know whether the
opposition to such measures is really rested in particular features
supposed to be objectionable or includes any proposition to give to
the election laws of the United States adequacy to the correction
of grave and acknowledged evils. I must yet entertain the hope that
it is possible to secure a calm, patriotic consideration of such
constitutional or statutory changes as may be necessary to secure
the choice of the officers of the Government to the people by fair
apportionments and free elections.

I believe it would be possible to constitute a commission, nonpartisan
in its membership and composed of patriotic, wise, and impartial men,
to whom a consideration of the question of the evils connected with our
election system and methods might be committed with a good prospect of
securing unanimity in some plan for removing or mitigating those evils.
The Constitution would permit the selection of the commission to be
vested in the Supreme Court if that method would give the best guaranty
of impartiality. This commission should be charged with the duty of
inquiring into the whole subject of the law of elections as related
to the choice of officers of the National Government, with a view to
securing to every elector a free and unmolested exercise of the suffrage
and as near an approach to an equality of value in each ballot cast as
is attainable.

While the policies of the General Government upon the tariff, upon the
restoration of our merchant marine, upon river and harbor improvements,
and other such matters of grave and general concern are liable to be
turned this way or that by the results of Congressional elections and
administrative policies, sometimes involving issues that tend to peace
or war, to be turned this way or that by the results of a Presidential
election, there is a rightful interest in all the States and in every
Congressional district that will not be deceived or silenced by the
audacious pretense that the question of the right of any body of legal
voters in any State or in any Congressional district to give their
suffrages freely upon these general questions is a matter only of local
concern or control. The demand that the limitations of suffrage shall
be found in the law, and only there, is a just demand, and no just man
should resent or resist it. My appeal is and must continue to be for
a consultation that shall "proceed with candor, calmness, and patience
upon the lines of justice