many cases wiser than they knew upon the foundations of the fathers of the republic. So the things we are doing to-day will acquire an added importance and an added sig. nificance as the years roll on from the ever increasing power and position of this republic among the nations of the earth. EDMUND J. JAMES NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY EVANSTON THE REGULATION OF PRIMARY ELECTIONS BY LAW The nomination of candidates by the various political parties and the election of officers to fill the many places of public trust in the city, county, State, and national governments are of growing importance to the American people. The increasing density of the population of the United States from 4.9 persons to the square mile of area in 17901 to 25.6 persons to the square mile of area in 1900,2 and the fact that there are some 21,329,8192 voters in the United States particularly emphasize this importance. Furthermore, the concentration of 37.3 per cent of our entire population in cities, which has accompanied the rush for commercial supremacy, is having a wonderful and wide felt influence upon the political and social development of our nation. Nevertheless the desire to maintain our free institutions and the principles of pure democracy in our government is stronger today among the 76,000,000 people than it was in 1789, at the time of the adoption of our national constitution, when there were but 4,000,000. This desire is especially evidenced by the general and growing interest throughout the United States, and within the dominant party in the respective States, in the regulation of primary elections by laws which provide that nominations 1U. S. Census for 1790. U. S. Census for 1900. U. S. Census for 1900. shall be made by the direct vote of the members of the political party. The agitation for reform in nominating systems has been going on ever since the earliest political history of our nation. It has been an evolution. At first the members of the colonial assembly, and afterwards the members of the State legislature, when that body was in session at the colonial or State capital, held a meeting and made nominations for the various district and State offices. They also directed or made the nominations for the county offices; while members of the political parties in Congress named the congressional, senatorial, and presidential candidates.1 But as the population increased and the people became better acquainted with the plan of a republican form of govern. ment, the rank and file became more interested in public affairs and finally expressed a desire to participate in the control of the government machinery. Thus there arose a desire among the people to nominate their own representatives either directly or through delegates selected to represent their wishes. 2 About the year 1832 the assumed power of party leaders in the legislatures and in the Congress of making nominations was lost to them; and the right of naming their own candidates and making their own political party platforms was demanded by the masses of the people themselves who, after all, really constituted the power of government.3 'Von Holst's Constitutional History of the United States, Vol. II, pp. 38, 39. 2 Schouler's History of the United States, Vol. IV, p. 81. At this juncture the caucus and convention system of nominations was established. It continued as a nominating system without interruption in local, State, and national politics until after the Civil War closed in 1865. During this period the great question of slavery overshadowed all other problems of political betterment. By the caucus and convention system delegates were selected by those who attended the caucus to represent them at the various county, district, and State conventions. But under the workings of this plan many thought themselves misrepresented, and they complained that the caucuses and conventions were too often open to the manipulations of party bosses. And so there arose in time a demand for the nomination of party candidates for local, district, and State offices by the direct vote of the members of that party only at whose hands the candidates asked a nomination. This system by which the political party nominates its candidates by a direct vote of all its qualified members without the intervention of delegates to represent the choice of the people, but rather having that choice determined by the largest number of votes cast for any one candidate, has been generally designated as a Primary Election. Primary elections are conducted within the political party on the same basis as the general election in November; and the candidates are nominated by the members of the party voting directly for the candidates of their own choice. The first step toward the regulation of primary elections by law was taken by the legislature of California in 1866 when an imperfect law was passed providing for the election of delegates at primaries by a direct vote.1 The next step 1Session Laws of California, 1866. was the introduction of the direct vote, or primary election system, in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, in 1868.1 Since those first attempts in California and Pennsylvania, some thirty-one different State legislatures have enacted laws of one kind or another for the regulation of primary elections. Most of this legislation has taken place during the last ten years and is of a varied character. It is either state-wide or local; and it is compulsory or optional. The primary election is either conducted by the political party, or it is under the control of the State itself. The table below shows the States which have some form of primary election regulation or law which recognizes a primary election, and those which have no such regulation or law; the plan upon which the primary election is operated; the approximate dates of adoption and amendments; the ballot system used at general elections; and the plurality party in the State. The table on the opposite page was compiled partly from data received through correspondence with the Secretaries of all the States, and partly from the laws of the several States relating to elections in general and to primary elections in particular. 1 Meyer's Nominating Systems. Special correspondence with the Secretaries of States. |