bribery. Persons found guilty of either receiving or soliciting a bribe are generally disfranchised or declared ineligible for public office for a term of years. Illinois, for the second offense, forever disfranchises.
It is not surprising that these restrictions have led the State to face the question whether it should not itself bear some of the expenses of the campaign. It has, of course, already assumed an enormous burden formerly borne entirely by the party. The cost of primary and general elections nowadays is tremendous. A few Western States print a campaign pamphlet and distribute it to every voter. The pamphlet contains usually the photographs of the candidates, a brief biography, and a statement of principles.
These are the principal encroachments made by the Government upon the autonomy of the party. The details are endless. The election laws of New York fill 330 printed pages. It is little wonder that American parties are beginning to study the organization of European parties, such as the labor parties and the social democratic parties, which have enlisted a rather fervent party fealty. These are propagandist parties and require to be active all the year round. So they demand annual dues of their members and have permanent salaried officials and official party organs. Such a permanent organization was suggested for the National Progressive party. But the early disintegration of the party made impossible what would have been an interesting experiment. After the election of 1916, Governor Whitman of New York suggested that the Republican party choose a manager and pay him $10,000 a year and have a lien on all his time and energy. The plan was widely discussed and its severest critics were the politicians who would suffer from it. The wide-spread comment with which it was received revealed the change that has come over the popular idea of a political party since the State began forty years ago to bring the party under its control.
But flexibility is absolutely essential to a party system that adequately serves a growing democracy. And under a two-party system, as ours is probably bound to remain, the independent voter usually holds the balance of power. He may be merely a disgruntled voter seeking for revenge, or an overpleased voter seeking to maintain a profitable status quo, or he may belong to that class of super-citizens from which mugwumps arise. In any case, the majorities at elections are usually determined by him. And party orthodoxy made by the State is almost as distasteful to him as the rigor of the boss. He relishes neither the one nor the other.
In the larger cities the citizens' tickets and fusion movements are types of independent activities. In some cities they are merely temporary associations, formed for a single, thorough housecleaning. The Philadelphia Committee of One Hundred, which was organized in 1880 to fight the Gas Ring, is an example. It issued a Declaration of Principles, demanding the promotion of public service rather than private greed, and the prosecution of "those who have been guilty of election frauds, maladministration of office, or misappropriation of public funds." Announcing that it would endorse only candidates who signed this declaration, the committee supported the Democratic candidates, and nominated for Receiver of Taxes a candidate of its own, who became also the Democratic nominee when the regular Democratic candidate withdrew. Philadelphia was overwhelmingly Republican. But the committee's aid was powerful enough to elect the Democratic candidate for mayor by 6000 majority and the independent candidate for Receiver of Taxes by 20,000. This gave the Committee access to the records of the doings of the Gas Ring. In 1884, however, the candidate which it endorsed was defeated, and it disbanded.
Similar in experience was the famous New York Committee of Seventy, organized in 1894 after Dr. Parkhurst's lurid disclosures of police connivance with every degrading vice. A call was issued by thirty-three well-known citizens for a non-partizan mass meeting, and at this meeting a committee of seventy was appointed "with full power to confer with other anti-Tammany organizations, and to take such actions as may be necessary to further the objects of this meeting as set forth in the call therefor, and the address adopted by this meeting." The committee adopted a platform, appointed an executive and a finance committee, and nominated a full ticket, distributing the candidates among both parties. All other anti-Tammany organizations endorsed this ticket, and it was elected by large majorities. The committee dissolved after having secured certain charter amendments for the city and seeing its roster of officers inaugurated.
The Municipal Voters' League of Chicago is an important example of the permanent type of citizens' organization. The league is composed of voters in every ward, who, acting through committees and alert officers, scrutinize every candidate for city office from the Mayor down. It does not aim to nominate a ticket of its own, but to exercise such vigilance, enforced by so effective an organization and such wide-reaching publicity, that the various parties will, of their own volition, nominate men whom the league can endorse. By thus putting on the hydraulic pressure of organized public opinion, it has had a considerable influence on the parties and a very stimulating effect on the citizenry.