Magna Carta, and Other Addresses

by William D. Guthrie

If the function of legislation is in the long run most satisfactorily performed by a representative body composed of men from every locality and every part of a state, and if it would be unsafe to vest the lawmaking power in the executive branch, does it not likewise follow that the equally important function of selecting candidates for executive and judicial office and formulating party policies and platforms will be better performed by a representative body, such as delegate conventions, than by being left to the mass of voters? If more intelligent legislation and wiser action are likely to result from a representative body than from the confusion of a multitude of voters, is it not also evident that more intelligent and discriminating selection of executive officers will be made by chosen representatives, as in nominating conventions, than by the people at large?

It should be borne in mind that our system of republican government differs from other representative governments in the practical and effective separation of powers. In England and in France the legislators, that is the delegates or representatives elected by the people, appoint and control all executive and administrative officers and carry on the executive and administrative branches of government. There the legislative and executive powers are practically united in the same body. Under our system the legislators do not elect or appoint executive officers. It is, therefore, essential, as I am profoundly convinced, that executive officers should be nominated by duly qualified representatives if the representative principle is to be maintained.

Nomination of executive officers by direct primaries will inevitably be subversive of the true spirit of the representative system, and the secrecy of the vote in the nominating primaries will ultimately be destructive of all sense of responsibility. The enrolled voter marking his ballot in secret will frequently feel no sense of responsibility or accountability to his neighbors and fellow-citizens, and will frequently fail to appreciate that his vote is a sacred trust to be exercised for the good of the community. The secrecy of the primary vote thus does a great moral mischief in destroying the sense of political responsibility and accountability. A public declaration in connection with nominations for office, involving as it does a recommendation to other voters of fitness and qualification for the particular office, is a much more effective restraint on corruption and perversion of the popular vote than any scheme of secrecy which leaves no one publicly responsible for unfit and improper nominations. In my judgment, the primary system tends to promote the nomination of self-advertisers, demagogues and wire-pullers by irresponsible minorities, groups, factions, cabals, or secret societies, generally composed of persons acting in the dark and dominated or controlled by leaders who cannot be held to any accountability, however much they may abuse or prostitute the political power they exercise.

The nomination of candidates for public office, whether national, state, or local, by means of party conventions, caucuses, or conferences, was introduced and long existed without any statutory regulation. The practice sprang up normally and from necessity as soon as the increase of population rendered it impracticable for the voters to come together in mass or town meeting. The body of voters, who could not spend the time necessary to investigate as to the qualifications of candidates, or attend political debates, and who could know little or nothing of the competency and character of candidates, naturally recognized that the best and safest course would be to elect delegates or representatives from each neighborhood, who, meeting delegates or representatives from other districts, could exchange views, criticize, discuss and agree upon policies and nominations, and thus act more intelligently, advisedly and wisely than would otherwise be possible.

The growth of constituencies, the multiplication of elective offices, and the neglect of their political duties by the majority of electors led to many abuses in the management of nominating conventions, and legislation became necessary in order to prevent frauds in connection with the conduct of primaries and conventions. In promoting this legislation, it was argued that, if citizens were assured the right to be enrolled in the party to which they desired to belong and to vote at primaries and freely to exercise their choice for delegates to conventions, they would be stimulated to take part in the primaries, and that this would result in preventing party nominations for office from being controlled by those who made politics their business or used improper or corrupt methods. Hence the primary reform measures introduced by legislation in our state in the nineties.

These measures, however, proved to be sadly disappointing to many of their promoters. This was not because the statutes were in themselves defective or inadequate, but because it was found to be impossible by mere legislative enactment to induce a majority of the electors to enroll in their parties or to take any active part or interest in politics. Although under these primary laws the nominating conventions could at any time have been readily controlled by the electorate at large, had the voters only taken the trouble to enroll and vote at the primaries, great dissatisfaction arose or was fomented or manufactured, and a demand created for the total abolition of the convention and the introduction of the experiment of a direct primary system, upon the notion that this would stimulate greater political interest, enable the enrolled voters to control and elect their own candidates, bring nominations closer to the people, and curtail and ultimately destroy the power of the politicians and bosses. The new experiment was based upon the assumption that if enrolled electors could vote directly for candidates instead of for representatives to nominating conventions, they would thereby be induced to take a more active interest in politics, to overthrow the control or domination of bosses and professional politicians, and to make better selections than had ever been made before. In a word, it was assumed in the face of all experience to the contrary that, if the voters had the direct power, they would perform their political duties, that better qualified and more competent and independent candidates would offer themselves or somehow would be brought to the attention of the electorate, and that nominations would then represent the will or choice of the majority in each party, and not the will of minorities, or the choice of bosses. How the majority were to ascertain the qualifications of particular candidates or cooperate to secure the nomination of the best qualified was left in the air. It seemed to be thought, following the absurd and exploded doctrines of Rousseau, that the people would always want and, by a process of political inspiration, would intuitively and instinctively select, the best men for public office.

The result so far has refuted all these assumptions, hopes and promises. The people at large do not take part in the primaries, and the political machines are more powerful than ever. Thus, in New York county, the Republican vote for governor at the direct primaries of 1914 was only 23,305, out of a total enrollment of 56,108 and a vote in November of 85,478; the Democratic primary vote was only 48,673 out of a total enrollment of 132,693 and a vote in November of 90,666, and the Progressive primary vote was only 6,972 out of a total enrollment of 19,705 and a vote in November of 5,604. It will be readily perceived from these figures that a small minority of the voters in each party took the trouble to participate in the direct primary elections, even in the case of the nomination for governor of our state, as to which there was an exciting contest in each party. An examination of the figures throughout the entire state will show that the voters in nearly all districts took less interest in direct primary elections for nominations than they were accustomed to take under the old convention system and that the controlling power is still being exercised by the organization, but now acting in secret and utterly irresponsible. For example, the Republican primary vote for governor in Bronx county was 5,276 against a Republican vote of 29,865 in November, and in Richmond county the Republican primary vote for governor was 984 against a Republican vote of 5,477 in November. It is probably correct to assume that not one-half of the Republican or Democratic voters now enroll, and that, on an average, less than one-half of the enrolled voters take the trouble to go to the primaries, even when there is a serious contest, as was the case last year for governor. There were then three proposed Republican candidates, Whitman, Hedges and Hinman, and the result was that less than one-sixth of the Republican vote in November might have been sufficient to carry the primaries, the total Republican vote for governor having been 686,701 as against a total primary vote of 226,037 for the three candidates. Under the present direct primaries, the voters of a small portion of the state can put a candidate in nomination by petition; any number of names may be put on the official primary ballot, and a candidate may be put in nomination by a very small minority vote confined to a single locality. In fact, twenty or more names can be placed by petition on the official primary ballot of any party as candidates for any elective office, and the name of the person receiving the largest number of votes will be that of the candidate of a great party, to whose support the party will be committed and for whose conduct in office the party will be responsible, although the successful candidate may be entirely unknown to nineteen-twentieths of the voters at that particular primary. Under the present primary system, in view of the small number of those participating in primaries, an insignificant percentage of the voters at a primary could nominate a candidate of whose qualifications and personal character the majority of the party were wholly ignorant, or a candidate whom an overwhelming majority would utterly repudiate. Sulzer came very near carrying the direct primary of the Progressive party. This shows how readily the direct primary system engenders factions and irresponsibility, and how unfit it is for securing the expression of the intelligent and instructed will of the majority of any party. Moreover, there is no way of ascertaining for whom petitions are being circulated; no publicity is required even after the time for filing petitions, and the great majority of enrolled voters generally have no idea of the candidates for office on the official primary ballot until they open the official ballots at their polling-places. The press is either uninterested or partisan, and it fails adequately to discuss the qualifications and character of candidates.

I submit that it is absurd to claim that such a method of nominating state officers to administer government for a population of over 10,000,000 is more likely to secure competent and trustworthy candidates, or to express the real preference and the sober and intelligent judgment of the majority of the voters of each party, than the old method of nominating state officers by public conventions composed of delegates and representatives of the voters from each assembly or election district of the state, proceeding in the open with full opportunity for investigation, discussion and criticism.

The conventions of the two great political parties held at Saratoga last year, at which the party platforms in respect of the approaching Constitutional Convention were adopted and fifteen delegates-at-large "recommended," were wholly unofficial and unregulated by law. What was practically the nomination by the conventions of candidates for delegates-at-large was unauthorized and operated only as a mere recommendation. They had to be nominated by petition as fully as if the conventions had never met. These conventions thus nominated delegates because they realized, and every thinking man in the state appreciated, that it would be preposterous to leave the selection and nomination of fifteen delegates-at-large to the mass of enrolled voters who would have no opportunity for conference and exchange of views in respect of the qualifications and character of the candidates. Some informed, responsible and representative body of men had to act, and therefore the conventions acted—in the very teeth of the law. They, however, refrained from considering candidates for the great office of governor, on the theory that it would be violating the spirit and intent of the Election Law to take any action in regard to candidates for that office! What inconsistency! The most important and vital subject of the governorship was left to the hazard of petitions circulated among the enrolled voters throughout the state. There were no organizations of any kind among the voters, except what are known as the political organizations, and no other means of communication and exchange of views or debate. Of course, it was confidently anticipated that the organization in each party would determine, or at least would have it within its power to determine, who should be the candidates of that party. Such proved to be the case. No candidate was nominated at the direct primaries for a state office unless he was supported by the regular organization or machine of his party. And that, I believe, will be the practical result of direct primaries in nine cases out of ten, and more readily and frequently and unsatisfactorily than under the old convention system.

Careful observers of the operation of the primary law last year in this state, and for several years in other states, have become convinced that the result of this so-called reform has been not only to increase the power of the regular organization or machine but to render it utterly irresponsible. The organization now acts in secret behind closed doors and without accountability to any one except its own inner circle. The leaders have only to whisper their orders over the telephone to the workers in each district, preserving no record, and the desired result is accomplished. If an unfit and improper nomination is made, the leaders can disclaim all responsibility and say that such is the will of the sovereign people. As the vote at the primary is secret, no one can be blamed; there is no individual or group of individuals upon whom responsibility can ever be fastened. If it be argued that there is actual responsibility and that everyone knows it, then I answer that this is only by admitting that, after all, the secret machine or boss is in fact responsible and still rules, and now more effectively than ever.