machinery of voting recalls its origin. The first test is a shout. If one party greatly preponderates, its shouts will drown the other's, and there will be no need to go further. But the shout is the old battle cry. If there is still doubt, the next step is Divide, i.e., draw up in battle array.

...

Thus we see what a rough test the verdict of the majority is. It is not based, historically, on any ethical considerations. It makes no allowance for difference of merit in the combatants, or for generalship, both of which tell in real warfare. But it is a very simple and enormously useful practical way of settling disputes, and it has had a world-wide success. 291. Elections under the Roman Republic. The methods used by candidates in the Roman Republic are thus stated by Pliny:

I have been told by some who remember those times that the method observed in their assemblies was this: the name of the individual who offered himself for any office being called out, a profound silence ensued, when, after he had spoken for himself, and given an account to the senate of his life and behavior generally, he called witnesses in support of his character. These were either the person under whom he had served in the army, or to whom he had been quæstor, or both (if the case admitted of it), to whom he also joined some of those friends who espoused his interest. They said what they had to say in his favor, in few but impressive words; and this had far more influence than the modern method of humble solicitation. Sometimes the candidate would object either to the birth, or age, or character of his competitor; to which the senate would listen with a severe and impartial attention: and thus merit was generally preferred to interest.

292. The Ballot Act. In 1872 the British Parliament passed the following act for a secret ballot at parliamentary and municipal elections:

2. In the case of a poll at an election the votes shall be given by ballot. The ballot of each voter shall consist of a paper . . . showing the names and description of the candidates. Each ballot paper shall have a number printed on the back, and shall have attached a counterfoil with the same number printed on the face. At the time of voting, the ballot paper shall be marked on both sides with an official mark, and delivered to the voter within the polling station, and the number of such voter on the register of voters shall be marked on the counterfoil, and the voter having secretly marked his vote on the paper, and folded it up so as to conceal his vote, shall place it in a closed box in the presence of the officer presiding at the polling station. . . .

After the close of the poll the ballot boxes shall be sealed up, so as to prevent the introduction of additional ballot papers, and shall be taken charge of by the returning officer, and that officer shall, in the presence of such agent, if any, of the candidates as may be in attendance, open the ballot boxes, and ascertain the result of the poll by counting the votes given to each candidate, and shall forthwith declare to be elected the candidates or candidate to whom the majority of votes have been given.

293. Methods of influencing voters in the United States. Some of the devices used in America to swell the party vote are as follows:

(1) The most ordinary influence on voters is simple persuasion. In some parts of the country, especially in the South, there is joint discussion of public issues, listened to by both sides. In the Northern states, political meetings are usually attended only by members of the party that holds them.

(2) The newspaper is of course of great influence over voters. But, again, most Americans read only the newspapers of their own party, and hear very little of the argument of the other side. .

some

(3) Another method of influencing voters is by intimidation, times nothing more than the disapproval of a man who votes unlike his neighbors, sometimes fierce and cruel personal abuse, sometimes threat of dismissal from employment. . . .

(4) Farther down still is the brutal violence at the polls, of which there have been many examples in American history. . .

(5) Another too frequent method is the corruption of voters. The most subtle form of bribery is to pay a man on election day for peddling tickets, for getting out the voters, or for reporting the vote. Another form is the purchase of "political movements"; temporary third parties are set up for the express purpose of being bought off in a block. Another method is to hire men to stay away from the polls.

(6) Perhaps the baldest form is to pay money outright for votes; candidates for offices are often assessed thousands of dollars for campaign funds; and cases have been known where they have gone from polling place to polling place, actually giving out rolls of bills to be distributed among the voters.

294. Comparison between Greek and Swiss democracy. The difference between Greek and Swiss methods of securing popular control of government is thus stated by Lowell: 1

1 By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.

When the Greek spoke of democracy, he had in his mind the conduct of the administration. He meant the control by the mass of citizens of the question of peace and war, of the relations with the allies and the colonies, of the finances, the army, and the fleet. In Athens at the time of Demosthenes all these things had been placed in the hands of the assembly of the people, which managed them as far as possible directly, or by means of committees chosen for short periods by lot. But the same methods were not applied to legislation. To the Greek mind the laws were normally permanent and unchangeable. . . . In Athens, therefore, the administration was conducted directly by the people, but the power of legislation was far less under their control. Now in Switzerland precisely the reverse is true. It is hard to conceive how the control of legislation by the people could be rendered more absolute than it is made by the referendum and the initiative; but, on the other hand, the executive of the Confederation is removed as far from popular influence as is possible in a community where every public authority is ultimately based on universal suffrage. The federal councilors virtually hold office for life, and they are chosen, not by the people, but by the Assembly, whose members enjoy in their turn a singularly stable tenure.

295. Representative government. The necessity of representation in modern large-sized democracies may be stated as follows:

Another vital question is, Through what medium shall the popular will be expressed? A direct democracy in which all the participants may meet together is the simplest, and comes nearest the exercise of popular sovereignty. Such direct governments are possible only in small communities. In the canton of Appenzell, for instance, on election day ten thousand men assemble, each girt with a sword, and vote for their officers viva voce. The New England town meetings in colonial times and in the country towns to-day are the best examples of such a direct democracy.

No such government can possibly work in a large community, and the method of representation has been devised to permit the expression of the popular will. Representation by voting delegates was unknown in the ancient world. In the Middle Ages the imperial free cities sent delegates to the Reichstag; but they were instructed ambassadors, saying what was put into their mouths by their principals at home. Perhaps the first germs of the true representative system, in which delegates once chosen act upon their own judgment, are to be found in the thirteenth century in the introduction of county and then of city members into the English Parliament. Even then, for a long time, the intention was to

on

represent interests landholders, the trading classes, and so rather than individuals. Only in the nineteenth century has the principle of representation been pushed to its farthest logical extent, namely, that every aggregation of a thousand people is entitled to the same representation as every other thousand people, in local, state, and national legislatures.

296. The recall. The recent Iowa law authorizing commission government in cities makes the following provision for the removal of elective officials:

The holder of any elective office may be removed at any time by the electors qualified to vote for a successor of such incumbent. The procedure to effect the removal of an incumbent of an elective office shall be as follows: A petition signed by electors equal in number to at least twenty-five per centum of the entire vote . . . shall be filed with the city clerk, which petition shall contain a general statement of the grounds for which the removal is sought. . . . If the petition shall be found to be sufficient, the council shall order and fix a date for holding the said election, not less than thirty days or more than forty days from the date of the clerk's certificate to the council that a sufficient petition is filed. . . . Any person sought to be removed may be a candidate to succeed himself, and unless he requests otherwise in writing, the clerk shall place his name on the official ballot without nomination. In any such removal election, the candidate receiving the highest number of votes shall be declared elected. At such election if some other person than the incumbent receives the highest number of votes, the incumbent shall thereupon be deemed removed from the office upon qualification of his successor. . . If the incumbent receives the highest number of votes, he shall continue in office.

III. INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM

297. The origin of the referendum in Switzerland. Lowell explains as follows the conditions under which the referendum developed in Switzerland: 1

It is curious that in Switzerland, almost alone among the countries north of the Alps, representative government did not arise spontaneously. In some other places the elected assemblies were smothered before they attained great strength, but in Switzerland they never developed at all. The fact is that owing to the absence of royal power, which

1 By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.

was the great unifying force during the Middle Ages, the country did not become sufficiently consolidated to have a central legislature, and no one of the separate communities that made up the Confederation was large enough by itself to need a representative system. . . . Under these conditions there was no place for a true representative body either in the Confederation or the cantons, and the ancient referendum grew up in its stead.

The Confederation being a mere league of independent states, the delegates to its diet acted like ambassadors, in strict accordance with the instructions of their home governments; and, what is more, they were never given power to agree to a final settlement of matters of importance, but were simply directed to hear what was proposed and report. They were said to be commissioned ad audiendum et referendum.

The modern institution is quite different in its form and in its effects, and is based upon abstract theories of popular rights, derived mainly from the teachings of Rousseau. This writer had a strong aversion to representative government, and remarked in his celebrated "Contrat Social," that the English with all their boasted liberty were not really free, because they enjoyed their liberty only at the moment of choosing a parliament, and were absolutely under its rule until the next election. He declared that in order to realize true liberty the laws ought to be enacted directly by the people themselves, although he saw no method by which this could be done in a state that was too large to permit of a mass meeting of all the citizens. Rousseau's ideas of popular rights sank deep into the minds of his countrymen; and when the Swiss, who as a rule is extremely practical in politics, becomes fairly enamored of an abstract theory, he clings to it with a tenacity worthy of a martyr.

The advocates of the referendum were prompted by a belief that it was an essential part of the sovereignty of the people rather than by a conviction of its utility, and in many of the debates on the subject its introduction was urged to a great extent on theoretical principles of abstract right, although usually opposed on purely practical grounds, the debates resembling those one commonly hears on the question of woman's suffrage. A study of the period points, however, to the conclusion that the ultimate basis of the demand for the referendum, the real foundation of the belief in the right of the people to take a direct part in legislation, lay in the defective condition of the representative system.

298. Extension of the principles of initiative and referendum. During the past century, especially among Anglo-Saxon peoples, the use of some form of popular legislation has become widespread.