does not elicit sufficient public interest to call out the entire vote of the city; that such being the case the only vote which would come out would be the organized Machine vote, and that in that event we should be even worse off than we now are. It is contended that the advantage of having the general and charter elections take place simultaneously is that the largest possible number of voters come to the polls, and being there, vote on municipal as well as general issues. This objection to spring elections has been sought to be answered by saying that some provision for minority representation would entirely overcome it. At the last session of the Legislature a bill for spring elections in the city of New York was passed, and provision was made for minority representation. Although the Governor believed in the principle of a spring election, he, nevertheless, found himself compelled to veto the bill because of the provisions providing for minority representation, and this was justified in view of the fact that minority representation is a mere delusion and snare so long as parties are organized and permitted to exist as at present. If the objection to spring elections be that the great body of voters would not vote, and

that the Machines would be more powerful under such circumstances than they even now are, provisions for minority representation under our present election laws would only intensify the evil; because, even if the entire voting population came out, the party Machines could foreclose the possibility of defeat by combination, and thus be practically irresponsible as to the candidates whom they should nominate.

All of these difficulties would, however, be overcome if in the municipal election the Machine were paralyzed through the deprivation by law of its. present monopoly of printing and distributing the tickets, and if an act similar to the English Act for the prevention of corrupt practices were to be enacted, thus disfranchising all persons who took money in working as canvassers for, or agents of, the candidates, limiting the permissible expenditures of candidates, and requiring their sworn statements of the amounts actually disbursed. The result would be that the municipal elections, being - entirely disassociated from all general issues, could take place in perfect freedom from such issues, and party Machines, which are generally built up around questions of national politics, and state or

national issues, would as such count for little or nothing at the charter election. Thus, in charter elections at least, the vote could be had of men standing in perfect equality before the ballot-box as regards every detail of the machinery of election from beginning to end. All general issues being eliminated by the possibility of nominations independent of all partisan considerations, and it being possible to get the name of every candidate before every voter at the public expense, the army of paid workers would disappear as soon as their trade was made criminal, and they were deprived of their own votes. The Machines, and all that appertains to them, exist only because the law has not gone far enough. When it has gone further, and assumed the performance of all the essential functions of conducting an election, there will no longer be either reason, opportunity, or room for the Machine, and no occasion for assessing candidates or office-holders, for there will be no outlet for the money.

Where only two or three, and they partisan, candidates are in the field, it is only natural that the voter, since he has to determine the choice of evils, should vote for the candidate of the party with

which he usually acts. Were the law first to provide the means for placing candidates in nomination, who shall occupy a position exactly as good as that occupied by the party candidates, and then separate the charter from the general election, the means will be found once and for all on the part of all public-spirited citizens for escaping the choice of evils, and for acting in municipal matters from a municipal point of view only, entirely independent of all state or national considerations. In order to make such a remedy as has been suggested of real service, it would, under present constitutional conditions, be well to apply it only to elections to city offices, and to make the elective officers as few as possible. Those officers now are the Mayor, the Comptroller, President of the Board of Aldermen, Recorder, Judges of the City Court, City Judges, the Aldermen, and the Civil Justices. The experience of such a law as reforming our municipal elections and our municipal government, might lead ultimately to its adoption for all state and county officers whatever, and work the reform which is needed throughout the entire State, though not so urgently needed as in our great cities. It may be said that these reforms

are impossible. If so, I would reply in the words of Mr. John Morley: "Nearly all lovers of improvement are apt, in the heat of a generous enthusiasm, to forget that if all the world were ready to embrace their cause, their improvement could hardly be needed. It is one of the hardest conditions of things that the more numerous and resolute the enemies of reform, then the more unmistakably urgent the necessity for it."