CHAPTER VIITHE PRIMARIES
Upon the first appearance of the professional adviser and director to the politically ignorant voter he became a power in the presentation of candidates for election. It was indeed an essential part of his business in advising the voter how to vote that he should furnish him with a candidate for whom the adviser and director could vouch. At first the adviser and director of the politically ignorant voter named only candidates in the smallest governmental districts. But as the power and influence of the vote-directing organization spread to larger and more important governmental areas its leaders continued to control the nomination of candidates for office. At first the friends of the electorate sought to meet the formidable advantage which the vote-directing organization possessed by reason of its power to control party nominations by laws which permitted the nomination of independent candidates by petition.Of course, if the law provided that no candidate should appear on more than one ticket, independent nominations were likely to be very much discouraged. But even when the election laws were most liberal in permitting independent nominations, the vote-directing organizations were still able to hold the field against all but the most violent and revolutionary independent movements. In short, unpopular government by politocrats was still reasonably safe.
There were two reasons for this. In the first place, the vote-directing organization exists and prevails because the voter is ignorant with respect to the personality and qualifications of candidates for office. He must be advised and directed how to vote. The independent movement simply matches the strength of a temporary and sporadic effort to advise and direct the unorganized and inflamed but still ignorant voter how to vote, against a permanent and well-organized vote-directing machine. In the long run the latter will prevail. Secondly, the permanent organization for directing and advisingthe politically ignorant voter has always secured possession of a revered party name. This has heretofore given it an overwhelming advantage. It makes every independent an apostate of some party. So great has been the good-will of the two principal national parties in the last fifty years that independent movements have been confined largely to local elections, and even then it is difficult to obtain candidates because of the fear of party irregularity. Of these two reasons clearly the former is the more important. The two principal national parties of the last half-century might cease, but if the voter remained politically ignorant as before, extra-legal government would still go on. On the other hand, if the voter could be made politically intelligent at all elections and in filling all offices from the candidates presented, then extra-legal government would have to go and party names would not militate seriously against independent movements.
Nevertheless, when the friends of the electorate came to appreciate the failure of independent movements to make headway against theextra-legal government they did not plan to attack the fundamental difficulty of enlightening the voter’s political ignorance. Instead, they did as they had done before and sought a cure by attempting to eliminate the superficial and obvious cause.Mr.La Follette in Wisconsin thought that he could have no political success unless he continued to be a member of the Republican party. As matters stood, however, he could not obtain the nomination from that party because it was controlled by men who did not want him in office. YetMr.La Follette was more popular with the electorate who usually voted the Republican ticket than were the gentlemen who controlled the use of the party name. The obvious move forMr.La Follette was to take the control of the party name from those who held it. This he did by means of legislation which permitted any candidate who could secure a plurality of votes of the Republican party voters at a primary election to use the Republican party name in the election for the office. This was merely a legal and orderly way of depriving an extra-legalgovernment of the advantage of using a revered and popular party name. That is the proper function of a primary election law.
The availability of the primaries might, of course, have been limited to situations such asMr.La Follette created in the Republican party in Wisconsin—namely, when an independent in the party wished to wrest the control of the party name from an extra-legal government which had lost the confidence of the party electorate. If so limited its use would practically have been confined to the occasions when a well-organized revolt was in progress against the wing of a party in control of the party name. Such occasions would be infrequent because such revolts are infrequent. Extra-legal government having become established and having obtained control of the party name, the tendency would be to let the matter alone. Small uprisings in regard to nominations for some particular office might occur, but a well-organized, persistent, and ably led revolt such asMr.La Follette has conducted in Wisconsin is the event of a generation. Illinois, and nodoubt many other states, are just as much in need of the leadership of a man likeMr.La Follette as Wisconsin. But no such leader appears. None seems likely to appear. Our state lines have very effectively excludedMr.La Follette’s efforts from every state in the Union except his own. The use of the primary as a means of permanently and wholly depriving an extra-legal government of its power to control the use of a party name must be regarded as unusual and extraordinary and not at all likely to occur.
The use of primaries, however, has not been limited to occasions when an organized attempt has been made to deprive the minority of a party of the use of the party name. Instead, primaries have been made compulsory and applied to the nomination of practically all elective officers. They must be gone through with, although there is no organized revolt against the usual nominating authority. This extreme application of the primaries has been justified on the ground that the holding of primaries would operate automatically andregularly on all occasions to rid the electorate of control of the extra-legal government. Again, we have had a popular application of the theory that the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. If the number of appeals to the electorate which we had before the primaries did not do any good, we must have double the number of appeals. The futility of this course will be observed no more clearly than in the operation of the universal and compulsory primary.
Under the usual circumstances of normal conditions, when no organized revolt is being led against it, the extra-legal government will as effectively control the results at primaries as it does results at elections themselves. The permanent organization of advisers and directors to the politically ignorant voter will, of course, have a slate of candidates for nomination, just as it provided a slate of nominees under the convention system. There may be some independent candidates for nominations. Most frequently, however, these are obscure individuals who try for a nomination on the theory that they are no more unknown than the slatecandidates. The voter’s burden has been doubled. Consequently his political ignorance, both at the primary election for candidates and at the election itself, is probably greater than it was at the election for office alone. At all events, the voter comes to the primaries (if he comes at all) just as ignorant of the personality and qualifications of candidates for nomination as he formerly did of the candidates for office. His ignorance may be so apparent that he does not vote at all. Perhaps he votes only for a few names that he happens to recognize. In either case his vote is negligible. The effective voter at the primaries is the one who votes for candidates for all places. He must, however, as a result of his dense political ignorance, vote the way he is told. As usual the most effective force for telling him how to vote is the permanent organization of advisers and directors to the politically ignorant voter. It is that organization which will most often carry the primary election which nominates candidates for most of the offices. In short, the extra-legal government will influence and control the resultsof the ordinary primary just as it has influenced and controlled the results of ordinary elections. It is only in the language of the stump that the primaries enable the people to nominate. While an extra-legal government exists the people can no more nominate at primaries than they can choose at elections. Such precisely has been the experience in Cook County, Illinois. There, from the time the primaries first went into effect, the leaders of the two principal vote-directing organizations have made slates more or less secretly, secured the most favorable position for the slate on the primary ballot, pushed the slate at the primaries, and obtained the nomination in practically every case of the slate candidates. In primary elections we have an appeal to voters on matters apparently less important and conspicuous than the filling of the offices themselves. If the vote-directing organization can in the long run control elections to a majority of the offices, it can certainly in the long run control the nominations for those offices at the primary election.
We must not overlook one great advantage to the extra-legal government in making nominations at primaries instead of at conventions. In the convention the leaders of the extra-legal government were so openly and publicly the makers of nominations that they were in a degree responsible. They had to consider very carefully the popular temper in giving each candidate a place on the ballot. Under the primaries, however, the result is, in the language of the stump, “the judgment of the people.” If, therefore, any black sheep slip into nominations for obscure places it is the fault of the people, just as it used to be the fault of the people when bad men were elected to office. The popular demand, however, for primaries is a confession that elections did not produce the choice of the people. Before long, experience with universal and compulsory primaries to make nominations for long ballots will indicate that they do not produce nominations by the people.
Not only is the compulsory primary for all elective offices entirely ineffective to break upthe power of the extra-legal government to direct the nomination of its loyal adherents, but in the long run its presence exaggerates the very condition which necessarily causes the existence of a centralized extra-legal government controlling a decentralized legal government. That condition is the burden of political duties cast upon the voter which he will not and very likely cannot possibly carry. It is that which makes him politically ignorant and forces him to fall back upon the assistance of the professional political adviser. When the primaries double the burden on the voter they increase twofold the necessity for permanent organizations for directing and advising the politically ignorant voter how to vote. Consequently, so far from disrupting an extra-legal government, the universal and compulsory primary makes its continued existence even more certain.