SKELETON PLAN OF A PROPOSEDCASTING VOTE PARTY(1901)

Note.--Mark Twain’s effort was always for clean politics. In 1901 he formulated what to him seemed a feasible plan to obtain this boon. It is here first published.--A. B. P.

ITS MAIN OBJECT

To compel the two Great Parties to nominate theirbest manalways.

FOUNDATION PRINCIPLES

With the offices all filled by the best men of either of the two Great Parties, we shall have good government. We hold that this is beyond dispute, and does not need to be argued.

DETAILS

1. The C. V. Party should beorganized. This, in order to secure its continuance and permanency.

2. Any of the following acts must sever the connection of a member with the Casting Vote party:

3. The organization should never vote forany but a nominee of one or the other of the two Great Parties, and should then cast theirentire votefor that nominee.

4. They should have no dealings with minor parties.

5. There should be ward organizations, township, town, city, congressional district, state and national organizations. The party should work wherever there is an elective office, from the lowest up to the Presidency.

6. As a rule, none of the organizations will need to be large. In most cases they will be able to control the action of the two Great Parties without that. In the matter of membership, quality will be the main thing, rather than quantity.

In small constituencies, where a town constable or a justice of the peace is to be elected it will often be the case that a Casting Vote lodge of fifty members can elect the nominee it prefers. In every such community the material for the fifty is present. It will be found among the men who are disgusted with the prevailing political methods, the low ambitions and ideals, of the politicians; dishonesty in office; corruption; the frank distribution of appointments among characterless and incompetent men as pay for party service; the evasion and sometimes straight-out violation of the civil-service laws. The fifty will be found among the men who are ashamed of this condition of things and who have despaired of seeing it bettered;who stay away from the polls and do not vote;who do not attend primaries, and would be insulted there if they did.

The fifty exist in every little community; they are not seen, not heard, not regarded--but they are there. There, and deeply and sincerely desirous of good and sound government, and ready to give the best help they can if any will place before them a competent way. They are reserved and quiet merchants and shopkeepers, middle-aged; they are young men making their way in the offices of doctors and lawyers and behind counters; they are journeyman high-class mechanics; they are organizers of, and workers for, the community’s charities, art and other social-improvement clubs, university settlements, Young Men’s Christian Association, circulating libraries; they are readers of books, frequenters of the library. They have never seen a primary, and they have an aversion for the polls.

7. Men proposing to create a Casting Vote lodge should not advertise their purpose; conspiracies for good, like conspiracies for evil, are best conducted privately until success is sure. The poll of the two Great Parties should be examined, and the winning party’s majority noted.It is this majority which the Casting Vote must overcome and nullify.If the total vote cast was 1,000 and the majority vote fifty, the proposers of a lodge should canvass privately until they have secured 75 or 100 names; they can organize then, without solicitude; the balance of power is in their hands, and this fact by itself will add names to its membership. If the total vote is 10,000 and the majority vote 1,000, the procedure should be as before: the thousand-and-upward should be secured by private canvass beforepublic organization is instituted. Where a total vote is 1,000,000 the majority vote is not likely to exceed 30,000. Five or six canvassers can begin the listing; each man secured becomes a canvasser, ten know three apiece who will join; the thirty know three apiece who will join; the ninety know three hundred, the three hundred know a thousand, the thousand know three thousand--and so on; the required thirty or forty thousand can be secured in ten days, the lodge organized, and its casting vote be ready and self-pledged and competent to elect the best of the nominees the two Great Parties may put up at that date or later.

8. In every ward of every city there is enough of this material to hold the balance of power over the two Great Parties in a ward election; in every city there is enough of it to determine which of the two nominees shall be mayor; in every congressional district there is enough of it to elect the Governor; also to elect the legislature and choose the U. S. Senators; and in the United States there is enough of it to throw the Casting Vote for its choice between the nominees of the two Great Parties and seat him in the presidential chair.

9. From constable up to President there is no office for which the two Great Parties cannot furnish able, clean, and acceptable men. Whenever the balance of power shall be lodged in a permanent third party with no candidates of its own and no function but to cast itswhole votefor the best man put forward by the Republicans and Democrats, these two partieswill select the best men they have intheir ranks. Good and clean government will follow, let its party complexion be what it may; and the country will be quite content.

THE LODGES

The primal lodge--call it A--should consist of 10 men only. It is enough and can meet in a dwelling house or a shop, and get well acquainted at once. It has before it the names of the nominees of the two Great Parties--Jones (Republican), Smith (Democrat). It fails of unanimity--both candidates perchance being good men and about equally acceptable--and casts seven votes, say, for Jones and three for Smith.

It elects one of its ten to meet similar delegates from any number of local A lodges and hand in its vote. This body--call it a B lodge--examines the aggregate vote; this time the majority may be with Smith. The members carry the result to the A lodges; and these, by the conditions of their membership, must vote for Smith.

In the case of a state election, bodies each consisting of a number of B lodges would elect a delegate to a state council, and the state council would examine the aggregate vote and give its decision in favor of the Republican or Democratic candidate receiving the majority of the Casting Vote’s suffrages.

In the case of a presidential contest, the state council would appoint delegates to a national convention, and these would examine the aggregate Casting Vote vote and determine and announce thechoice of the Casting Vote organizations of the whole country. At the presidential election the A lodges throughout the land would vote for presidential electors of the Party indicated.

If the reader thinks well of the project, let him begin a private canvass among his friends and give it a practical test, without waiting for other people to begin. If in the hands of men who regard their citizenship as a high trust this scheme shall fail upon trial, a better must be sought, a better must be invented; for it cannot be well or safe to let the present political conditions continue indefinitely. They can be improved, and American citizenship should rouse up from its disheartenment and see that it is done.

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