In Defense of the College; R. Donway

Although unimpressed by cur rent arguments, I am not ada mantly opposed to such a Consti tutional reform. There' is, to my knowledge, no natural right in114 volved in abolishing, modifying, or maintaining the Electoral College. The process of electing a President is not a democratic one, but there is no evidence that it was int~nded to be democratic, and I can think of no compelling reason why it ought to be so. On the other hand, I cannot see that the College is, like the Bill of Rights, one of those Constitutional bulwarks against democracy on which our liberty vitally depends. The choice of the majority or plu rality has usually also been the electoral winner. And in those few instances where he was not so, there is no evidence that the coun try was being saved from dema1968 IN DEFENSE OF THE COLLEGE 115 gogy by the intervention of wiser and calmer electors. The whole question really seems to be one only of efficiency or con venience, and the College is -cer tainly less than perfect by that standard. But since those argu ments showing the advantages of reform are, I assume, fairly well known (a recent poll showed 65 per cent of the people in favor of abolishing the College outright), what I would like to suggest here are some of the less often men tioned considerations against re forming the College.

Caution Commended The first, most obvious caution is that it would mean amending the Constitution in a very basic way, and simply in terms of prece dent we ought to hesitate over that. If it is only for a matter of efficiency, better perhaps to leave it alone. Already we amend too easily. I would venture that most Americans did not hear of the last two amendments until they were passed, if then. Even worse, an overamended Constitution becomes a target for replacement, a possi bility as frightening as it is for tunately remote. Of course, the reformers will cry that this sort of objection could be brought against any change at all,and that is perfectly true; it could and it should. With the pragmatic turn of the American mind, we habitually give too little thought to precedent on the delu sive premise that our actions will never amount to a real change. It is against this that I· propose my first caution. However, it is only a caution. If the change is badly needed, by all means acknowledge the precedent, and then reform.

But there is another caution I wish to point out, one much more immediate in impact and explosive in effect: we know how our pres ent system works, weare familiar with it, our political thinking is based around it, and it holds few er surprises than a new one would. The reformers may like to call the Electoral College "vestigial," but it is far from it. True, the electors themselves are not vital political entities, but the influence of the electoral structure is nonetheless pervasive. To see what might happen after a reform, consider the proposal for the direct election of the Presi dent. This is both, the simplest method in practice and the ideal behind most of the suggested changes. Actually, direct election ,vould have many drawbacks other than those I wish to raise and for that reason few people actually ad vocate it. However, the observa tions drawn against it here are also, I believe, applicable to most of the usual modifications of di116 THE FREEMAN February rect election which are being urged.

Recall that direct elections are won by pluralities, the difference of votes between the .winner and the loser. All other statistics are merely interesting. This is not true of the present system. Cur rently, to be elected, a candidate must win not one, but several elec tions, some combination out of fifty, the value of each being de termined by the number of peo ple in the state. Clear ly, the theory behind di rect election is much simpler. It maintains that the President is elected by the nation and that the person chosen by a plurality on election day to be President, oug ht to be President. The electoral thesis is more complex. It says that the nation is composed of states and that it is these who choose the President, each state being more or less in fluential in relation to its popula tion. To determine the voice of a state, an election is held and a plurality rules. Pluralities vs. Totals Now, know it or not and like it or not, the electoral thesis has shaped our political ideas in many basic ways. And the institution of direct elections would 'radically alter these patterns of thought.

Under the present system, we have grown accustomed to think ing that the populous states should have more say than the less popu lous states in nominating and electing a President. At the con ventions, for example, the parties are careful to consider the wishes of the larger states' delegations, knowing that if a candidate is pleasing to these large blocs of electoral votes, he is that much more likely to be elected. Less pop ulous states get comparatively short shrift. Of course, the justice of such a system may be debated by, say, New Yorkers and Ala bamans, but it is currently con sidered "fair" in political thinking that New York should be more in fluential. Again, during the election, the candida tes are most likely to adopt views pleasing to the people in the populous states, and thus, ulti .. mately, the President is likely to reflect the political philosophy prevalent in these states.

Under a system of direct elec tion this would almost certainly be changed, for such elections, as I said, are won on pluralities. Thus the influential states would be those which could deliver the larg est pluralities to a candidate, pop ulation being irrelevant. A state with six million voters and an un certain plurality, becomes worth less than a state-with a million voters and a plurality of 300,000, 1968 IN DEFENSE OF THE COLLEGE 117 and so do the views of its voters. To take an example, imagine that the election of 1960 had been a direct election. The power bases of the candidates would have been considerably different. Georgia would have been worth four times as much as Texas to the Demo cratic candidate, whereas under the electoral system it was worth one-half. Louisiana would have been twenty times as valuable as Illinois instead of one-third. Rhode Island would have weighed about equally with Pennsylvania instead of being one-eighth as important.

For the Republicans, Kansas would have been more than five times as valuable as California, instead of being worth one-fourth of it. Instead of being about equal, Indiana would have been five times more important than Virginia. In stead of Nebraska being one-half as valuable as Wisconsin, it would have been worth twice as much. This situation, the reformers tell us, would make elections more rational. Such dramatic shifts in power would not be lost on the political rulers of small but one-sided states, particularly in the South. And their new influence, for bet ter or worse, would be greatly felt at the conventions. Whether or not they should have such power is a different question. The fact is that they do not now have it, and an effect of instituting direct elec tions would be to give it to them. But this is only one example of the revolutions hidden in abolish ing the "vestigial" institution.

And it is the sort of alteration we ought at least to be expecting and not discovering too late. Until we can be sure of the cost then, let us keep the College. ~ Self-Reliance THE WEAKNESSES of the many make the leader possible - and the man who craves disciples and wants followers is always more or less of a charlatan. The man of genuine worth and insight wants to be himself; and he wants others to be them selves, also. Discipleship is a degenerating process to all parties concerned. People who are able to do their own thinking should not allow others to do it for them. ELBERT HUBBARD DOES LABOR CREATE CAPITAL? DEAN LIPTON FOR MORE than a century, the Marxists have loudly contended that capital is the product of former labor. Nor was this idea original with Karl Marx. The clas sical economists had pointed it out much earlier,-'and in an often misquoted statement, Abraham Lincoln had said that before there could be capital, there had to be labor.