tion is put upon the amount of money a candidate may spend in seeking to elect delegates. Pennsylvania has had large experience in primary electionsmore than any other state. The systems adopted by the various counties differ, many of them providing for direct voting, though the Delaware County compromise plan is regarded by some as an improvement, meeting the objections made to the Crawford County plan. Under this plan the voters elect delegates to make nominations, but bind them for first and second choice at the convention. Massachusetts, as in all improvement, has done some good pioneer work in the way of reforming primaries, legislation dating from 1888 to 1889. In 1890 the Republican organization of Boston city gave the direct vote a trial. No names not properly filed went on the ticket, publicity being given to them a week or more before the caucus-though new names could be written on the ticket. In 1891 the Australian ballot was added and in 1894 the legislature enacted the system, and has since strengthened it. The statutes apply only to parties which cast at least 3 per cent of the vote. The Boston act is mandatory as to that city and any party of any city or town may adopt it by petition of fifty partisans. In St. Louis and Kansas City state laws control primary elections under the act of 1891. The first primary election law dates from 1875. It was optional as to its adoption. The first primary election statute in Missouri is a short one and of general purport, making the perpetration of frauds at primary elections felonies and misdemeanors upon an equal plane with the provisions of the laws covering general elections. Since that time there have been three or four primary election laws adopted, which apply to the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City. These, however, have been rather vague in their provisions and not compulsory as to use. They have therefore been frequently disregarded and other systems substituted therfor. The city primary election laws are somewhat extensive, requiring a deposit on the part of the candidates of $50 for each ward. How much weight may be attached to the conclusion of the secretary of state of Missouri, I do not know. He write, "I regret to say that I do not think the primary election laws of Missouri of much value." As for Ohio, the Crawford County (Pennsylvania), plan has been in operation there in many counties for over fifteen years. Both parties adopted it as a substitute for the convention. For county use it has given varying satisfaction, some approving heartily. But ten years ago the Republicans of Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) adopted free voting. It is surprising that so little attention has been paid to the results of the system in Cleveland. It is really the only municipal test we have in this country, and it is disappointing to note the comments upon the plan, even among the civic reformers. Thos. L. Johnson, an officer of the Municipal Association of Cleveland, says, "I think the trial during these years has demonstrated that, in a county containing a city like Cleveland, the Crawford County plan is a positive failure in securing the nomination of acceptable candidates." His objections are that the contest for nomination, often bitter, leave the party weak; that notoriety is as effective as reputation in securing votes at a primary, an advertising campaign being very effective; that public interest is absorbed in some important officecontest, the rest of the ticket going by default; that the expanded campaign to enlist voters instead of delegates is expensive; that candidates are multiplied. H. A. Garfield, president of the Municipal Association of Cleveland, says, "Our experience with the socalled Crawford County plan certainly does not lead us to advocate it. Whether a system can be devised like it, but devoid of its faults, I am not prepared to say, but I am certain that the opinion entertained here by our best citizens is that we should go back to the convention plan." One swallow does not make a summer. The shortcomings or even breaking down of legislative attempts of this sort should not be too rashly interpreted as complete failure. It is always well to remember the despair of abuses under old systems and the colossal proportions of the reform it is sought to effect. Some of the seeming strictures on free voting are really statements of conditions the desperately degenerate times alike under any system of nomination. The Crawford County system, seemingly sound in theory, is a system of direct voting that superficially would seem to leave all in the hands of the people. But Mr. Talcott Williams comments: "It is the universal opinion in this state (Pennsylvania), that the Crawford County system, as it is called, does more for a machine than any other questionable device. It saddles the cost of a general election on the party and all the difficulty of getting good men to neglect their business to go to the polls which bad men find it their profit to attend." But then Mr. Williams adds, "My own personal impression, however, is that it is passing through exactly the change which our elections did, of which I think there is indubitable proof that they are growing purer, less corrupt and more directly representative of the average good sense of the community during all the three centuries during which men have been voting among the Englishry. This is not the general impression, but I believe that it is not, merely because men have not patiently studied the elections of the past." This thoughtful estimate of the plan of direct voting is important. It suggests the principle should not be abandoned merely because its results disappoint. Josiah Quincy, of Boston, has faith in direct voting and refuses to discredit it because partial experiments report difficulties and disappointment. A direct vote in primaries, in the same place as the election, under the same equipment and non-partisan officers, a primary enjoying the same dignity and protection the state throws about an election—such direct voting is not the Crawford County plan and the American electorate has yet to see it tried. The proposed Wisconsin plan is unique, so far as we know, in that it makes the whole state the area of operation, not merely counties; the system is statute law, the primary being as much an official state function as the election-elsewhere the free voting primary election being optional with the respective parties and their regulations sometimes endorsed and given the force of law— (which is quite a different matter); and the Australian ballot is a mandatory and essential feature of the primary under the Wisconsin plan. MUNICIPAL POLITICAL PARTIES. DR. MILO R. MALTBIE, New York City, The prominent part played by the political party in municipal affairs makes its consideration essential in every scheme for the perfection of government. In democratic governments particularly, where the will of the majority is the sovereign power, the party is of primary importance, for it is the principal instrumentality through which the popular will is expressed. If the party system is imperfect, a minority may govern, thus, not only doing injustice but casting reproach upon democracy itself. The problem is: How may parties be so constituted as to permit the fullest, the freest and the most accurate expression of public opinion? As applied to present municipal conditions in the United States, three solutions have been offered: I. The abolition of all parties in municipal politics. 2. The creation of independent municipal parties, that is, parties presenting policies upon municipal questions only. 3. The adoption by the national parties of municipal programs in municipal matters, with the introduction of such changes as will cause parties to become the exponents of live and pertinent principles, rather than of dead and irrelevant issues or of personal affiliations. Assuming that the present position of the party in municipal politics is not what it should be, that to some extent it obstructs efficient city government, that it prevents the complete expression of the popular will and that some change is imperative, let us proceed to discuss the first solution proposed. The advocacy of the abolition of all parties in municipal politics is due primarily to the failure to analyze the function of the party carefully. What, then, is a political party? What are the conditions which call it into being? What are the elements which give it strength? In the first place, parties everywhere exist because of the increased power of combined forces, or stated more plainly, because a body of men holding similar views and having similar purposes can accomplish more by united action than by individual effort. Organized bodies always accomplish much more than disorganized bodies. Armies are vastly superior to mobs. Thus, if a city were suddenly to spring to life, with citizens of the very highest ability and integrity, parties would immediately be formed. A coterie of persons would soon find that they agreed upon certain principles of government and that other persons disagreed with them. In order to carry out their program, they would immediately organize a political party. Why? Because they would realize the advantages of organization. If this analysis is correct, one may expect that as the ability to act in harmony increases and is more generally utilized, parties will become more effective and more strongly intrenched. Such, indeed, has been the course of history. When the power to subordinate individual tastes and preferences and to exercise that mutual forbearance which makes society in its highest development most enjoyable, was weak and but slightly developed, the only form of political association was the clique or the clan. Even now Italy has not passed this stage of development. The Italian is incapable of political co-operation as manifested in the party idea, and instead of clinging to some principle or associating himself with others who believe in a common idea, he worships at the shrine of some patron. As political ability has increased, parties have developed; and where it has reached its highest development, the party system is the most perfect and the most efficient. Thus, although the party system is not the result or cause of progressing civilization, it is infallibly connected with it and is almost invariably a true index of the stage which civilization has reached. The increased power of combined action does not of itself |