UC-NRLF SB Zfl Sbl O LO O THE ROBERT E. COWAN COLLECTION I'KKSKNTKn TO THK UNIVERSITY OF CHUFORNIfl C. P. HUNTINGTON cJUNE, 1897. Recession No. /fr '/fa "7 Cla $4 fe^A^ THE PEOPLE'S POWER OR HOW TO WIELD THE BALLOT, BY SIMHOX STETSON " In my judgment it is th- weak point in the theory of representative u'overnment as now or^anixed and administered, that a lar^e portion of the people are permanently disfranchised." .1 \s. A. . " It seems tit that whenever there is a law-making body of one hundred members, every one- hundredth part of the. body politic should have the ri M. HINTON & CO., PRINTERS, 536 CLAY STREET. 1833. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The importance of a correct electoral system Page 1 Ihe two fatal defects of the present one. It is not bricks and mortar but persons that must be represented. What a representative body should be 3 Important information from a paper read before the American Social Science Association 5 The theory of our government 4 The Republic overthrown 9 Congressional elections 10 President Garfield's testimony 10 The voters are " locked out." 13 CHAPTER II. The mask removed, and the two fatal defects on exhibition 14 The ballot monopoly 17 The false and the true compared 18 The present system Look at it 19 CHAPTER III. Proportional representation The new system explained 21 The greatest curiosity in America 22 CHAPTER IV. The report of the United States Senate Committee criticised 25 A correct system will act as a "governor" on every other part of the machinery of state 29 Mathematics are the same in all countries 33 The Senate Committee supports our charges 34 The Constitution of the United States 35 Congress has admitted that the people are not represented 36 The question that naturally follows 37 CHAPTER V. Other plans The cumulative vote 37 The free list plan 39 How to choose a Governor 41 The key to freedom 42 CHAPTER VI. Ballot-box battles What will happen when they cease 43 Our Civil War might have been prevented 44 There is no lack of good men, but the present system prevents the people from employing them 46 Party politics 47 CONTENTS. CHAPTEK VII. Chips of fact and logic 48 Two-thirds of two-thirds is four-ninths 49 President Garneld again condemns the system 50 Proof that Congress does not represent the people 51 There is but one party of two parts 53 Questions to reformers \ ! 54 CHAPTER VIII. The press, public opinion and parties 54 Quotations from Hnre on the same 55 Quotations from Calhoun on the same 56 CHAPTER IX. Objections answered 57 CHAPTER X. " What are you going to do about it ? " 59 Vote no more as slaves 60 What must be done 60 CHAPTER XI. Other attributes of sovereignty 61 The referendum 61 The initiative 62 The veto 62 The Senate 63 Conclusion . . 63 INTRODUCTION. The evidence presented in these pages establishes the truth of the following statements: First That the fundamental principle of this government which is, that the people shall rule themselves by laws enacted by a majority thereof has been nullified, defeated and set aside, and the government thereby virtually overthrown. Second That this has been brought about by a wrong use of the ballot, which has resulted in thwarting the people's will; whereas, it was intended and created to enable them to execute their will. Third That the present manner of wielding the ballot makes it a counterfeit and a sham, and therefore, we are left without a real ballot. Fourth That to restore this government into the hands of the people, where it was placed by its founders, either force or a real ballot must be resorted to. Fifth It is also shown what a real ballot is, and how a coun- terfeit may be detected. Sixth That this real ballot is not an untried theory, but an established fact, made so by a trial of more than a quarter of a century. Seventh How to effect a change from the false to the true. June 8, 1883. SIMEON STETSON. THE PEOPLES POWER; OR, How to Wield the Ballot SIMEON STETSON. CHAPTEK I. THE FAULT IS IN THE MACHINE THE POWER IS THE BEST THE WORLD AFFORDS. Very unsatisfactory and frequently very bad results are pro- duced by the application of power to imperfect or wrongly- constructed machinery, while the same power applied to an improved mechanism insures complete success. The grand results obtained by the use of steam power could never have been secured, had not an equally grand improve- ment been made in the mechanism constructed to utilize that power. As great, but at the same time a very simple change must be made in that part of our governmental machinery by which our law-makers are elected, before other reforms pertaining to the general welfare can be permanently established. A correct electoral system is the FOUNDATION on which all other reforms must rest ; otherwise, their usefulness may be greatly impaired and frequently destroyed altogether. Suppose the great monopolies and other numerous evils were all swept away by a great political revolution a grand and united " rally " of the voters at the ballot-box. "We would then be just where we were before these things existed. Rogues and political frauds would not all be exterminated, probably, and certainly with the same machinery to work with, they could reinstate the old institutions, or else invent new schemes for private gain at public expense. 2 THE FAULT IS NOT IN THE PEOPLE. This Republic began its career with the ballot. And yet, after a hundred years of "VOTING," what do we behold ? Merely a declaration of principles, with an oligarchal power controlling every important industrial and political interest. And do we now propose to merely " wipe out " existing evils, and then continue for another century to apply "The People's Power" to a mechanism which produces the very opposite of that which all desire ? We hear it said that the chief fault is in the people; that they are ignorant of the true principles of Political Economy. Suppose they are. Still, if they cannot with their present me- chanism get rid of what they already know to be wrong, and what for many years they have tried in vain to remedy through the ballot, how can they, by continuing to use it in the old way, ever obtain the benefit of a new truth which, in the future, some one may convince them is right? It is true men are not perfect. They are, however, sufficiently so to know, in many cases, right from wrong. It has already been decided that they are perfect enough to govern themselves politically, we mean not so well, it must be admitted, as they will when they know better how to do it. To govern themselves at all, either badly or well, they must use some sort of governmental machinery, so-called. To this machinery power must be applied not only to operate it, but to direct in what way or how it shall operate. It must be in reality a power of two properties one to plan or direct, the other to enforce or execute. The only power available for this purpose, under any form of government now existing, is man-power. In a Republic it is " The People's Power." However imperfect this power may be, IT is THE BEST THE WORLD AFFORDS. And how can it possibly become better while we use a mechanism the workings of which have a constant ten- dency to make the people worse, which enables the worst elements in society to occupy commanding positions, from which they can disseminate any false doctrine of Political Economy or other advice that will aid their selfish purpose ? On thrones of power erected by the people bad men exert an influence and wield a sceptre; the former lures men from the THE CALAMITY THAT HAS BEFALLEN US. 3 path of right; the latter offers pardon for all manner of crimes. These charges are admitted facts. The other conclusions mentioned therewith are equally self-evident. To the machine, then, we must go to find the first and chief cause of our troubles. Strange it is that in a country whose people believe a Kepub- lic to be the best form of government to promote the general happiness, prosperity, liberty and social progress of humanity, those same people should claim that those blessings had ceased to be, while, at the same time, they neglect to ascertain if the fun- damental principles of their government have been annulled, and the Republic thereby overthrown. That such a calamity has actually befallen the people of this country is susceptible of proof. That the defects of their elec- tive mechanism is the cause of their calamity will be made plain to the most simple mind, by facts and reason which the most astute logician must accept as conclusive. What species of "infernal machine" can this be ? LET us EXAM- INE IT. THERE ARE TWO FATAL DEFECTS IN THIS MECHANISM. One defect is the district system of voting. The other is the ballot-box majority. .Both of them must be abolished. Voters who think alike on any one or more questions must have liberty to act in concert. They are now separated from each other by imaginary geograph- ical lines, whereby each portion thus cut off from the main body is liable to find itself shut up in a district with those of opposite opinions, who, by force of numbers, overpower them. Compul- sory districts, therefore, must be abolished, and the voters per- mitted to district themselves in any way they like. The districts must be personal, instead of territorial. It is not lands, nor bricks and mortar that require to be represented in law-making bodies it is MEN. "A representative body is to the nation what a chart is for the physical configuration of its soil: in all its parts and as a whole, the representative body should at all times present a reduced pic- ture of the people their opinions, aspirations, and wishes, and 4 THE ABSURDITY OF OTIK PRESENT SYSTEM. that presentation should bear the proportion to the original pre- cisely as a map brings before us mountains and dales, rivers and lakes, forests arid plains, cities and towns." Mirabeau. This " picture of the people " cannot be formed in any law- making body unless the whole people are represented there. The geographical districts help to make it impossible for them to be so represented. Turning now to the ballot-box majority, we find that it tends to thwart the very purpose which majorities are intended to serve. We shall, as we proceed with our examination, find that this majority and district system, acting together outside of the law- making body and in advance of its acts, create therein a minor- ity rule, notwithstanding the laws there enacted are passed by a majority vote. To prove this, we will give, first, a few illustra- tions, and after that, facts to support them. First: Suppose there are three parties, and the can- didates of two of them receive one less than a third of all the votes. The candidates of the other party will then be elected, although they have but a fraction viz., two votes over one- third of the whole number polled. Thus they would become the representatives of about one-third part, instead of all the people. The idea that a majority of the voters can be represented under the present system, when there are three parties, is there- fore absurd. But we will suppose there are only two parties. Then the one having a majority will elect all the representatives. These representatives assemble, and a Bill is offered which becomes law by a majority of one or more. This last majority is only a majority of those first chosen at the ballot-box, and it makes no difference whether the law-making body is made up from one party wholly or of ballot-box majorities from both parties. The law will be enacted by a majority of a majority; that is, by the majority of a body composed cf the representatives not of the whole people, but only a part of them. The theory of our government is, that all the people shall have a voice in the making of laws : that the voice of a majority of the whole shall decide what shall and what shall not be law. But where shall their voice be heard, and how? There is but one place and but one way. THE EXAMPLE OF TWENTY-FIVE PARTNERS. 5 The place is in the law-making body, and not outside. Tho way is through their own chosen representatives, and not through those elected by an opposing party, nor even by a lucky majority of their own party in an adjoining State or dis- trict. The rule of the majority must begin in the law-making body, and go forth from there to all parts. It begins now at the ballot-box, and there it stops; it does not go forth at all. The majority rule that does go forth is a majority of a majority; or, in other words, a minority of the whole. Thus a wrong use of the ballot defeats the very purpose for which it was created. We are not in possession of a real ballot, but a counterfeit and a sham. The proof of this will be still stronger when we see how the minority, also, is handed over to the enemy. THE DISTRICT SYSTEM AND BALLOT-BOX MAJORITY COMBINED. The following illustration, and testimony following it, is from a paper read before the American Social Science Association, at the Lowell Institute, Boston, April 5, 1870.* " Suppose a firm of twenty-five partners. In a conflict of opinion, thirteen may rightfully control twelve. " But at the beginning of the year, suppose it were arranged that the partners should be divided into five sections, five of the partners in each." These sections would correspond to five dis- tricts in our political partnership. "Each section is now to select one to compose a managing committee of five." This com- mittee would correspond to our Legislature. " Now, who does not see that each one of this managing committee might be chosen by three of the five partners in a section, and thus the whole five of the committee would represent only fifteen mem- bers of the firm," ten, or two in each section, having voted against them. " Bat this is not the end. This committee of five, representing only three-fifths of the firm, are now to legis- * The author of this paper is David Dudley Field. He is a learned jurist, and those who rely mainly on judicial opinions will probably accept him as authority for their endorsement of an important decision given in the next chapter. Those who have learned to rely mainly on their own opinions will probably endorse the same because it is good, strong "common sense," sup- ported by undeniable facts, or, in other words, both by the mathematics of reason and that other kind in which numbers are used, which, for some pur- poses, is inferior to the first, of which it may be considered a part, or branch - /^,,*^*\ U-NIVERSITY 6 THE THEOET OF EVERY LAW. late for the company. In this legislative body of five, three would be a majority, and could dictate the whole business. Finally, as the whole committee of five only represented fifteen metoibers, a majority of said committee, or three, would repre- sent but three-fifths of fifteen, or nine of the whole twenty-five members. Would anything but discontent and dissension, be- fore the end of the year, come of such an arrangement ? What would happen in a private partnership upon so faulty a system, does happen, and must inevitably happen, in the State where a like faulty system of government is maintained. The government of a republican country must represent the people, or the people will be dissatisfied. Those who have no voice in legislation, whose opinions are not heard or heeded, will be restive under au- thority, and it is not the minority only which suffers; the major- ity suffers also from having no proper check, and when at last the scale turns, the revulsion is violent and dangerous. If the anti-slavery minority could have been heard by its representa- tives from the beginning, increasing their representatives as their strength increased, not only they, but the pro-slavery majority, would have been benefited, and who knows but the emancipa- tion of the slaves might have been procured through peaceful leg- islation at a cost in treasure, to say nothing of the cost of blood, of less than half the expenditure of the war." (See U. S. Sen- ate Committee's testimony, in another chapter, on this point.) ARE THESE THINGS TRUE? Facts are stubborn things; by them theories are upset or made impossible to overthrow. They are the sleepless sentinels of Truth. In their presence the conquering legions of error lay down their arms. However strong in their own convictions, or in the " world's " philosophy, to these mute sentinels they must surrender. The facts given in the foregoing illustrations may be thought by some to be overdrawn pictures; we will therefore let the facts taken from election returns decide. If they prove more than our supposed examples charge, we will have to indict the culprit the system for a higher crime. I quote again from the paper read before the American Social Science Association, April5, 1870: ELECTION RETURNS SHOW HOW THE MACHINE WORKS. 7 We call ours a popular representative government; that is, a government of the people acting by their representatives. The theory of every law in any one of the States is expressed in the enacting clause of New York statutes, which is that " The people of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows." The purpose of the present essay is to show how far this is true, and if not true, how it can be made so. The motto supposed to be written here upon every symbol of authority is, "From the people, by the people, for the people." The con- formity, or rather nonconformity, of our practice to our theory is the subject for present discussion. Our Legislature [referring to New York] is composed of a Senate and Assembly; the former consists of 32 members, the latter of 128. The Senate is chosen every two years, the Assembly every year. In 1868. 881 statutes were passed; in 1869, 920. We now begin to see how truly, or rather untruly, speaks the enacting clause of each of these 1,801 statutes. Apart from the fact that the Senate chosen in the autumn of 1867 for the next two years may not be the Senate which the people would have chosen in the autumn of 1868, we see that each election must have resulted in giving the representation to a majority or plurality in each district, leaving all the rest of the voters unrepresented. Thus it may hap- pen, and does in fact often happen, that, inasmuch as a bill may be passed by a majority of the members elected to each house, 17 Senators and 65 Members of Assembly may enact a law, and these 82 men may, in fact, hold their seats by the votes of a minority of the electors of the State. If the enacting clause were then to speak truly, it would run in this wise: "One- third (or one-fourth, or one-fifth, as the case may be) of the people of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows." This comes of perverting what should be a personal selection into one that is local or territorial, and makes the Legislature almost as likely to mis- represent as to represent the will of the people. Let us see how the system works. We will look at the State governments first, and the National Gov- ernment afterward. In doing so, we will take for the most part the election of 1868, the time of the last presidential election, and therefore most likely to bring out a full vote. New York Senate (elected in 1867) 324,687 votes elected 17 Kepublicans; 353,136 votes elected 15 Democrats. In the Assembly (elected in 1868) 397,899 rotes elected 76 Republicans; 431,510 votes elected 52 Democrats. There were thus 28,499 more votes cast for the 15 Democrats in the Sen- ate than were cast for the 17 Republicans, and if the representation had been faithful to the principle, the majority of two for the latter would have been reversed and made two for the former. There were at the next year's election 33,611 more votes cast for the 52 Democratic Members of Assembly than for the 76 Republican Members. If the representation had been proportional to the votes, the number of Demo- crats elected would have been 67 instead of 52, the number of Republicans 61 instead of 76; and the majority, instead of being 24 for the Republicans, would have been 6 for the Democrats. Turning to other States, we find the following results: Maryland: The Democrats cast 62,000 votes and elected 111. The Republicans " 30,000 " nobody. Delaware: The Democrats " 10,980 " " 28. The Republicans " 7,623 " Kansas: The Republicans " 31,000 " " 108. The Democrats " 14,000 " 7. Nevada: The Republicans " 6,000 " 51. The Democrats " 5,000 " " 6. EITHER THE PRACTICE OR THE THEORY IS WRONG. California: Vermont: Maine: The Eepublicans The Democrats The Republicans The Democrats The Republicans The Democrats 54,592 54,078 44,000 12,000 70,000 42,000 23. 97. 240. 26. 243. 37. Thus Maryland's Eepublicans cast nearly a third of all the votes in the State, without getting a single representative in either brar.ch of the Legisla- ture. In Delaware the Republicans, with over 40 per cent of the votes, elected only 6 per cent of the Legislature, while in California they polled an actual majority, but elected less than one-fifth. On the other hand, the Democrats in Kansas gave a third of the votes, and obtained but 6 per cent of the Legislature; in Vermont they cast 21 per cent of the vote, and ob- tained but 9 per cent of the Legislature; in Maine they cast 37 per cent of the vote, and obtained only 13 per cent of the Legislature; in Nevada, with nearly half the vote, they had but 10 per cent of the Legislature. Passing now to the National Government, we find that the representation in the House of Representatives for the State of New York consists of 17 Republicans and 14 Democrats, though the former received but 416,492 votes, while the latter received 423,265; that is to say, the popular majority was 7,073 for the Democrats, while the congressional majori y in the dele- gation is 3 on the side of the Republicans, instead of being, as it should have been, 1 on the side of the Democrats. In the Senate the representa- tion is still further removed from the people, as the following statement will show: "There are 37 States entitled to 74 Senators. The 18 States having the largest population, and entitled to be represented in the Senate by 36 Sena- tors, have a total vote of 5,022,871; the 19 States having the smallest popu- lation, and entitled to be represented in the Senate by 38 Senators, have a total vote of 1,111,885." Abou* one and one-tenth million of voters secure 38 Senators, while five millions get but 36. The following tables are also " educational:" 787,310 votes. 849,750 votes. 16 States, with 32 Senators, cast New York, "2 26 States, 3 States, 52 6 1,948,189 votes. 2,024,240 votes. These statements serve to show that our practice and our theory are ir- reconcilable. We must accept one of two conclusions: Either the practice or the theory is wrong. According to the latter, the State governments are republican and repre- sentative as to persons; the general government is federal, national and rep- resentative in respect to both persons and corporations the States. The National Government depends upon the representation of the States in the Senate, and of persons in the House of Representatives. But so faulty are the contrivances for carrying out either theory, that neither in the National nor in the State government is there a representation faithful to the principle on which it rests. Where the representation is in- tended to be personal, it so happens that some persons only, and not all, are represented. And when the representation is intended to be corporate that is, in the national Senate the State may fail of representation, because the Senators are chosen by the Legislature, which in its turn is, or may be, chosen by a minority of the people in the State. THE MACHINE OVERTHROWS THE REPUBLIC. 9 " OUR PRACTICE THUS CONTRAVENES THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT, which is, that the majority must rule." The above is really an important "decision/' It was given by a noted lawyer, whose legal opinion on the matter in ques- tion must be conceded to be equal to any in the land. That there may be no uncertainty about its precise meaning, we will turn to Webster for the definition of the word " contravene." Here it is: "To come in conflict with; to oppose; to contradict; to obstruct the operation of ; to DEFEAT. Synonyms to contra- dict; cross; obstruct; NULLIFY; DEFEAT; SET ASIDE. Thus, according to the law in the case, our great Kepublic has been defeated and set aside in fact, overthrown. The evidence on which this decision is founded is not, however, the worst part of the story by any means, as will be seen in subsequent chapters. But we have not got through with our first witness yet. We quote again from the same authority: Thus far we have looked at the matter in a party light; but that by no means gives us all there is in it. The statutes which proceed from our legis- lative chambers are often the acts, not of parties or of party majorities, but of schemers and traffickers in legislation, to whom our present system gives scope. Of the 1,801 laws passed by the Legislature of New York, not a hundred were of a general nature, and of these SCARCE A TENTH were passed upon party grounds. We have thus not only a misrepresentation of parties, but a representa- tion of private interests struggling for private legislation, and converting our legislative halls into scenes of jobbery and intrigue. Under the false pre- tenses of party, the elector is cheated or seduced into voting for one of two men, neither of whom he likes. He is reduced to a choice of evils, and he makes it under the pressure of party discipline. He to whom a father entrusts his daughter for protection, and who abuses his trust by corrupting her, is accounted a monster of depravity; but his crime is less than that of the legislator who, entrusted by his constituents with the great function of representing them in making laws, abuses that trust by selling, or bartering, or giving away his vote. And yet, the miscreants who do this walk the streets, hold up their heads, look honest men in the face, and even get themselves returned from year to year. How does this happen? The majority does not approve their conduct; it must be a small minority which does. How, then, do they manage to gain and regain their seats? They do it, not by the free, unbiased choice of the electors, but by the contrivances and tricks of our present system of local or district elections, with their machinery of partisan nominating conventions. Tkese evils do not spring from a corrupt community. The majority of the people are not debauched. The fault lies in a vicious electoral system, which produces a representation neither of par- ties nor of the general public, which constrains the majority and stifles the voices of large portions of the people. CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS. Salem Dutcher, in his work on representation, gives the fol- lowing ratio of represented and unrepresented voters, taken 10 WHAT OUR ELECTION RETURNS FURNISH. from election returns of all the States: Fortieth Congress Voters represented in that body, 58 per cent; unrepresented, 42 per cent. Both the Forty-first and Forty-second Congresses give the same ratio. He further says: "Like results appear in both State and municipal elections. " From his tables giving election returns in eight principal cities, in 1870, I condense the following : " In New Haven, the Democrats, who outnumbered the Ke- publicans by a sixth, have but a third of the Aldermen. In Boston, the .Democrats, though outnumbering the Republicans a full third, have but two-fifths of the Council. In Baltimore, the Eepublicans, though standing to the Democrats as eleven to eighteen, have but one-thirtieth of the Aldermen." And so on through the list. Again, he says: " Out of every hundred men who approach the polls, forty might as well not vote at all or, to reduce it still lower, two in every five. Our election returns furnish authoritative data for this general rule : Given any general or extended election of representatives, and two-fifths of those voting will not elect a single representative. When such a rule is possible, and when it works out such a result as we have seen it produce in the case of the Forty-first Congress, the abso- lute exclusion from representation of two and a half millions of voters at one swoop, it is not surprising that we should hear such an opinion of the existing electoral system as that deliv- ered June 23, 1870, in the United States House of Representa- tives, by JAMES A. GARFIELD. He said: " In my judgment it is the weak point in the theory of representative government, AS NOW ORGANIZED AND ADMINISTERED, that a large portion of the people are permanently disfranchised. There are about 10,000 Democratic voters in my district, and they have been voting there for the last forty years, without any more hope of having a representative on this floor than of hav- ing one in the Commons of Great Britain." Mr. Dutcher adds: "Is it not a great grievance, let us ask, that two and a half millions of American voters might, had it been physically possible, have sat at any time since 1868 in the THE MORE PARTIES THE WORSE IT IS. 11 galleries of the national House of Representatives, without one of the 242 members on the floor representing a single man of the twenty-five hundred thousand voters before him ?" Mr. Dutcher gathered his facts when there were in most States only two parties; as the number of parties increase, the number of unrepresented voters grows larger. The following is the vote of California for members of the Forty-fourth Congress, elected in 1875, three candidates in the field: First District 49.1 per cent of all the votes cast elected Piper; 50.9 per cent of all the votes cast elected nobody. Second District 43.4 per cent of all the votes cast elected Page; 56.6 per cent of all the votes cast elected nobody. Third District Luttrell elected with 55.1 per cent of the votes. Fourth District 48.8 per cent of the votes elected Wigginton. 51.2 per cent of the votes elected nobody. At the election of 1879 for Members of the Forty-sixth Con- gress, the vote stood in the Fourth District: Eepublican 15,391 Democratic ,12,109 Workingmen 10,527 Forty and one-half per cent of all the votes sent Pacheco to Washington, while fifty-nine and a half per cent sent NOBODY. In the other districts the represented and unrepresented were about equally divided. The elections of 1876 and 1880 show about the same ratio as the above, which are taken from McCar- ty's Annual Statistician. Thus we have in one State four success- ive elections where over one-half the voters are unrepresented in Congress. The following table is from Dutcher's work, page 27. It shows the number of representatives each party had in the Legislatures of the States mentioned for the year 1870-71, and what the same vote would have given them under proportional representation; Any one can prove the accuracy of the figures in the last two columns, which give the proportion each party should have, by referring to the three Slave Pen exhibits or tables, and reading the explanation there given, or in other chapters further on. 12 DISFRANCHISED IN TWO WAYS. STATES. VOTE. MEMBERS ACTUAL. PROPORTIONATE. Republican. Democratic. Rep Dem. Rep. Dem. Arkansas 28,190 9,982 108,801 40,666 89,083 58,824 33,367 25,488 12,458 67,547 20,496 126,059 73,959 12,058 78 120 100 15 13 236 30 30 30 18 123 94 29 57 13 92 79 57 47 195 ra 17 58 39 81 60 70 Delaware Iowa Kansas Kentucky Maryland Vermont A PROBLEM TO SOLVE. I now ask the reader to take Dutcher's proven statement or " authoritative data" (gathered from election returns), which show that, at best, only three-fifths of the voters are represented, and, following the operations of legislation as given in the ex- ample of the 25 partners, work out the solution of the following problem : If a legislative body representing 15, or three-fifths of a firm 25 in number, can enact laws that will represent 9, or about one- third of the firm, then how many in our national and State part- nerships will be represented by laws enacted by the representa- tives of only three-fifths of the voters ? If men and mathematics are equally reliable, the proportion in each case will be the same namely, about one-third. But men are not, on an average, quite so reliable as mathematics, and it may therefore result that in actual practice not a quarter of one-third will be represented. And that is JUST WHAT DOES TAKE PLACE. It is not important to bring forward all the evidence on this point. Every one knows that conventions and party leaders are in most cases controlled by powers " behind the throne," who are interested in having the voters misrepresented as well as un- represented, knowing that by this double fraud those who vote for the majority will, as a rule, be as completely disfranchised as THE VOTEES ABE "LOCKED OUT." 13 those who fail to elect a representative. The people are so car- ried away by parties that they generally vote for parties instead of principles. But only a small number of the laws passed are really party measures. In the case already given, out of 1,800, not a dozen were of that character. Thus we begin to see how it is that we cannot be represented by the laws to any great extent, so long as we vote for parties all the time, and for ideas or principles only occasionally. When, in addition to this, we em- ploy a mechanism that makes it useless to vote for a principle, unless a majority of all the voters will do likewise, it is plain to be seen that nearly the whole body of voters in all parties are left without a representative of their own choosing. The minor- ity party can elect none, and those who vote with the majority merely elect men rung in on them by their party leaders, who too often are devoid of principle. In order to have a real repre- sentative, the voters must both select and elect him. But how can they select him through the present mechanism ? The situ- ation is as follows: "We must belong to a GREAT party, or else it is useless to select ANY ONE to vote for. This great party requires the whole time of its managers, who soon get to be professional . politicians. They can control conventions, and nominate whom they please. Nearly the whole time of the voters is, and must be, occupied in other ways. If a nomination fails to suit them, they cannot, in the short time before election, organize and make a new one with any hope of success; generally it would " split the party." Politics has come to be a " great business." It requires " CAPITAL" to run it. The voters must do the work laid out by the bosses, just as the workmen in a mine or factory. If they insist on having something to say in the matter, and set up a new candidate, they are " locked out." All this and much more is caused by the two defects first mentioned. The monopolists saw long ago what the people do not yet see. They saw that by compelling a body of men to vote for two candidates in two separate districts, when they have only enough votes to elect one, their votes would count for nothing. They saw that this voting by districts, combined with the necessity of getting a majority at the ballot-box, would render the ballot worthless to every one except the monopolists themselves. (See the three 14 THE BALLOT MONOPOLY. exhibits in Chapter II.) They have discovered that the ballot-box majority creates a ballot monopoly, and that all they have to do in order to get the whole proceeds and profits of that monopoly is to control the majority party or make a majority party, either of which they can frequently do by the purchase of a single vote. A correct mechanism will give to the voters the control of their parties. CHAPTER II. CS EXHIBITED " DON'T THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY." At each and every "election the great battle-cry is, "Don't throw your vote away." But why should any one who has principles to support be compelled to throw away his vote in trying to elect some one who will represent those principles? What is it that causes his vote to be thrown away ? Is it not the ballot-box majority, together with the compulsory district system of voting ? If a certain number of voters can and do elect a representative, while, at the same time,, an equal number have their votes " thrown away," then they are not free men; they are to that extent restrained and enslaved. The following tables will give a clear view of the slave-pens in which the voters are confined on election days. They are called districts quite an innocent, but very inappropriate name. -Each table contains seven slave-pens, or districts, which give a clear view of the combined operation of the district system and ballot- box majority. This table represents a State divided into seven districts, with three parties in the field. We will call them the a, b and c parties, or the Eepublican, Democratic and Temperance par- ties. The districts are here shown as running across the page, and the different parties are grouped together as much as possi- ble, in order to facilitate examination. Observe that each dis- trict has the same number of voters namely, 7; or we may suppose each letter to represent 1,000, or any other given num- THE SLAVE PENS. 15 ber of voters; also, the whole number of either party in the seven districts gives the total of that party in the State. Thus we have 21 in the a, 14 in the b, and 14 in the c party. Our table then represents the number of each party in the whole State, and also the number in each district. Election day comes, and the "voters" turn out, armed with the mighty ballot. What is the result of the conflict ? The majority rules in America, does it? Let us see: The a party of 21 get 3 law- makers, while the b party of 14 get 4, or a majority; but the c party, numbering 14 also, get none. EXHIBIT No. 1. DISTRICTS. LAW-MAKERS. 1. c c aa bbb B 2. cc a a bbb . B 3. cc aa bbb B 4. c c a a bbb B 5. a a a a c cb .A G. aa aa ccb A 7. aa aa cca A VOTERS IN EACH PARTY. A party 21 B party 14 G party 14 Total.. ..49 The c party in this table is a party just started. Its members are poor, but gritty. They declared they would not be abused any longer by the " bosses" of the two old parties, neither of which were doing anything for the cause of temperance. The result of their attempt to be free is, that they find themselves not only locked out, but locked up also, in the slave-pens. 16 LOCALITY AGAIN BEATS NUMERICAL STRENGTH. EXHIBIT No. 2. LAW- MAKERS. 1. cc bb a a a A 2. cc bb aaa A 3. cc bb aaa A 4. cc bb aaa..., A 5. bb bb c c a B 6. bb bb cca B 7. bb bb ccb B VOTERS IN EACH PARTY. A party 14 B party 21 C party .....14 Total. ,.49 This table we will suppose to represent the voters in another State, or in the same State at another election, when the b party numbers 21 and the a party 14 just the reverse of our first example, Locality again beats numerical strength. It will be seen, also, that 3 of the a party can elect a candi- date in each of the first four districts, while 8 of the c party and the same number of the b party elect none. They are defeated by being compelled to vote for more candidates than they have votes to elect. They are cut off, and defeated in detail. THE PAPER SWORD ON EXHIBITION. EXHIBIT No. 3. 17 LAW-MAKEKS 1. cc bb aaa A 2. c c bb aaa A 3. c c bb aaa A 4. cc bb aaa A 5. c c 66 aaa A 6. - cc 66 aaa A 7. cc 66 aaa A VOTERS IN EACH PARTT. A party 21 B party. 14 C party 14 Total. ..49 In Exhibit No. 2, the a party, although only two-thirds the number of the 6 party, had a majority in the Legislature. But majorities do not always secure safety. Unanimity is the only danger-proof position in party warfare. This position is fre- quently secured by means of ballot-box and district majorities. In this table the law-making body is UNANIMOUS. What a won- derful weapon the ballot is ! THE BALLOT MONOPOLY. The three foregoing exhibits are true pictures of the ballot monopoly a monopoly that is worse and more tyrannical than that of transportation or any other business. There is no law to prevent men from uniting to build ships and railroads to the extent of their capital. But here we have a law that says to the voters: You shall not combine your voting 18 THE OLD AND NEW COMPARED. capital your ballots to elect even one representative, unless you all live in the same district. The actual working of such a system, as shown by election returns, frequently produces re- sults worse than our three exhibits represent. Even Exhibit No. 8 is surpassed by actual facts, as, for example, in the case of Wyoming in 1870. With but two parties, the vote stood: lie- publican, 1,666; Democratic, 1,439, and yet the Territorial Leg- islature was " UNANIMOUSLY " Democratic. By referring to cases cited in different States, on page 7, it will be seen that our tables do not picture the case in as strong colors as it deserves. Now let us suppose the district lines in the three exhibits to be abolished, and the voters allowed to combine as they see fit. It will be seen in each of the tables that the whole number of voters in a State is 49; number of representatives to be elected, 7; divide 49 by 7, and we have the number required to elect one representative, namely, 7. Therefore justice, common sense and a genuine representative government demand that every 7 voters or 7,000, or other number, as the case may be shall be al- lowed to vote for that one. Apply such a rule to any one of these three tables, and the result is that each party would get its just proportion of law-makers. Take Exhibit No. 2, where 14 a voters elect more than 21 b voters; remove the district lines, and permit 7 of the b party to cast one vote each for one candi- date, that being all it will require to elect him. Permit 7 more of the same party to elect another, and 7 more to vote for and to a certainty elect a third. Compel the a party to do the same; then it will have two members in the Legislature, instead of a majority of that body, to which it is not entitled; the c party, also, will get two, and your Legislature can then decide by a REAL majority vote what the law shall be. This does away with district lines and the ballot-box majority as between parties. There will be nothing to prevent them, however, from voting by districts, so to speak, or, in other words, selecting candidates from their own town or city; but there will be no COMPULSION. The vote will merely indicate the number of representatives each party is entitled to, and who they are. When a small num- ber find they cannot elect any one alone, they can join their votes to others in one or more localities, and thus be represented by a man of their choice. How absurd it is to think we have the ballot, when one body of voters can elect a representative, while OP T&K UNIVERSITY WHAT CAN BE WORSE LOOK AT IT. 19 another and more numerous body are prohibited from having one. Should 3, or 3,000 voters have a representative, and 4, or 4,000 have none, simply because they live in different local- ities ? When men unite their votes, they do so because their ideas are the same or similar. To forcibly separate them by district lines, so as to be overpowered, out-voted and defeated in de- tail, and thus deprived of a representative, is plainly wrong. Therefore, Down with the slave pens!! WHAT SHALL THE REMEDY BE? The remedy is Proportional Eepresentation (see chapter under that head). This is not an untried theory; it was established by Denmark in 1855. That the people in other countries, and espe- cially in this, have not adopted it, is owing apparently to the corrupt nature of party politics and the ignorance concerning it among all classes, who are kept in ignorance in a great measure by the sophistries and diversions of party politicians, who are turned out in countless swarms through the present machin- ery, and by it given influence and power to distort and suppress the truth. It matters not what new elective system may be offered to the worll, the politicians find, or pretend to find, some fault in it. If, however, the Rothschilds should offer their whole wealth to the inventor of a system that would more completely place the people at the mercy of an oligarchic class than that now used in the United States, the reward could never be justly claimed. And yet, when the best system ever established on earth is of- fered, our c< statesmen" immediately furnish magnifying glasses for the people, and invite them to examine what they call its bad points as though the old one were not all bad. LOOK AT IT. It wastes millions of the people's money in enormous election expenses, which are ten-fold greater than a just system would create. It tempts all parties to steal millions to be used in perpetuating their power; and worse yet, it t gives the control of legislation to 20 IT IS THE CAUSE OF MANY EVILS. the agents of highway robbers, who make laws by which the people are constantly plundered. It wastes votes by the million. One-half are thrown away in trying to elect candidates nominated by a " ring," and the other half are worse than wasted by electing them. It steals votes, by permitting a false count, or by enabling fraud- ulent voters to create a majority, and thus deprive honest and legitimate voters of a majority which they have fairly earned. One party does, and the other party steals " to keep even." " They all do it." It not only encourages every species of political fraud, but is one great cause of increasing depravity and crime. Even murder is a part of its devilish work. It helps to keep the people in ignorance; for it enables the worst men to control parties, which parties control the press, through which no ray of light that would help the people to see their own way is allowed to come. While they are in the dark, they will listen to the party horn, and either follow that or fail to act for themselves. It creates discord and discontent in every community, and causes disputes and denial s to take the place of honest inquiry after knowledge. It is an incentive to war. By preventing the election of a due proportion of the friends of peace, it enables unscrupulous or unbalanced leaders to plunge the nation into civil war, or to bring on a foreign invasion. For proof, see United States Sen- ate Committee's Keport and other testimony, in chapter on Ballot-Box Battles. Its poison makes the party in power a blight when the nation is at peace, and in war the party out of power is frequently more dangerous than the hostile foe. It is a MONOPOLY of the worst type ! ! For it not only gives the representatives of less than half the people a monopoly of legis- lative power, but it ends by enabling monopolies of all kinds to control party nominations and elect their tools in spite of the people, and that, too, by a minority vote. It is, in fact, the fountainhead and feeder of all monopolies! It is a system of slavery pure and simple, since it gives the dis- honest few who will sell their votes the power to sell a whole parly, the honest ones included. A SYSTEM BASED ON MATHEMATICS. 21 It rewards the liar and the hypocrite, but punishes the man who dares to speak as he thinks. Such a man can rarely become a law-maker. Finally: It is a transparent LIE !! For, under the pretence of a majority vote, it permits, first, the rule of a minority, and finally, the rule of "The Ring!" It must give way to a system that is rational and just. The people's power must be applied to a mechanism that will neither cripple nor enslave them . CHAPTER III. PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION THE NEW SYSTEM. Proportional representation is called by some writers personal representation, and by others the preferential vote. It permits persons to be represented all the time, and parties also, whereas now parties only are represented, and only in theory even then. It permits voters to exercise a preference as to whom they will vote for; now they must either vote the ticket or throw their votes away. It seems that Thomas Hare, barrister- at-law, of London, and Mr. Andne, a noted mathematician, and Minister of Finance of Denmark, each by himself, solved the problem of electing rep- resentatives by quotas of the electors. What is a quota, and how is it obtained ? Suppose there are 10 representatives to be elected by 10,000 voters. Divide 10,000 by 10, and the quotient is the quota or number of votes requisite to elect one. Then every body of voters numbering 1,000 can elect one. Each elector is to vote for one candidate only. The State will be the district. At the same time, the people can vote by districts whenever they see fit. When, however, they are dissatisfied with the nominations made by their party, and are too few in numbers in any one locality to form a quota alone, they can combine with those in any part of the State to elect whom they please. There will be no compulsory districts. There will be no majority at the ballot-box as regards parties 22 THE GREATEST CURIOSITY IN AMERICA A REAL BALLOT. The vote there will merely record the number of representatives each party is entitled to, the names of the various candidates, and, finally, the names of those who are elected. The following iSjthe form of the ballot given by Mr. Hare: FOR MEMBER OF THE ASSEMBLY. 1. E. L. WHITE. 6. ETHAN ALLEN. 2. WENDELL PHILLIPS. 7. 3. ALFRED CRIDGE. 8. 4. JAS. B. WEAVER. 9. 5. B. FRANKLIN. 10. Suppose there are seven representatives to be elected. Ihis ballot, we will suppose, contains the names of Republican can- didates. The ballot expresses in substance this: " I desire to be represented by the candidate whose name I have placed No. 1. If he should obtain his quota of votes before mine comes to be counted, or if he should fail to obtain a sufficient number, and therefore cannot be elected, I direct that my vote be trans- ferred to the candidate I have placed as No. 2, and, under the same conditions, to candidate No. 3, and so on." The use of this " voting paper" accomplishes what would hap- pen if all the electors and all the candidates were collected in a room together: " The quota being ascertained, the electors would ' rally ' around the can- didates of their first choice. Some candidates would have a large following, some a small one. The most popular would be elected at once, having a full quota and more, The surplus the last comers would then seek each the candidate of his second choice, and this would probably elect some of those. The rest of tbe candidates would have their own supporters, many or few, but all less than enough. If, now, the candidates having the fewest votes, say those with only a single follower, should withdraw, and then the candidates with two votes, and so on, their followers would naturally trans- fer their support to more prominent men, who would thus gradually collect enough supporters to elect them. Their quotas would fill up. In this way there would presently remain in the field only just enough candidates to fill the places, all of whom would have a full quota and be duly elected. The division of the constituency into equal groups, differing widely in opin- ion, but each unanimous in the support of its own man, would have been accomplished." [Appendix M of Hare's Work, Keport of the Committee of the Electors in Nominating Candidates for Overseers of Harvard College. ITS SIMPLICITY ALARMS THE POLITICIANS. 23 There were 12 to be nominated, and there were 355 ballots cast. The result was highly satisfactory, and the counting of the ballots required "not nearly so much time" as under the old system. The " voting paper" or ballot just shown represents one on which there are ten spaces for names. In the example given we will suppose there were seven representatives to be elected, and that he who cast that particular ballot saw fit to name only six, in the order of his preference. The first is his first choice, who, if elected by the aid of his ballot, would become his representative, and the other five names would not be counted. If, however, when the votes are being counted, this first choice candidate gets enough to elect him before this particular ballot is counted, then it will be counted for one of the other names thereon that has not yet obtained a quota; if No. 2 has obtained a quota, or, when all are counted, No. 2 has so few votes that this one added will still be insufficient to elect him, then this ballot will be counted for No. 3 or some other one, as before explained. At the same time the voter's first choice will also have been elected without his vote. Thus each voter will help to elect all the representa- tives his party is entitled to if he is voting in a party organiza- tion. The numbers, 1, 2, 3, and so on, are only an invention to insure the counting of the ballot for one of the six names there- on, and thereby facilitate the election of representatives by quotas. Mr. Hare, in replying to the charge of complexity, says: "The form of the voting paper or ballot, without making it compulsory on the voter to name more than one candidate, yet permits him to insert a second name under the first, a third under the second, and so on, at his discretion. Those who come to the examination of this scheme for the first time will probably be amazed to learn that so far as there is anything to be done by the voter, this is the whole extent of the complexity from which so many politicians have shrunk." We will suppose a Legislature of 100 members is to be chosen, and there are 200,000 votes cast. If we divide this number by 100, the number to be elected, we have as a quotient 2,000. If, now, every 2,000 voters elect one man, the Legislature will be complete. A party numbering 80,000 would elect forty mem- bers, one of 40,000 would get 20, and one of 2,000 would get one. 24 IT WILL ENABLE THE PEOPLE TO CONTROL PARTIES. If a candidate gets more first-choice votes than a quota, the sur- plus will be given to the candidates No. 2 on such surplus bal- lots. If any one receive a quota of second-choice votes, he also is elected, and all surplus votes cast for him will go to the can- didates indicated on such surplus ballots who have not yet re- ceived a quota. It will be seen that by voting for one candidate only, EACH vote counts one; , whereas, by the old method, thous- ands of votes are often given for a candidate more than needed to elect him, and thus wasted, while all those cast for unsuccess- ful candidates are wasted. If the whole number required to complete the Legislature fail to obtain a full quota, the number is completed by taking those having the highest number of votes. This system will give the people power to control parties and party leaders. They never can control the monopolists until they control the others. By this system every quota of voters in a party can run an independent candidate without giving an op- posing party the victory, as now, by splitting the party. Be- sides, every quota can be its own nominating convention. Fur- thermore, to become a convention, it would not be absolutely necessary to meet for the purpose of nominating a candidate. They could both nominate and elect by one and the same act. A dozen or more names could be put on a ballot, and the one getting the most first choice votes would be elected; or, should no one get a quota of first choice, the one having a quota of second or other choice votes, as before stated. The voters in a party of any size could place any reasonabl e number of names on their ballots, and the most popular ones would be elected, giving the party its full proportion of representatives. In the "Report on the Nomination of Overseers of Harvard College," made May 10, 1872, after Mr. Hare's plan had been twice tested (viz., in 1870 and 1871) we find the following: The System, in working, fairly fulfilled Us promise, and met the expectations of its friends. The first year there were about 360 ballots received, and each name finally reported by the committee was the unanimous choice of one-tenth of that constituency, each candidate being nominated by about thirty- six votes. Many of the ballots were sent in through the postoffice by those living at a distance from Boston. Quite a handy way to hold a convention! No chance for wire-pullers to operate there; no voter takes a bribe to " put up a job " on himself. WHAT PARTY POLITICS HAS DONE. 25 That election by quotas will check corruption is evident when we consider that the purchase of thousands of votes will change the result of an election only in proportion to the number pur- chased. Suppose the quota to be 2,000; the purchase of that many votes will only elect one, who even then may be said to be a true representative of such quota; all those who cannot be influenced will remain unharmed. CHAPTEK IV. REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON REPRESENTATIVE REFORM IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES THE COMMITTEE'S OBJECTIONS TO THE HARE AND ANDR.E PLAN ANSWERED THE METHOD OF ELECT- ING CONGRESSMEN PREVIOUS TO 1842. TWO IMPORTANT CLAUSES FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. What has prevented the adoption of this simple, sensible, just and civilized method of voting which one short chapter has sufficed to explain ? * The answer is short and its truth is self- evident: it is PARTY POLITICS. At this point it will be proper to examine a certain report wherein it was advised to postpone the adoption of said plan. The following is the title of the report as it appears in the Con- gressional Globe, part 3, and Appendix, 3d Session, 40th Con- gress, 1868-9, page 268: KEPEESENTATIYE KEFOKM. REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON REPRESENTATIVE REFORM, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 2, 1869. (To accompany bill S. No. 772.) * The three exhibits on pages 15, 16 and 17, together with the paragraph on page 18, which supposes the district lines to be abolished, can be referred to in connection with the explanation of the system given in Chapter III. 26 THE BILL THAT A BAD CONGRESS DEFEATED. The following is the title and text of the bill recommended "by the Committee : A BILL TO AMEND THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE IN CONGRESS. Be It enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That in elections for the choice of Repre- sentatives to the Congress of the United States, whenever more than one Representative is to be chosen from a State, each elector of such State, duly qualified, shall be entitled to a number of votes equal to the number of Rep- resentatives to be chosen from the State, and may give all such votes to one candidate, or may distribute them, equally or unequally, among a greater number of candidates; and the candidates highest in vote upon the return shall be declared elected. Mr. Buckalew, of Pennsylvania, had introduced the bill on January 13, 1869, when it was referred to a Select Committee consisting of Messrs. Buckalew, Anthony, Ferry, Morton, War- ner, Rice and Wade. In their report, the Committee gave "four great reasons" why this cumulative plan, which they called " the unrestricted or free vote/' should be adopted. First " It is just." Sec- ond "It will check corruption." Third "It will be a guar- antee of peace." Fourth "It will improve the character and ability of the House." Their report is quite lengthy, occupying eleven pages of the Congressional Globe. Three pages of it relate to a change in the method of electing the President and Vice-President. In their second reason, just referred to, they recommend that the Hare and Andrse plan be " put aside from the present discussion." Seven reasons are given therefor, which are set forth in full in the latter part of the following extract from their report: "The unrestricted or free vote will greatly check corruption at elections. It will take away the motive to corrupt, and thus strike an effectual blow at the source of a great evil. Now, money and patronage are usually expended upon elections to secure a majority or plurality vote to one or more candidates over one or more other candidates, and are directed or applied to the comparatively small number of electors in the constitu- ency who hold the balance of power between parties. Those persons being bought or seduced, victory is secured. The im- portation of voters into a State or district, or their fraudulent creation within it, is with a like object. And such corrupt influence or practice, when resorted to by one party, provokes THE COMMITTEE'S SEVEN OBJECTIONS. 27 like conduct in an opposing one, until both become tainted with guilt and unfitted for vindicating the purity of elections. This evil grows in magnitude yearly, and it will continue to increase until those motives of interest which provoke it shall be weak- ened or destroyed. A new right to the elector, whether in the form of the free or cumulative vote, or of personal representation, or a new protection to him in the form of .the limited vote, will check corruption; but of these remedies the first is the most practicable and effectual. The limited vote, as will be hereafter shown, cannot have extensive application, and it is but a rude contrivance. Personal representation is a scheme of great theoretical merit; it has been tried partially in Denmark, and it has received elaborate vindication from authors of distinction in England, in Switzer- land and in France. But it may be put aside from the present discussion, because it is comparatively intricate in plan and cumbrous in detail, because it assails party organization, and because some of its most important effects cannot be distinctly foreseen. ' It is so radical in character, so revolutionary in its probable effects, that prudence will dictate that it should be very deliberately considered and subjected to local experiment and trial before it shall be proposed for adoption upon a grand scale by the Government of the United States." Let us see how much of fact and logic there is in these charges. First charge: " Intricate in plan." Answer: If the intricate theory is not rendered harmless by the explanation given in these pages, it may possibly be some- what weakened by a comparison with the intricacy of the extract quoted from said report, which to fully analyze will require more space than has been taken to clearly explain the system they condemn. Perhaps the testimony of a reliable expert may weaken it still more; we will therefore listen to the learned mathematician of Denmark: "It certainly is not in Denmark, where this system of rep- resentation has baen seen to work with the greatest ease for the last -fifteen years, that you will hear anything said of its com- plexity." This is Mr. Andrae's report on the subject, made in 1868. In 1871 his system had extended to elections in all muni- "cipal and ecclesiastical bodies. 28 THE COMMITTEE'S OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. Query: Are the Danes any better qualified to manage intricate machinery than we are ? Second Charge: "Cumbrous in detail." Answer: " Mr. Hare has embodied in a law, containing no more than about thirty clauses, rules which are to supply the place of all the existing acts of Parliament and reported cases relating to the law and practice of elections, that occupy vol- umes of considerable size, together with all the unwritten regu- lations of party management." [English pamph- let entitled Representative Reform, etc., etc. It should also be stated that a considerable portion of Mr. Hare's " Electoral Law" relates especially to the peculiarities of the present regulations in England to which he sought to make his system apply, but which would not have to be provided for in this country. His plan is now embodied in twenty-eight brief clauses. If, however, this second charge could be sustained, what would it amount to ? There is an amazingly large number of cumbrous and intricate contrivances to name them all would fill a book which are, nevertheless, now considered indispen- sable in a civilized country. The machinery of the great woolen mills may be cited ; also, many other kinds. The Postoffice Department is quite intricate and cumbrous; and yet we hear no complaints on that score; on the contrary, it is thought to be "a very handy thing." Its cumbrous nature does not seem to worry the people in the least, although it has to be kept running night and day the year round; whereas this election machine is to be used only one day in the whole year, and on that day, even, the voters would not be troubled with its cumbrous details any more than they are now by those of the Postoflfice. Our common school system, with its Directors, Examining Committees and a great army of teachers; with its books of many grades, and many rules and problems; with its buildings, so numerous that, if in a row, they would reach from ocean to ocean in almost an unbroken line; this system, compared with which the cumbrous detail of Mr. Hare's plan is but a grain of sand this system may indeed be called cumbrous, and yet who, for that reason, will ask that it be put aside ? There is another contrivance, however, or rather a system of THE COMMITTEE'S OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 29 contrivances, that surpasses all others, because, in a greater or less degree, it regulates them all : it is government itself. Behold its complex and cumbrous parts!! To enumerate and explain them requires not one little pamphlet, nor books of many volumes, but whole libraries. Compared with these, and espe- cially with those of the law, how insignificant is the cumbrous nature of Mr. Hare's " Electoral Law," which is embodied in 28 brief paragraphs. This comparison increases in interest and importance. We cannot stop here. We must know what this law will do, and what it will cost to have it done that is, after it shall be adopted as law. It will do just this: It will make a " governor" for the whole of the complex and cumbrous mechanism of gov- ernment itself; a governor, through which " The People's Power" can operate to improve, perfect, regulate and control every other part of the machinery of State. It will do it com- pletely, because it will enable the people to be completely rep- resented. Every official elected by the people would be the unanimous choice of a single quota of voters. This " governor" would enable the people to control the whole. It therefore fol- lows that it would in reality become the FOUNDATION of govern- ment itself, and the only foundation on which a representative government can rest in security and peace. The next item is the cost of running it. This can be best esti- mated by considering that when ballot-box battles cease the greater part of present election expenses will be done away with. There is one more important thing to consider, and that is how to inaugurate, how to create this one simple part which is to regulate the whole. This will be considered in another chapter. Certainly a machine of such unequaled importance as this, even were it exceedingly "cumbrous" and " intricate," ought not to be condemned without stating what it is that makes it so. On this important point the Committee is "as dumb as an oys- ter." Thus the investigation of our Committee's second charge results in the discovery that the Hare and Andrse plan is no more intricate and cumbrous than the governor of a steam engine, which is more simple and less cumbrous than the other parts, all of which it regulates and controls. Mr. Hare has given the world some very valuable advice, as follows: " It is by comparison that the standard of excellence is 30 THE COMMITTEE'S OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. raised." We will, therefore, follow it in considering the Com- mittee's third charge namely: "Because it assails party or- ganization." Answer Instead of assailing an honest party organization, it would prevent its complete defeat by an opposite party in case of a split in its own, created perhaps by spies or influence from the enemy's camp. It is almost impossible to organize a new party now, however great the need for one may be, unless one of the old ones has lost its hold on a majority of its supporters. Proportional representation will make the rank and file inde- pendent of party chiefs, and at the same time enable them to form as large a party as at present. The difference will be that they can disband it when it has done the work for which it had been called into being, and form a new one to carry on some other needed improvement. The rank and file will choose their party chiefs, but will not be compelled to obey orders, nor throw their votes away when they disobey and set up an independent candidate. They will secure a better class of leaders than they can possibly get now, and at the same time their officers will have to obey orders; and that is just what the rank and file want. It appears that our Committee think a political party should be organized on military principles the privates to march and countermarch at the word of command, fight anything and everything as ordered, and in case of insubordination (such, for example, as running a ticket of their own choosing), be punished by being compelled to throw away their votes in trying to elect their men. Such party organizations as we have witnessed in this country for the greater part of the time during the last fifty years ought to be assailed ; and if the present mechanism had not enslaved the people, they would have been assailed, and we would not now be in distress and shouting to one another from ocean to ocean for help to avert still greater calamities which threaten us. Listen to the present anti-monopoly "boom." What does it mean? But, first, what does it profess to mean? There is but one opinion on this point; it means that the National and the State governments are in the hands of the wrong men, who cannot be removed except by the united effort of an immense army of voters. This army must be like a military organization, subject to the orders of its officers, some of whom may be THE GREAT ANTI-MONOPOLY PABTT IN DANGER. 31 already in office, and others trying to get in. We will suppose, however, that they are, without exception, tried, true and capa- ble. Then, if there happens to be one man less than can be brought out by the enemy one vote less than a majority the efforts of the great Anti-Monopoly army will be as worthless as the paper in the ballots they will throw away. If its officers and privates are the best of America's sons, and the opposition mainly or wholly the " scum of society," it will be the same. For, remember it is not honor, nor virtue, nor intellect, nor justice, that is to decide the contest. It is, perhaps, one single vote, cast, it may be, by the most infamous thief or the most noted fool in the nation. We will suppose, however, that this great Anti-Monopoly party gathers to itself an invincible host an unheard-of majority. Where, then, shall we look for the party devils and all other kinds of deceivers, who, it is claimed, are now in the ranks of the enemy ? Will not these, or others like them, be sure to be in the ranks of the majority party? And by the aid of the mechanism that has heretofore enabled them to thwart the people's will, can they not, in a greater or less degree, do it again ? It has already been shown how. by single quotas, proportional representation would to a certainty accomplish all that the great Anti-Monopoly party is going to try to do. The way proportional representation assaults a party or- ganization is this : It gives the people liberty to assail a party that is about to enslave them, and it gives them also a weapon that will make the assault victorious every time, when the assail- ants are in the majority. And pray tell us if a majority has not a right to assail? This kind of majority rule is real, while the present sham frequently renders the majority as helpless as a child. (See the Slave Pens.) On the other hand, the present system, in the case of a majority of one, permits a single man to assault a whole party and defeat it. Thus we have reduced the whole sum and substance of charge No. 3 down to the plain and simple fact that, under proportional representation, an attack upon a party organization would be harmless unless made by an 9verwhelming force; this force in all probability would be made up of material from each of two or more great parties already in the field, who might still retain the same relative strength, as against each other, that they had 32 SOMETHING HARD TO FORESEE. previously, and wield all the power they would be justly entitled to. If one or both should lose enough supporters to be utterly routed and broken up, then the majority would rule in reality, and the fundamental principle of republican government would NOT be nullified and set aside. Fourth Charge: " Some of its most important effects cannot be distinctly foreseen." Answer: One of its most important effects would be to give the whole people a voice in the making of laws, and thus enable them to regulate their own affairs, which is just what this gov- ernment was intended for. This fourth charge is indeed very ambiguous and indefinite. It specifies nothing in particular, but admits that important re- sults will follow in the wake of proportional representation, and furthermore, that some of the more important ones cannot be distinctly foreseen. The gentlemen on this committee must have known that it would give the voters their liberty at least. They did not, therefore, mean that this could not be distinctly foreseen. As it is impossible to know to a certainty what they had in mind, we may infer that in their deliberations they had vainly attempted to look into futurity and learn the unknowa- ble namely, the wonderful improvements that will take place on this earth when a people already nominally free shall possess a mechanism by which they can carry into effect the ideas which now they can only talk about. We are compelled to surrender to this fourth charge. Fifth Charge: "It is so radical in character." Answer: It is no more radical than it should be to give the voters their full liberty. Freedom is very apt to be a little radi- cal, especially when compared with slavery. Hare's plan is no more radical than the present system. The latter is radically wrong, or just as bad as.it is possible to have. Mr. Hare's is radically right that is, just as good as it is possible to have. Sixth Charge: "Revolutionary in its probable effects." Answer: President G-arfield has said that a " large portion of the people are permanently disfranchised." Other testimony declares that the fundamental principle of our government has been nullified, defeated, and set aside by our present method of voting. Both of these statements are supported by indisputable facts. Therefore, is not something revolutionary just the thing MATHEMATICS IS THE SAME IN ALL COUNTRIES. 33 we want? If the fundamental principle of this government has been nullified and set aside by a counterfeit ballot, which it has been, how, except by a revolution that will give us a genuine ballot, can it be reorganized ? The present ballot has put an end to the majority rule, and rendered the people powerless to act except as ordered. If they are not to be given a real ballot, one with which they can effect a peaceful revolution, will they not be justified in using force, as did the men of '76 ? Seventh Charge: " Prudence will dictate that it should be very deliberately considered and subjected to local experiment and trial before it shall be proposed for adoption upon a grand scale Jby the Government of the United States." Really, this whole file of charges reads very smoothly, and I doubt not many a poor fellow who had been repeatedly ' ' sold " by one of two great parties, and probably by both, considered himself uncommonly lucky in having such watchful sentinels to guard him against the calamities pictured in this report. It has been shown, however, that up to this point there was no real danger. It now remains to show that this seventh and last charge has nothing in it, except that, in connection with the others, it might be made to point a moral perhaps. Mr. An- drse, our witness against the first charge, has shown that it had been on trial sixteen years when the Committee made their re- port. It seems from their report they knew something of the system. There is no good reason why they should not have known all about it, and yet they said, " It should be subjected to local ex- periment and trial." The general trial given it in Denmark cer- tainly gave it as severe a test as anything on a smaller scale could give it in this country. In fact, these grave Senators seem to have forgotten that there can be no uncertainty about solving a simple problem by the aid of mathematics, after it has been settled that it can be relied on to obtain a true solution of a more difficult problem of the same kind or class; and propor- tional representation is nothing more than' a mathematical prob- lem mathematics is its foundation, the application of which to elective mechanism would result in justice, in freedom to the voter, and finally would produce those " important effects," " some " of which, it must be admitted, " cannot be distinctly foreseen." 34 THE SENATE COMMITTEE SUPPORT OUR CHARGES. In submitting the foregoing criticism to the public, it will be proper to call special attention to another portion of the com- mittee's report, wherein they claim that the cumulative vote would be a guarantee of peace. It will be found in the chapter on " Ballot-Box Battles." It is a sound opinion, because it is supported by well-known facts, while the charges we have criti- cised are not thus supported. I must, however, thank the Com- mittee for their report as a whole. In their second reason they admit and state in plain terms that the ballot-box majority is a source of corruption. In another part of their report the dis- trict system is shown to be a fountain of evil also. In describing the imperfections of former plans, and the present one of elect- ing by single districts, the report refers to the latter in the fol- lowing terms: It has not secured fair representation of political interests, and it has con- tinued in existence, in a somewhat mitigated form, the evils of the plan of election by general ticket, which it superseded. Still one body of organized electors in a district vote down another; electoral corruption is not effectually cnecked and the general result is unfair representation of political interests in the popular house of Congress. Besides, the single district plan has called into existence inconveniences peculiar to itself, and which did not attach to the former plan. It excludes from Congress men of ability and merit, whose election was possible before, and thus exerts a baneful influence upon the constitution of the House. Two causes operate to this end: In the first place, no man who adheres to a minority in any particular district can be returned, and next, great rapidity of change is produced by fluctuation of party power in the districts. Again, the single district system gives rise to gerrymandering in the States in the formation of districts. Single districts will almost always be unfairly made. They will be formed in the interest of party, and to secure an unjust measure of power to their authors, and it may be expected that each successive district apportionment will be more unjust than its predecessor. Parties will retaliate upon each other whenever pos- sible. The disfranchisement suffered through one decade by. a political party may be repeated upon it in the next with increased severity; but if it shall happen to have power in the Legislature when the new apportionment for the State is to be made, it will take signal vengeance for its wrongs, and in its turn indulge in the luxury of persecution . To prevent any misunderstanding, it may be well to state here that the bill which this Committee has recommended proposes to abolish all district lines; the State will be one district, the elec- tor voting at any place where he may happen to be on election day. It differs in this respect from the cumulative vote, as gen- erally understood and as applied to elections for State legisla- torsas, for example, in Illinois; there the State is divided into districts, each of which sends three representatives to the State Legislature, that is, to the lower house. The report of our Com- CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 85 mittee refers only to the choice of Congressmen, as before stated. It may be quite interesting to many to know in what manner Representatives to Congress were chosen previous to 1842, at which time, viz., on the 25th of June in that year, Congress passed a law compelling them to be elected by single districts, as at present. Previous to that time, it was left to the States to choose them in any way they saw fit. The result was that in some States they were elected by the district plan, either one or more from a district; the districts were of different dimensions, even in the same State; some were single, and some sent two, three and even four Representatives to Congress. Other States elected their Congressmen "at large." In early days many of the States did this: but it became so unsatisfactory that at the time Congress took action in the matter, the mixed district system, of one or more Representatives from each district, pre- vailed more generally than at an earlier date. The result of voting at large, with the ballot-box majority attachment, was, the majority party, or, in case of three parties, the plurality party, elected every member of Congress in a State. Congress, therefore, to remedy this evil, as well as that of irregular dis- tricts, enacted that each and every State should be divided into single congressional districts (or Slave Pens). At that time the mathematical problem of how to elect by single quotas had not been solved. The single district plan was thought to be, and in fact was, an improvement on previous methods, or at least on that of electing at large. But it finally gave rise to new evils, as stated in the report of the Committee. The object of chang- ing to the single district plan was to carry out the intent of the founders of this Government, as declared in the Constitution, the purport and intent of which is that ' ' the people " shall rule themselves by laws in the making of which all shall participate. If there be any who dispute the soundness of this " opinion," they are referred to Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution, to wit: The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by THE PEOPLE of the several States, It does not say that one part of the people shall be repre- sented in Congress, and another part have no opportunity to be represented; and that it was intended as far as possible to pre- 36 WHAT HAVE WE LEFT? vent such an occurrence is shown by Section 4 of Article 1, which provides for a change in the elective mechanism, as follows: The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Kep- resentatives shall be prescribed in the State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators. In accordance with this provision of the Constitution, Con- gress, in 1842, enacted that Representatives should be chosen by single districts. By this they recognized the fact that "the peo- ple" were not represented as the Constitution, in Article 1, Section 2, declares they shall be. As no better way had yet been invented, it was thought that by choosing them by the single district plan, a less number of the people would be disfranchised. Party politics at that time had not so fully demonstrated as it since has that all are dis- franchised. The result has been that it has enfranchised par- ties to some extent, by giving each of two or more a better chance to get a share of the Representatives, but it has left the voters as poorly provided for as before. The next thing in order, there- fore, is to free the voters from party control, and place parties under the control of the voters, where they belong. This can only be done by giving the voters their full liberty, and this they cannot have while they use a mechanism that enslaves them, as the present ballot does. The evidence in this and previous chapters proves beyond all question that the present mechanism makes it impossible for the people to make their own laws, and that the very foundation of their government is therefore destroyed. What have they left? Nothing, except that inalienable right, belonging to all man- kind, which permits a people to create a mechanism that will enable them to execute their will. In such an emergency, the People's Power is the only agency that can be of service. It be- comes for that purpose the natural builder of a machine, which, if rightly constructed, will ever after economize that power, by creating improvements in every other branch of governmental mechanism. How to set this power to work to build it is the question, and this will be considered in another chapter. The defeat of the bill recommended by the Senate Commit- tee, together with the neglect since that time to provide any relief, is in itself proof enough that Congress does not repre- THE QUESTION THAT NATURALLY FOLLOWS. 37 sent the people; besides, the facts heretofore given bar all fur- ther controversy on that point. The question that naturally follows is, what warrrant of law is there in this country to com- pel people to obey laws which they have had no hand in mak- ing? Or, if immediate resistance is not advisable, how long must they continue to obey laws in the making of which they can take no part? CHAPTER V. OTHER PLANS, TRIED AND UNTRIED PROPORTIONAL OR TOTALITY, AND NOT MINORITY REPRESENTATION, IS REQUIRED. THE CUMULATIVE VOTE. In Illinois, representatives to the lower house of the Legisla- ture are elected by the Cumulative Vote. As it is a decided im- provement on the old plan, it deserves some notice. I shall, however, merely point out some of its defects, hoping thereby to assist in preventing its introduction into other States to the exclusion of plans which are so greatly its superior. It proposes to give the voter as many votes as there are candidates to be elected in a district, and permits him to give them all to one candidate, or give one to each, as in the old way, or to divide them among the candidates in any proportion he may see fit. The objections to this are: First, it does not necessarily abolish the district system; second, where, for example, three are to be chosen in a district, as in Illinois, the smaller party must com- prise at least a third of all the voters; third, if more votes are given for a candidate than are required to elect him, the surplus are wasted, and if too few, they are all thrown away. A minor- ity of less than one-third might thus be defeated in every dis- trict in a State, although they would be entitled to a number of representatives if voting under the proportional plan, which per- mits the union of such numbers (see either of the three exhibits ^X^VBRTjJ^x^ f "OF THB \ (UNIVERSITY J 38 THE CUMULATIVE VOTE WILL NOT DO. in Chapter 2). Any system that does not permit parts of quotas to consolidate, and that does not leave every single quota of vot- ers absolutely free from party power, is too weak to prevent such power from thwarting the people's will. The " majority " of the voters in either party will be under the control of that power, and a minority of one-third will still require more or less of party discipline to insure its success; that is, it will require a regular party organization to determine beforehand how many votes will be required to elect a candidate. That organization must have leaders, and the leaders will do as they do now; that is, as they please, and not as the voters please. If the party managers have nothing worse to fear than a system that only de- stroys in part, or even wholly, their power over minorities, while it leaves majorities subject to their control, they can well afford to see the minority " cumulate" their votes and elect their man every time. The men thus elected would frequently be expedi- ency or compromise candidates; no matter how small the party, a convention would be indispensable, and the voters would all be obliged to vote " the ticket;" there might be enough dissatis- fied voters in the whole State to form several independent quo- tas, but they would be helpless. The Cumulative Vote was supported by John Stuart Mill before the invention of the Hare and Andrae plan; but, after comparing it with the latter, he pronounced it a mere " makeshift." Under the Cumulative Vote both the ballot-box majority and the district system may exert their baneful influence, though not to the same extent as now. These two evils will, however, retain enough influence to enable party managers at times, if not in every instance, to prevent the people from carrying out their plans. The mere representation of minorities is not the most important thing to be secured. If majorities cannot execute their will while under party discipline, bow much better off will the people be when they are all repre- sented, but subject to the same discipline? Party power, " as now organized and administered," not only prevents the people in most cases from electing men of their choice, but it exerts a dangerous and often a fatal influence on those whom, at times, they may be able to elect in apite of party intrigue. We must have a system that will not only permit the whole people to be represented, but one that will also enable them to protect their representatives from the present influence of party power. What HOW LONG IS THIS TO LAST? 39 good does it do to elect a man, and have him set upon by a party caucus and compelled to support its policy, or, in case of refusal, be slandered, or else tripped up every time he attempts to do anything he was elected to do ? When every representative is the independent agent of a single quota of voters, no one representative, elected by a few to advo- cate a single idea or to champion a policy different from that of the majority, can be made to fear the party lash; neither will the individual representatives composing the majority dare to un- justly thwart him, since they would not have such a. party organ- ization to shield them as they now have. They would be answer- able for their conduct in the matter each to a single quota, and this quota would be free from the corrupting expediencies of a great p&rty as now organized. The Cumulative Vote is only a plan for the more perfect rep- resentation of parties. But we have seen (page 9) that of 1,801 laws not ten were of a party nature; therefore, the voters are not represented by giving each of two or more great parties a just or proportionate share of the representatives. It is persons that we want represented, but this can never be until they are free from party power, and the Cumulative Vote will not set them free. [See chapter on Party Politics for other remarks about parties.] THE FREE LIST. This is a plan first made prominent in 1865 by the Keform Association of Geneva, Switzerland. It has been established, however, that Thomas Gilpin, of Philadelphia, brought out the same plan as early as 1844. Copies of his pamphlet on the subject are very rare; the only one said to be in any library is in that of Harvard College. Neither Mr. Gilpin's nor any other idea can be made prominent unless enough persons join in the work. The " party machine " has such kingly power in this country that all knowledge injurious to its " majesty " is some- how made to shine very dimly. How long is this to last? '* By the Free List plan, a list of candidates may be made out by any number of persons equal to a quota or more. This list is to be deposited with the Registrar or other officer, who will number and publish the same. Each elector has one vote, 40 THE GENETA FREE LIST. and casts it for such list as he may select, indicating his prefer- ence for the candidates thereon. The total number of votes cast by all the different lists is divided by the number to be elected, to obtain the .quota, or quotient electoral. Then, by dividing the number of votes cast for any list by the quotient, the num- ber of candidates on that list who are elected is ascertained. If we suppose there are twelve representatives to be chosen, and 12,000 votes cast, the quotient electoral, or quota, is 1,000, and the election, if there be four parties in the field, may result about thus: List No. 1, receiving 5,000 votes, secures 5. List NO. 2, receiving 4,000 votes, secures 4. List No. 3, receiving 2,000 votes, secures 2. List No. 4, receiving 1,000 votes, secures 1. " Thus any able man who has a quota of friends is sure of an election. This system is perfectly simple in theory and in fact, so as to be easily understood and easily put in practice. As first proposed, the list vote made no provisions for the indi- cation by each elector of his preferences among the candidates named on his ballot, the rule being that if List No. 2, for in- stance, receives three quotas of votes, the first three candidates therein were to be elected; hence, when it was afterwards pro- posed, in 1870, that each elector should indicate his preference, it was treated as a distinct method, and called the vote by per- sonal representation, or quotient electoral. " This distinction is no longer maintained. The List Vote in its present form allows the voter to indicate the order of his preference among the candidates on the list which he votes for."Dutcher. To apply this system, Mr. S. D. Horton, of Cincinnati, gives, among others, the following rules: "The offices allotted to a ticket (or party list) shall be filled by certain candidates on the ticket (or list) according to the preference of the voters thereon. The candidate who is first choice of the greatest number of voters shall have the first place on the final list; if only one oflice is allotted to the ticket (or party), such candidate is elect- ed. That one among the remaining candidates, who, on the greatest number of ballots, stands either first or second in the order of preference, shall have the second place on the final list; if the ticket elects two, he also is elected. That one of the THE FREE LIST PLAN COMPARED WITH HARE'S. 41 remaining candidates, who, on the greatest number of ballots, stands either first, second or third, shall have the third place; if the ticket elects three, he also is elected. And so on." A list may contain the name of one candidate only, or as many as there are legislators to elect, or any number intermediate. The "Free List" is applicable to the choice of executive officers, from the President down, in which case the highest candidate on the highest list would be elected. The Free List plan has not yet been put in practice in Swit- zerland. The probable reason why it has not is this: All important legislation has to be submitted to a vote of the peo- ple before it becomes law. This they call the ^Referendum They evidently thought this would counteract effectually the evils of the old method of voting. Besides, in one of the larg- est cantons, Zurich, the people make their own laws indepen- dent of the Legislature. It is said, however, that the Eeferen- dum has not thus far proven a sufficient corrective for all the evils of a legislative body chosen in the old way. It is not reasonable to suppose that it can be a cure-all. We may there- fore predict the adoption in Switzerland of either the Free List or the Hare plan as the next improvement in their machinery of State. By this plan the list of candidates has to be made up by a party, or by a single quota, as the case may be, and published in advance of the election. The voter casts his ballot for the names on a particular list, and for no others. He can erase, but cannot add new names. The candidates are all known previous to the election, whereas by the Hare method it is not absolutely necessary. Both plans permit an indefinite number of candidates to be nominated without imperiling the success of their party. "In the cumulative plan, if either too many or too few names are put forward, a great waste of strength must occur, and carefully prepared ballots become a necessity." Although the Free List is not so perfect in theory as the Hare and Andrte plan, it has been claimed for it that, in practice, it would secure about the same results. As it would destroy the present party bondage, it would have an indirect tendency to do so in time. HOW TO CHOOSE A GOVERNOR. Mr. George B. Wright, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, gives in his plan, which he calls the " Preference Vote," the following." 42 HOW TO ELECT A GOVERNOR. " In an election for Governor where there are only two candi- dates, if the majority win, it is as near the will of the people as we can get in such cases. But suppose one party has 12,000 and the other party 9,000 voters, and the majority party disagree as to its candidate and divide in nearly equal parts, the majority under our present system would be defeated by a united minor- ity. Say the candidates of the majority are A and B, of the minority X. Now the most popular of the majority party's can didates will be chosen. After the election the vote stands as follows : Majority Party A (1st choice), B (2d choice) 7,400 " B (1st choice), A (2d choice) 4,600 Total 12,000 Minority Party, X 9,000 Total Vote 21,000 A majority of which is 10,501. The returns are thus : NAMES. TOTALS. A Votes 1st choice, 7,400; 2d choice, 4,600 12,000 B " " 4,600; " 7,400 12,000 X " " 9,000; 9,000 " A and B each receive 12,000 votes. A has the greater num- ber as first choice and is elected over X, as his total votes exceed those cast for X, and over B, as he is first choice on more bal- lots than B. " It is here shown that the nomination need not be made by a party. It can leave the voters free to vote for whomsoever they choose, and not lose the right of a majority to elect its candi- date. The result would be the same, however great the number of candidates may be in either party. Let the totals of both first and second choice decide as between the parties, while the first choices decide as between candidates. The party at one time both nominates and elects its candidate, and thus party caucuses and conventions are rendered useless, and the sources of one-half our political corruption cut off." THE KEY TO FREEDOM. Various modifications of all the foregoing plans have been from time to time proposed. What I wish to give the reader is, THE KEY TO FREEDOM. 43 the key to freedom in the matter of choosing his representative. It is this: In all cases, where more than one is to be chosen, divide the whole number of votes cast by the number of officials to be elected, and the quotient is the number of votes required to elect one. Therefore, a mechanism must be had that will to a certainty enable every such number to elect whom they please. There has been no way discovered, nor can there be, to secure this, except by abolishing compulsory district lines and the majority at the ballot-box. If, for instance, ten hundred voters are to elect ten representatives for any purpose whatever, then each and every one hundred of them will be entitled to one. By referring to any one of the three slave-pens, or exhibits, in Chapter II, and supposing the district lines to be removed, the reader will see at a glance the justice of the principle on which this plan is based. It is as simple as buying a pound of sugar. " It is on the principle that when one dollar will buy ten pounds of sugar, any one offering forty cents should get four pounds, and not be told he can have none, not even one pound, because some other party has the most money." In other words, pro- portional representation means that equal numbers should be equally represented. " The essence of democracy is equality. * * * Where there is no equality of representation there is no democraqy." M. Louix Blanc. CHAPTER VI. BALLOT- BOX BATTLES WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN THEY CEASE PARTY POLITICS. " A political contest is a struggle, not for a fair share of the representation, bub for the whole. * * * It is a war with- out quarter, and it is a contest in which the sacrifices of the victorious are hardly less serious than the losses of the defeated party. Everything has to be yielded for the sake of victory, and, as eligibility becomes necessarily the prime quality in a 44 OUR CIVIL WAR MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN. candidate, it naturally follows that men of mark give place to men of no mark, and the representative assembly comes to be composed, for the most part, of second-rate men, mere standard- bearers in party warfare, hardly better known or more accepta- ble to the men who voted for them than to their opponents." In contrast with the above, which is taken from the American Law Review for January, 1872, Vol. VI, I submit the following from the " Keport of the United States Senate Committee." This Committee, as stated in a previous chapter, recommended the cumulative vote, and among other reasons said: " It will be a guarantee of peace, because it will exclude many causes of discord and complaint, and will secure to the friends of peace and union a just measure of political power. The absence of this vote in the States of the South, when rebellion was plotted, and when open steps were taken to break the Union, was unfor- tunate, for it would have held the Union men of those States together, and have given them voice in the Electoral Colleges and in Congress. But they were fearfully overborne by the plurality rule of elections, and were swept forward by the course of events into irnpotency or open hostility to our cause. By that rule they were largely deprived of representation in Congress. By that rule they were shut out of tlje Electoral Colleges. Dispersed, unorganized, unrepresented, without due voice and power, they could interpose no effectual resistance to secession and to civil war. Their leaders were struck down at unjust elections, and could not speak or act for them in their own States or at the capital of the nation. "By facts well known to us we are assured that the leaders of revolt, with much difficulty, carried their States with them. Even in Georgia, the Empire State of the South, the scale was almost balanced for a time, and in most of those States it re- quired all the machinery and influence of a vicious electoral sys- tem to organize the war against us and hold those communities compactly as our foes." If our civil war might have been prevented by the Cumulative Vote, how much greater is the " guarantee of peace " offered by a perfectly just system, as herein given? The Missouri Compromise was virtually repealed by the pass- age of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Had the anti-slavery voters in the North, together with those both South and North who were THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 45 opposed to the reopening of the slavery question, been permit- ted to increase their representatives in Congress as fast as their numbers increased, that bill, it is quite reasonable to suppose, would never have been passed. It is reasonable to say that this compromise line, instead of being abolished as it was, would have been extended farther west, until finally it would have reached the Pacific shore, in a social as well as a geographical sense. Finally, had that compromise line been extended, or even had it remained unchanged, is it at all likely that war could have been successfully advocated ? I will close the evi- dence on this point with one more authority on this subject, taken from the American Law Review for January, 1872, Vol. 6, page 280: " Could the principle of Proportional Kepresentation have been recognized in the composition of the House of Representa- tives twenty years ago, it would have introduced into Congress a large number of Northern Democrats and Southern Whigs, occupying a middle ground and holding the balance of power men out of favor at home, but strong enough, both in numbers and position, to check the violence that led at last to civil war." The foregoing reasonable testimony admonishes us to consider how much of future adversity may be avoided by an early use of an improved electoral mechanism. And the multitude of facts regarding the conduct of public business facts as well known as household words, and which are an acknowledged scandal to our country proclaim the subject of electoral reform to be one of the most important that can engage the attention of the American people. The following extract from the American Law Eeview is appropriate at this point: " In this view of the case, the reformers propose to abandon the old plan of trying to stimulate public virtue and to preach men into the habit of attending primary meetings, and, instead, to devote their efforts to the discovery and introduction of an improved political machinery. And if we are asked how these things can be how it is possible that a mere arithmetical device, an ingenious but still purely mechanical improvement in the ma- chinery of politics can, in reason, effect a moral reform, the an- swer again is at hand; it is to be found in the nature and origin of the political evils from which we suffer they do not spring from moral causes. If we grow indifferent and neglectful, it is because 46 "I KNOW NOT WHOM, I KNOW NOT WHAT." 4 the barbarous and pernicious machinery with which we have to work obstructs us and breaks us down, thwarting our best im- pulses and converting us into blind and unwilling slaves. ' I feel/ says Dr. Walker in his election sermon, * when I put my hand into the ballot box, that I am being used by somebody, I know not whom, for some purpose, I know not what.' " If we give up political duty, it is not for lack of public vir- tue, but from disgust and disappointment. We know it does not make any difference whether we go to caucuses or not; we know that it makes but very little difference whether we go to the polls or not. But remove the artificial obstructions that the present political machinery, with the abuses it has produced and fos- tered, has set up; substitute for it a more rational method of voting, which shall establish justice, encourage individuality and make independence possible both in public and private sta- tion, and public duties and the public service will again be what they in fact are, the most honorable work that can be done, and they will not be long without a following. It is not now the public virtues that are lacking; what we need is a fair field for their exer- cise." 9 This last remark embodies a truth which should not be for- gotten: There is no lack of honest men to serve the people; but they cannot be got through the " machine." When Ballot- Box Battles cease, this trouble will no longer be. The wire- pullers, with all the votes they may purchase and all the tricks they may invent, will not be able to prevent a single quota of honest voters from electing the man of their choice. The cor- rupt element will be drawn off, and be represented in proportion to its numbers only, leaving the- honest portion uninjured, and the main current of political life will thereby be purified. The sheep from the goats will be separated; they cannot be turned over to the wolves by a few votes bought up to create a majority and turn the scale. " One grand recommendation of this plan is, however, the tendency it would have to bring forward distinguished men as candidates. * * * The same reason which induces the bringing forward of men of reputation also operates to keep them in the position which they have shown themselves qualified to occupy. At present the reverse is true. The moment a man becomes prominent by displaying his ability or integrity, he A PAGE OF CHOICE QUOTATIONS. 47 makes himself obnoxious to those who rather desire tools to carry out their sinister designs, than men of character who will obstruct them. Hence an intrigue is set on foot to defeat such a man, and always with success. Those in the community who would sanction his conduct, in case an opportunity were given them to express their opinion, have no influence whatever/' Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 22, 1860. " While the present system induces a candidate except when he has a large majority to suppress and conceal some of his opinions, lest he might lose votes, the new method induces the candidate to express himself fully, in order to be clearly under- stood by minds in sympathy with his own. There will be en- couragement on all sides to tell the truth and not fail to express their opinions." Hare. " Now, if the legislative assembly be in its prime intent and use a parliament, a talking body, every numerous and respecta- ble party among the people has an undoubted right to its share in the talk; every significant phase of opinion has a right to be presented and advocated; or, to state the case still more strongly, the nation has a right to such practical wisdom as can be elicited only by the free comparison and discussion of oppos- ing and divergent theories and measures." North American Re- view, 1862, Vol. 95, p. 240. "It is by comparison that the standard of excellence is raised." Hare. But it is not raised very fast or very high, when the worst is compared with the worst, as it now most frequently is. " It is by the co-operation of kindred and sympathetic minds that great ends are accomplished." Hare. But our Slave Pens prevent that co-operation. " Here is a man that you desire to elect, but there is a law which restrains you from doing so." " The initiation of all wise and noble things comes, and must come, from individuals, generally at first from some one indi- vidual." Mill on Liberty, Chapter III, p. 128, 119 late ed. Then let that one be heard, and permit those who so choose to make him their representative. Politics will then become an educator, instead of being, as now, one of the chief agents of social de- pravity. PARTY POLITICS. It is safe to say that not a hundredth part of the laws are of a party nature. Of the 1,801 statutes enacted by the Legislature 48 TWO DOZEN PAKTIES BETTER THAN TWO. of New York, less than ten were party measures. The people, therefore, cannot be represented to any great extent by two or three parties, except in special cases, when some one or a few questions render for a time all others of little interest to the voters. Instead of two or more " great parties," there should be electoral groups or quotas, by which men of live ideas and practical ability can be encouraged, and elected to present those ideas to the representatives of other groups, or quotas, for their examination, and, if practical, their adoption. Comparison could then be instituted. The best could be compared with the best, instead of the worst with the worst. By this means, the whole community would become interested in the investigation, and thereby. become educated, whereas the time of both the voters and their representatives is now spent principally in studying the science of party warfare. Two dozen parties would more nearly represent the people than only two. It seems that the principal utility and object of parties, as now managed, are to keep the people in ignorance of everything they ought to know, and thereby cause them to look to party statesmen for knowledge and protection. The real object of the party mana- gers is, too often, public plunder; or, in other words, to so legislate that the great mass in all trades and occupations will have to prostitute their best faculties in order to exist, while the profits of their toil is, by this same legislation, gathered up by the few, who tell their deluded dupes that it is the result of superior "brains." While it is true that success is of ten the result of superior ability, it is not true that the majority of the industrious unsuccessful fail from lack of sound judgment. Their failure is, too often, the result of unsound legislation, to which in many cases they blindly assent. Being, as a rule, prevented from electing those best qualified to make laws, and even de- prived of their counsel by a partisan press, which, instead of such counsel, spreads broadcast the fog of sophistry and deceit, the many come at last to think there is no relief to be had. If parties, instead of being an occasional need, are really a con- stant necessity, there should be more of them, unless the people are so poor in ideas that they have but few to be represented. Where there are two great parties, representing only two, or at most some few interests, no other ideas, however valuable, can gain a support. It is with much difficulty, and at great per- TWO-THIRDS OF TWO-THIRDS IS FOUR-NINTHS. 49 sonal sacrifice, that the public can be made aware even of their existence, and to think of making any use of them, after they are made public, is wholly out of the question, under this Slave- pen system of ours. If the voters had free access to the advice and official service of their best tliinkers, their most capable and trustworthy mem- bers, would any State be likely to enact laws at the rate of 900 per year? If so, representative government is a failure. "We are now supporting a multitude of lawyers who are unable to in- terpret the multitude of statutes now enacted. If this is to con- tinue, then are we at the mercy of legal quibbles and entangle- ments little better and often worse than the rule of an enlightened dictator. No; it- is not two, or three, or any number of " great parties" that will guard our rights and liberties. "Eternal vigilance " must be not only the duty, but the privilege also of the willing and capable in the whole community! If they are found in the ranks of a hundred different parties, then each must be allowed to put its best and truest men on guard! CHAPTER VII. CHIPS OF FACT AND LOGIC A FEW QUESTIONS ADDRESSED TO REFORMERS. One-half the voters are now unrepresented, and the other half are misrepresented by the men they vote for but do not select. Voting implies choosing; how many are there who choose the men they vote for ? It seldom happens that a representative body is chosen by so large a number as two-thirds of the voters; but suppose it to happen, and also that a law is passed by a two-thirds vote; what do we find ? Answer: Two- thirds of two-thirds is four-ninths; therefore, less than half the voters are represented by that law. Take another case: One-half of one-half is one-fourth; there- fore, if it were possible for the voters to elect representatives of their own choosing, and one party, by it ballot-box majority of 1, should elect the whole Legislature, and a law be enacted by a 60 TWO POWERFUL QUOTATIONS. majority of 1, that law would represent only one-fourth part of the voters. What an outrage on truth, justice, and liberty it is to call this a republic, when it permits the existence of a system that will not allow the people to form a party, unless they become the slaves of that party. " It seems a small thing to allow a voter to unite with others of his own way of thinking, and not fetter him to those who may be ignorant, weak or corrupt in his own locality. An elec- toral community formed of thousands of persons, including every diversity of thought, intelligence, education, and feeling, is driven together and told what is, in effect, a cruel irony to elect a representative. If it be only that the person chosen is to support this or that minister, or this or that dogma which the majority in its caprice or its ignorance has set up, the represen- tation may be enough; but if it be to exercise a judgment on all the subjects which at this day become matters of legislation, then it may be confidently said that no fable, legend, or allegory, has personified a creature capable of adequately representing such a heterogeneous combination of men." Thomas Hare. President Grarfield again condemns the system, and at the same time praises Mr. Hare's book. Mr. Marshall, of Illinois, had offered an amendment, which provided for the election of Congressmen by the Cumulative plan, the same as recommended by the Senate Committee. In the discussion which followed, Mr. G-arfield, in addition to his remarks quoted on page 10, said: " I can find no stronger illustration of the evil than in my own State. When I was first elected to Congress, in the Fall of 1862, the State of Ohio had a clear Eepublican majority of about twenty-five thousand, but by the adjustment and dis- tribution of political power in the State there were fourteen Democratic Representatives upon this floor and only five Repub- licans. The State that cast nearly two hundred and fifty thou- sand Republican votes, as against two hundred and twenty-five thousand Democratic votes, was represented in the proportion of five Republicans and fourteen Democrats. In the next Con- gress there was no great political change in the popular vote of Ohio a change of only twenty thousand but the result was that seventeen Republican members were sent here from Ohio and only two Democrats. We find that only so small a change of majority as twenty thousand changed the representation in Congress from fourteen Democrats and five Republicans to seventeen Republicans and two Democrats! Now, no man, C A POWERFUL BOOK, 7 SAYS MB. aARFIELD. 51 whatever his politics, can justly defend a system that may in theory, and frequently does in practice, produce such results as these. * * * A powerful book written a few years since by Mr. Hare, of England, was the beginning of the discussion on this subject." The above remarks of Mr. Garfield may be found in the Con- gressional Globe, Part 6, 2d session, 41st Congress, 1869-70, p. 4737. The fact that Mr. Garfield referred to Mr. Hare's work as a powerful book is quite significant. It is not improbable that, had Mr. Hare's plan been the subject of debate, he would have urged its adoption as strongly as he did the Cumulative plan. It is to be presumed that he knew that the majority of the House would by no means consent to so thorough a reform as that of Mr. Hare's. The defeat of the plan proposed, and the neglect from that day to this to remedy the defects of the present system proves conclusively that Congress does not to any great extent represent the people. The query that natur- ally arises is, Whom does it represent ? It is impossible for it to represent the majority, since the majority rule, at best, ends at the ballot-box, where it begins. The district system, however, often prevents the majority from ruling even there; and the more parties, the worse it is. We will suppose two parties only, and show how they wield the paper sword. EXHIBIT No. 4. DISTRICTS. VOTERS. LAW-MAKEKS. 1. a aaaa bbbb . A 2. aaaaa bbbb... A 3. a aaaa bbbb A 4. aaaaa bbbb... A 5. aaa bbbbbb B 6. a a bbbbbbb B 7. a a bbbbbbb B Voters in each party A, 27; B, 36. Total, 63. 52 WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE? This exhibit, like those in Chapter II, represents a State and districts. The A party is only two-thirds as large as the B, and yet it gets the majority of the law-makers. Our table represents the evil in its mildest form; the actual results are often worse, as tables from election returns prove. If those elected were genu- ine representatives of those who voted for them, it would not be so bad. As has already been stated, the mere disfranchisement of even a large portion of the voters is not so great an evil as the enslavement of them, all by a corrupt party power, which can at will use their votes to plunder, demoralize and degrade them. It must be conceded that true representatives of even a quarter part of all the voters would not think of enacting such infamies as are enacted by the tools of parties. It should, therefore, be borne in mind that what is known as minority representation is not the one thing needful; we have got minority representation already, and that, too, " with a vengeance." Any system that will make the people's power superior to that of party must of necessity secure representation to minorities, as well as to ma- jorities. One part cannot be free unless the other is also; any system that will prevent a part from being represented will en- slave them all. " Give exclusive representation to majorities, and you create parties whose opposition t t o each other will be permanent one opposing, as a duty to itself, all that the other proposes, how- ever beneficial to the public that proposition may be. You divide the people into two hostile camps struggling for the mastery/' Great parties are an occasional convenience, but not a con- stant necessity. One bad feature of great parties under the present system is, they will not disband "when the war is over;" their leaders refuse to have them " mustered out." There never can be a people's government so long as the people are unable to control their parties; the policy of govern- ment is shaped by party; the policy of party is shaped by mo- nopoly. Where are the people ? They are supporting parties, and thereby monopolies also. They are the body guard of both at one and the same time. WE ABE UNDER AN OLIGARCHY. 53 "THERE is BUT ONE PARTY OF TWO PARTS." "These two sets of professional election-managers, who pre- tend to have these great differences over great questions, are playing two parts in a farce. Either one of them will trade with the other for half of the people's offices, when they cannot have the whole. It is perfectly well understood that, in the city of New York, the same set of men, under two names, manage both political organizations. * * * In Washington, Albany and New York, and everywhere else throughout the country, these men have always made bargains with each other to divide the public offices when either one set could not have the whole. * * * I do not mean that there are not a good many honest men who are prominent in each of these organiza- tions, who have no idea of deceiving themselves or any one else. But this is the working of the machinery; this is the certain result, assuming the best of intentions to exist. The process of election has "become a mere form. It has been super- seded by that of nomination; the process of nomination has fallen into the hands of the professional election-workers; the professional election-workers have fallen under the control of their leaders, and the leaders trade and bargain over the peo- ple's offices, and keep up the form of two ' parties ' (as they are called) to catch our votes. "We do not elect our officers. They are appointed for us by the managers of the machine. We talk of two ' parties/ There is only one party of two parts. It is time to name names. What difference does it make to us whether our public officials are appointed by Mr. Roscoe Conk- ling, or Mr. John Kelly, or by the two acting in concert, or by their successors ? We are disfranchised none the less so that we are allowed to walk decorously to the polls, and there please ourselves with the choice between two sets of printed papers, prepared by the same men, but with different sets of names, with the eagle at the top printed, it may be, from different dies. Are we to call this kind of performance ' popular election ' ? This elect-ion machine has disfranchised the people, has en- slaved their servants, has centralized power in the hands of an oligarchy, has destroyed the responsibility of our public ser- vants, destroys the efficiency of the public service, corrupts the public service, sells the control of the public service to the 54 QUESTIONS NOT YET ANSWERED. great monopolies, defies the people's will, and makes the peo- ple's healthy life and growth an impossible thing. We have not a people's government, but the tyranny of an election ma- chine. " The foregoing quotation is from an article entitled "The People's Problem," by Albert Stickney, of New York City, and published in " Scribner's Monthly Magazine" for July, August and September, 1881. I have lately understood that the author has since published a work on this subject. His plan is radi- cally different from both the present system and proportional representation. QUESTIONS TO REFORMERS. To the Ministers: You profess to teach the "Gospel of Peace." Can you then, consistently or conscientiously 3 uphold in any way the present electoral system, which is not only an incentive to war, but to every species of crime also ? To Temperance Reformers : Do you propose to fight the enemy in the old-fashioned way, or are you sufficiently pro- gressive to adopt the modern improvement known as propor- tional representation ? To all who complain of persecution, present or prospective : Will you not deserve to be persecuted a little if, after under- standing the infamy of the present system and the justice of proportional representation, you neglect to do all in your power to inaugurate the latter? How can you expect justice while you support a system that is the chief fountain-head of injus- tice? CHAPTER VIII. THE PRESS, PUBLIC OPINION, AND PARTIES. " It is to the press, it is said, that we must look for the forma- tion of the great mass of public opinion on political and social questions, and it is of importance to watch with the greatest care any defects capable of remedy which diminish the good influ- ence the press exercises; and if any one can contribute to im- THE PBESS, PUBLIC OPINION, AND PABTIES. 55 prove the strength of the press for good and to diminish it when it tends towards evil, he can confer no greater benefit upon the community at large." How to get the greatest good with the smallest admixture of evil is the problem. " It is only in the event of its reporting &afact that which is not fact, and of its reasoning on such false representation or as- sumption, that it may mislead. Such errors must be as prejudi- cial to the progress of political, as of every other science. * It is very possible for a writer who has a strong feeling or bias on any particular subject; honestly to believe and represent that which is his own opinion to be the opinion of the public. As a supposed organ of public opinion, the press is at all times imperfect, and may become dangerous. The danger would result from trusting any body of men, however high in character to wield a machine of such vast power as "public opinion." In forming public opinion, we have seen that the press is the most potent of material gifts which has been vouch- safed to man. Diverse and antagonistic views and interests may all invoke its aid, and be heard before the great court of reason and conscience. But when the press assumes to declare public opinion, it ceases to be the advocate, and takes the office of judge. In preparing itself for this high function, it is assailed by all the disturbing causes of party and private influence and interest, which bias the conduct and corrupt the judgment of mankind. It is also important not to forget, with reference to public journals, that they must necessarily be conducted on mercantile principles. They must be remunerative, or they can not long continue. * * * * The opinion which is declared by the press to be that of the public is very likely to become so, if the declaration be believed, however unhappy or evil may be the course to which it leads. " People yield their assent and concurrence to what seems to them inevitable. If it should happen to become the opinion of an apparent majority, and be adopted by those in power, it pro- ceeds with a vastly accelerated rapidity, overwhelming all oppo- nents. * * The press has no statistical or other means of ascertaining the opinions of the vast and silent mass. * * A House in which every member would sit as the representative of a unanimous constituency will effectually 56 THE PRESS, PUBLIC OPINION, AND PARTIES. prevent any successful counterfeit of the public voice, for he will have been selected as the most accurate medium for convey- ing the opinions of his constituents, not only on the subjects on which those opinions had been awakened, but on those on which they were latent, and might be evoked by new and unexpected circumstances. They agree with him from sympathy or from deference. The general opinion of the nation, including that large body which now silently and passively submits to disturb- ing elements and causes, will thus be readily and habitually manifested." Thomas Hare. 11 If what is called public opinion were always the opinion of the whole community, the press would, as its organ, be an ef- fective guardian against the abuse of power, and supersede the necessity of the concurrent majority; just as the right of suf- frage would do, where the community, in reference to the action of government, had but one interest. But such is not the case; on the contrary, what is called public opinion, instead of being the united opinion of the whole community, is usually nothing more than the opinion or voice of the strongest interest or com- bination of interests, and not unfrequently, of a small but ener- getic and active portion of the whole. Public opinion, in rela- tion to government and its policy, is as much divided and diver- sified as are the interests of the community; and tile press, instead of being the organ of the whole, is usually but the organ of these various and diversified interests respectively, or rather of the parties growing out of them. It is used by them as the means of controlling public opinion, and of so molding it as to promote their peculiar interests and to aid in carrying on the warfare of party. As the instrument of party warfare, it con- tributes greatly to increase party excitement and the violence and virulence of party struggles, and, in the same degree, the tendency to oppression and abuse of power. Instead, then, of superseding the necessity of the concurrent majority, it increases it by increasing the violence and force of party feelings, in like manner as party caucuses and party machinery; of the latter of which, indeed, it forms an important part:" John C. Calhoun, in Disquisition on Government, Vol. I, page 76. The truth of the foregoing 'remarks of Messrs. Hare and Cal- houn is beyond question. In fact, it is an old story, but, at the same time, one that is daily repeated throughout the whole land. ANOTHER PROBLEM SOLVED. 57 The situation is this : The public has no organization whereby it can declare its opinion; the press having no means of ascer- taining what the opinion of the whole really is, makes up one from what scanty material it can gather, adding its own com- ments either to strengthen or weaken the supposed opinion of the public, or else, under the influence of party, it declares the few ideas which a party represents to be the chief questions of public interest. Therefore, the problem to solve is, how to enable the public to make its opinion known, not on one subject, but on all subjects; and furthermore, how to stop corrupt party power and influence from preventing its being known. This problem has already been worked out on the various pages of this pamphlet, and the answer is embodied in two words PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION ! When every opinion and interest of importance shall be repre- sented in the various public bodies by men, each of whom will be the agent, not of a great party only, but of a single quota of voters, who will demand that their opinions be made known, then the press can report those opinions. It can at the same time criticise them, and thereby, to the extent of its ability and resources, assist informing public opinion. It will drop its as- sumed character of judge, and devote its whole power to educa- tional efforts, which may result in making judges of us all. Thus, by one master stroke, the press will be made more powerful for good, parties powerless to harm, and public opinion will become a power in the land. CHAPTER IX. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. First: To the honest skeptics, or those who from selfish mo- tives may oppose Proportional Representation, the answer is: What the Danes have done, we can probably do. A quarter of a century and more of successful practice proves its practicabil- ity. Common sense, enlightened reason and mathematics de- clare it to be just, and the total depravity of our present system 58 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. insures its superiority. These are a sufficient reply to all objec- tions. Second: Some have objected to the removal of district lines, claiming that each locality must be represented, and that were voters to elect a man outside their own locality, their own town would have no representative. The answer to this is: First They will not be compelled to go away from home for a candi- date. In general, only the fragments of quotas, who cannot alone elect a man, will go outside the home circle. If, however, the voters in a town at one extremity of the State can find in a distant town some one of superior ability to any among them- selves, they would certainly prefer him in the many cases of emergency that arise, and who dare say they shall not employ him ? Second The producers and consumers of commodities in one town are naturally more in sympathy with those of a distant town than with the monopolists of their own locality; and if not strong enough to protect their interests, they plainly have a right to receive aid from those of like views in other places. Each vote to be counted for only one candidate. This, at first, will appear to many as curtailing the power of the voter, but, on investigation, will be seen to be the very opposite. It should always be borne in mind that it is the number of voters who can elect a representative, and not the number of votea which any one can give, that is the true test of electoral power. Each vote will count one f and help to elect one; whereas, at present, thou- sands count as nothing. Besides, each voter will have equal power with every other voter of all parties, and his vote will in every instance help to elect all the representatives his party may be entited to. Many, without stopping to consider, will say that where a leg- islature of 100 members or more is to be chosen, so many names on a ticket would be very inconvenient. But this objection is without foundation; there will in no case be so many, for the reason that in electing by quotas the voters will not put on a ballot more than a limited number, which, for that matter, might be regulated by law; the better organized each separate quota becomes, the less names it would be necessary to place on a ballot; even one might often be enough. It has been suggested to have several ballot-boxes, numbered respectively, first, sec- ond, third and fourth choice; the voter then would deposit a YOU CANNOT HIDE THE SLAVE-PENS. * .59 ballot for his first choice in one, and for his others in their re- spective numbers; but this is wholly unnecessary. Again, there will be many more parties when the voters are free than now. Each one will know about how many it can elect, and will place a corresponding number of names on a ticket. Each town or city will as a general thing vote only for the number that it now does; where parts of quotas are compelled to join with those of other localities, they will, as a rule, vote for one or more pre- viously agreed upon. There will, however, always be an oppor- tunity to add other names, etc., and this will be an advantage. Finally, to sustain any reasonable objection to Proportional Eepresentation, the objector must either prove mathematics false, or else show that the present system is lens objectionable than the one proposed; to prove the latter, the objector will have to hide the Slave-pens, and this cannot noiv be done. The liberty-crushing and crime-creating character of the present sys- tem to say nothing of its absurdity demands a change of some sort, and the justice and simplicity of the plans presented seem to require no further explanation. CHAPTER X. "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?" "We are continually reminded that our troubles are caused by the acts of our own chosen agents; and therefore we must not only foot their bills, but, like unsophisticated simpletons, throw up our hands and be robbed by every highbinder they may com- mission for that purpose. That these law-makers' are not of our choosing has been fairly demonstrated. They are neither nominated nor elected by " the people." There is only one sense in which it can be said that we have the ballot in this country, and that is when an over- whelming majority are in favor of some one measure or a few special ones, and are unanimous as to whom they will elect to en- 60 TRY THE SHAM BALLOT AGAIN? NO, NEVER! force them. On all ordinary occasions, and for the management of the great bulk of public business, the ballot is of no more utility than are the cob-houses the children build. The fact stands out clear and plain that we are not enjoying the benefits of a people's government that we are not in possession of the ballot! Our ancestors, who revolted from the rule of one king, achieved their independence by force of arms. We are under the rule of many kings; how shall we achieve ours ? Shall the change be peaceable, or by force ? That it must be revolutionary, cannot be questioned, since all testimony shows that the government founded over a century ago has been practically overthrown, or, as expressed in a previous chapter, "nullified, defeated and set aside " by our method of voting. A peaceable revolution can only be brought about by an over- whelming majority at the ballot-box, and this is almost impossi- ble to obtain under the present system. How, peaceably to obtain a genuine ballot, in place of the present counterfeit, is the problem to be solved by those who propose to avoid a vio- lent change. Those who admit the right are frequently numerous enough to establish it, if they would act as well as talk; or, when acting, would attack the enemy's stronghold, instead of his foraging " parties." At every election, the honest reformers are told that "this is the most important contest in many years; vote the ticket just once more," and other things to suit the occasion. And so the ballot-box battles rage again; and so they will continue to rage so long as we use a mechanism that enables the modern Pirates of Civilization to launch a new destroyer for every one the people capture, or even attempt to capture; that creates a new scourge in the very act of removing an old one a mech- anism whicn thorough, patient and repeated trials have shown to be better adapted to execute the will of devils than the will of honest men. We cannot obtain a mechanism that will execute our will by continuing to use a ballot that constantly thwarts it. Therefore, VOTE NO MORE, until you can vote as sovereigns, and not as slaves! Assemble in every city, town, and school district, and commence a movement that will secure a genuine ballot. I am aware that this proposition to stop voting will be ridi- culed; but I am aware also that it is useless to exhort the ma- IT PERPETUATES THE ETIL. 61 jority of mankind to do what they ought to do, even when they admit that it ought to be done. Therefore, unless those who appreciate the importance of a radical change in our represen- tative system inaugurate a movement to bring the subject to the notice of the whole people and keep it there, this little tract, with the facts it contains, will share the fate of similar contri- butions on the same important subject. It must be remembered that this reform is not a new one; it was a live question twenty years ago more so then than now. Why this decline? An- swer: The people have been kept busy voting, and the press, which has been mainly controlled by the wire-pulling class of politicians, has kept the matter "dark." I predict that our present reform parties will be very slow to take effective action in the matter, unless something be done to quicken their move- ment. Let even a small band of voters in every community make known their intention not to vote again until they can have the ballot in fact, instead of the present sham, and the bat- tle will be more than half won. A government that enforces the use of a mechanism that thwarts the will of those who are compelled to use it, may be republican in form, but in fact, NEVER. Therefore, demand that it shall be made to execute, as well as declare such principles. CHAPTEE XI. OTHER ATTRIBUTES OF SOVEREIGNTY THE REFERENDUM. When we elect men to frame a new Constitution, their act does not become law until ratified by a vote of the people. Why should not other legislation be subject to the people's approval before the people are made subject to it, or before they are sub- jugated and utterly ruined by it, as is often the case. It has been objected that to compel all legislative enactments to be submitted to the people for ratification would so delay leg- islation as to become impracticable. To obviate this, it could be arranged that when one-third, or less, of the Legislature should 62 OTHEK ATTRIBUTES OF SOVEREIGN POWER. demand it, any act should be so referred; or when a certain number of voters should so order, it should be done. When the people both nominate and elect their representa- tives, it is reasonable to suppose there will not be that countless multitude of laws which the present system fosters, and the de- lays attending their ratification, even if they were all submitted to that test, would probably not be so great us is the delay now when a good one is required to be enacted or a bad one re- pealed. Furthermore, a law applying to a special locality only could be ratified or rejected by the voters in that locality. No measure of importance should as a rule become law until due time has been given the people to object. If the referendum is not required for any other purpose, it is for the two following : First, it would free the representative from temptation; and second, it would act as an educator, by compelling the voters to discuss and study the requirements of society. A perfect representative system without the referen- dum would be better than the referendum without the first. With proportional representation to work with, the other can be had at short notice, when the majority so decide. THE INITIATIVE. As it is not always possible to select from a community a few who will embody the wisdom of the whole, and as it is unreason- able to expect a rebellious or an exceptionally inharmonious body to do all that may be required in certain emergencies, therefore a certain proportion of the voters in a State should be allowed to offer measures which may become law when indorsed by a majority of the whole. This provision, besides being a measure of safety, would act as an educator of both the people and their representatives. THE VETO. To elect a numerous body to execute our will, and then to select ONE of that number to determine whether our will shall or shall not be executed, is supremely ridiculous. A true republic has no use for a President endowed with a the present preroga- tives. WHY IS THE SOVEREIGN A SLAVE? 63 THE SENATE. Each State has two Senators in Congress, but the Representa- tives in the Lower House are in proportion to the population. What is the result ? Two Senators from Nevada, representing at the last presidential election less than twenty thousand voters, can offset two from New York, representing over a mil- lion voters; or, the votes of two Senators, representing the smaller number, may, and often do, neutralize those of thirty-three in the Lower House, representing the larger num- ber. There are seventy-six Senators in Congress; of these, thirty-nine is a majority. Now, these thirty-nine may represent the Ies3 populous States, and thereby defeat the will of the people. The sum and substance of the matter is, that where there are two bodies, and one opposes the will of the other, they cannot both represent the will of the people. Furthermore, if the people are represented in one House, why have two? If one House chosen directly by the people will not represent and exe- cute their will, how can another NOT chosen directly by them help the matter. The more we examine this thing, the worse it looks. Therefore, abolish the Senate! State Senates also are worse than useless, and must go. CONCLUSION. Sovereigns of America! Do you think those who are, by the present ballot, enabled to defy your will, will give you a ballot with which you can execute your will ? Freedom comes not by talking alone; action must go with it. Talking is good when it indicates that action is near at hand. The first step requisite to establish a real ballot is for the majority of the people to publicly declare that they will have it. When you assemble for that pur- pose, action will have commenced. The time necessary to effect this one reform need be but a few months, and the expense, which would be but little, will be re- paid a thousand-fold in money, and more yet in morals, in much less than a thousand days after it is done. Let us establish a free ballot one that will enable us to select our officials from the best, instead of the worst elements. If we want liberty, we must do something to get it. If "the people^^sus^fae sovereign, why is the sovereign a slave f /^ UNIVERSITY >< RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS DUE AS STAMPED BELOW OCT 14 1989 A . mm: NOV u * 1988 r Jui i 3l9BB UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 1/83 BERKELEY CA 94720 $ IU : U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES