with the idea of defeating him in the election. The trouble is that you cannot draw the line between a Republican and a Democrat.

MR. JONES: On last Tuesday in Minneapolis there was a registration of 35,000. The largest number ever registered in three days before that was 25,000, which means that the people endorse a primary election scheme. They want to have the opportunity of going into the primary election and being able to become by their votes actual delegates. There is no convention held. They become delegates themselves, and their votes are counted. One Scandinavian told me at the polls that he never had voted before because he did not care to vote for somebody who would go to a convention and make nominations in a way he did not want, and that he had on that day had the first chance of his life to vote directly for a candidate. The voting public are enthusiastic to vote directly for candidates. The most promising result we got out of it is the enormous registration which shows the interest the public take in the matter. If we can get around the little difficulty I have mentioned we will be all right. [Laughter.]

MR. DAVIS: I would suggest that it would be advisable to take the former registration as a guide.

MR. FOULKE: How can you tell under the Australian system how a man voted?

MR. JONES: You can tell because it is in the primary.

MR. PALMER: I have heard the remedy that a man should be on the list a year, and that a year beforehand he shall designate his party. That will keep a few people who change their party from voting, but it will generally work pretty well.

PROFESSOR SPARLING: Why would not the Wisconsin caucus law extended to the primary be a sufficient remedy? Here we nominate by direct vote our delegates to convention, but each party holds its own primary, and each voter is registered as he deposits his ticket, and those lists are open to inspection, and by that method you escape what seems to me to be the trouble suggested.

MR. FOULKE: There is no way in which you can have an honest election law unless you let the Republican party determine who are Republicans and the Democratic party who are Democrats. To let the man who votes determine that, and then belie his determination at the next election, is a bad policy; and even with separate primary elections you have a great deal of difficulty in determining who are really Republicans and who really Democrats. It ought to depend upon the man himself to determine. This idea of saying a year beforehand whether a man is going to be a Republican or a Democrat on an issue that he knows nothing about and where candidates have not been nominated is undesirable. Nobody has prophetic soul enough to foretell policies and candidates. MR. BONAPARTE: Who determines as to who is a Republican? MR. FOULKE: The Republican committee.

MR. BONAPARTE: Then you let the boss determine.

MR. FOULKE: The primary law can provide the same penalties for bribery, etc., as the general election law, but when it attempts to conduct them in any other way than under party management, the result will be unsatisfactory.

THE SECRETARY: The very plan Mr. Foulke suggests has been carried out to perfection in Pennsylvania. We held a primary election September 11 under rules similar to those suggested by Mr. Foulke. The Republicans determined who were Republicans and who were not. In the Fifth Senatorial District the hottest fight in the whole city was waged. I know of my own knowledge that in one division only 225 votes were accepted out of 400 offered, the board of election throwing out every anti-Quay vote except twenty-five. In one division in my own ward the returning board, which consists of a judge and two inspectors, one of the inspectors was a Quay man, and the other inspector and judge were anti-Quay. The one inspector disregarded the other two and appointed a judge of his own following and an inspector. Those three received the votes and disregarded the anti-Quay man altogether, and under the excellent rule by which the party determines who are members of the party, they refused to accept the votes of any but their own men. It is one of the rules in Pennsylvania that any man who shall vote for the head of the last state or national Republican ticket shall be considered a Republican, entitled to vote at Republican primaries. As a matter of fact, some interpret that as meaning those who voted for McKinley in 1896 and some interpret it as meaning those who voted for Colonel Barnett for state treasurer. It depends on whom they want to exclude.

Mr. La Follette, of this state, seems to have gotten nearer to it than any one else. He provides essentially for a second election, and the application of the Australian system to the second election. I believe that the only true solution, however, is to do away with party nominations.

MR. FOULKE: The evil in Pennsylvania is less than in Minnesota [Laughter], because although you may get very bad men, the responsibility of it is with the party; but that the Republican party should be made responsible for Democratic nominations and vice versa is entirely too bad. You get into inextricable confusion, and there is no one upon whom to lay the responsibility.

THE CHAIRMAN: I think, gentlemen, that you have perhaps reached as near a conclusion upon that subject as may be expected.

Upon motion the meeting adjourned sine die.

APPENDIX

CONTAINING THE

PAPERS READ BEFORE THE MILWAUKEE CONFERENCE

FOR GOOD CITY GOVERNMENT.

A YEAR'S MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT.

CLINTON ROGERS WOODRUFF, PHILADELPHIA,
Secretary, National Municipal League.

The Proceedings of the First Conference for Good City Government, published in 1894, contained a bibliography of the literature of municipal government and its betterment. Thirty-nine pages sufficed for this purpose. The first number of Municipal Affairs, published in March, 1897, contained a similar bibliography, which required two hundred and twenty-four pages. A new edition is in process of preparation and its editor advises me that upwards of five hundred pages will be required to accommodate the refer

ences.

The Philadelphia Proceedings also contained a brief account of the then existing municipal reform organizations in the country. Forty-five were described. This year the National Municipal League has one hundred and nineteen organizations on its roll of affiliated members and its records show a grand total of four hundred and sixty-three devoting all or a part of their time to the study of the municipal problem.

These figures tell their own story. They tell more directly and forcibly than a hundred pages of manuscript of the phenomenal growth of interest in municipal affairs within the past decade.

When we review the shortcomings of a year we feel as if the situation were indeed grave; and so in truth it is. The official recognition and protection of vice and immorality in many of our large cities; the utilization of public power and office to serve private ends; the prevalence of official blackmail; the prostitution of public offices and contracts to serve mean and selfish party and factional ends; the sinister influence of corrupt corporations, present a picture at once dark and forbidding and constitute a problem of serious import and difficulty.