comply with precise
formalities of resignation, the joint caucus and the separate caucus,
the public nomination paper, the one-per-cent., three-per-cent. or
five-per-cent. rule whereby a party gains such official recognition
only by throwing such a percentage of votes at some previous
election--in short, all the mass of legislation of this kind is the
matter of the last few years. In the writer's opinion, with the
possible exception of the public nomination paper, it is all mistaken.
Aimed at destroying the machine, it really intrenches the machine--the
professional politician--in power. The general public will not, and
should not be compelled to do more work than is necessary. If they
actually vote at election it is all that can fairly be asked of them
and more than one-third of them do. They will not, and cannot, devote
their time to politics all through the year. The result is that all
such elaborate schemes simply throw the game into the hands of the
"town committee" or other permanent professional body. If you have to
hold a meeting in June, and give notice of a caucus in July, with
as much formality as used to be required in publishing the bans of
marriage, and then on a certain day in August do something else, and
in September something still more, and file with the Secretary of
State nomination papers in October, and have everything complete ten
days before election day,--the ordinary citizens who usually awake to
the fact that there is an election about that time find it too late to
have any voice in the nomination. They go to the election itself to
find an official ballot with two machine candidates for each office,
and no hope of electing, even were it possible to nominate, a third.
In the old days, when they discovered that an improper candidate
had been nominated, on the very eve of election they could arouse
themselves and defeat him; under all these complicated systems it is
too late. One necessity for such legislation, however, arises from the
Australian ballot itself; when that ballot carries party designations,
who is to determine who is the official party candidate? This problem
is not, however, insoluble. Indeed, it might be argued that it would
be an excellent test to require the various so-called party nominees
to run together, leaving to the voter to determine who was the regular
one. Certainly the legalizing of conventions, caucuses, and other
nominating machinery, has led to great scandals. Unde