Chapter IX - Too Long Ballots, Complexity of Initiative and Referendum

CHAPTER IX TOO LONG BALLOTS. COMPLEXITY OF INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM THE mischief of the long ballot is not merely that it confuses the voter. There is a greater mischief in the legislative and executive complexity, of which the long ballot is the initial evidence. As I said before, our New England ancestors might have been called short-term cranks. They were also.cranks on local representation, and on "checks and balances," or splitting up of political power. They were afraid to entrust, for instance, a single representative chamber with the making of the laws, but provided two, an upper and a lower, whose concurrent action was needed for. legislation. They divided govern ment into three branches, legislative, executive,· and the judiciary, each with some check on the other. They insisted on direct election of all three by the people, although both the executive and the judi ciary are bound to obey the laws enacted by the legislative body. Apparently they feared to entrust the power of appointing executives and judges to the law-making body, although they gave the latter authority over both. Furthermore, they were un willing to give the legislative power to a chamber chosen at large, insisting that each little community should be represented in legislation by one of its own inhabitants. Naturally at the outset the com munities were small and scattered; and as each had [ 220] Long Ballots. Initiative and Referendum to be represented by an inhabitant, the number of legislators in the legislative body became very large.

It thus became cumbrous and incapable of rapid action, as is always true of numerous bodies. Inheriting this New England type of state and local organization has given nearly every state in the union a very large 'and cumbrous lower house, in addition to a less numerous, but still over-large upper house; and moreover a group of elective and executive officers deriving their power directly from the people, under obligation to obey laws passed by the legislature, but at the same time independent of the legislature, and able not seldom to defy and come to a deadlock with it. When one contrasts such a curious contrivance of cross-purposes, and its neces sarily inefficient working results, with the simple and logical democracy of our great corporations (whose stockholders elect annually a board of direc tors; and ,that board appoints a single executive, removable by and directly responsible to itself; after that leaving that executive to develop an entire per sonnel removable by and directly responsible only to him)-when, I say, one contrasts the two systems of organization, it is easy to understand why our corporations work so well and our governments so badly.

Breaking away from the New England conception, the makers/of the Constitution of the United States seem to have· conceived a broader theory of Rep resentative Government. Their thought a12~ar ently was not so parochial, so limited, as the New England idea; which last seems definable as repre sentation of the people by a multitude of average men rather than by a few exceptional men. For instance, the Federal Constitution provides for the election of the President, not by direct vote, but by [ 221 J Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation the choice of a limited body of electors; who in turn were supposed to choose the President. Its theory was that these electors would be exceptional men, carefully selected by the people for integrity, ability, and experience; better qualified than the multitude to choose one man for executive head of the nation. In the same way, the Senate of the United States was to be chosen, not by the people direct, but by the legislatures of the different states; that is again by ex ceptional men, supposed to be of unusual integrity, ability, and experience. Lastly, the Supreme Court Judges, ultimate arbiters of all, were appointed for life, by the President. It is true that the thought of the makers of the Constitution has not been en tirely followed out; and that neither Presidential nor Senatorial elections are actually the task of excep tional men chosen for that purpose; but on the contrary, are determined by direct vote of the people.

Nevertheless, it remains equally true that the Consti tution builders' principle of representation of the people by exceptional men (if of their own choosing) is just as democratic as that of representation by average or under-average men. A cynical friend of mine used often to say that democracy is bound to be a failure for the reason that, as the proverb says, "The fountain cannot rise higher than the source." He meant, of course, that government is an affair far too large for all but a few men of ex ceptional ability, integrity, and experience; and that inasmuch as average men are the source of power in every democracy, they would not be likely to choose exceptional men for officers of government so that it must fail. This I do not believe, for, if there is anything recorded by history, it is the fact that the masses love to follow leaders of distinguished mental and [ 222] Long Ballots. Initiative and Referendum"

personal force. But circumstances must of course be such as to call such men into activity, and enlist their interest. Whenever they do come forward to take the lead, the people are bound to follow. It seems to me, therefore, that to secure the ablest men for public office, it is necessary only to make office itself attractive to such men; which brings me back to the New England idea-just the reverse! To put my thought in a nutshell, we have now tried out ad nauseam the New England theory that all of us are good enough to run government; that all of us must take a hand in it; and all of us must see that no one of us really runs it. It is time to sim plify, to admit that very few are competent to run government; that very few are needed to run gov ernment; that very few can accomplish better results in government than the mass of us put together; and, finally, that democracy, or all of us, can safely choose and trust that few.

The weak point of our governmental system is first and always the quality of our legislatures, local, state, and national. There can be no question that they are filled with cheap men, for the most part quite unfitted for their responsibilities; without exception too numerous, too unintelligent, too wasteful of time, effort, and money, and ofttimes too dishonest. The public properties and revenues which they badly handle, and the laws affecting human rights which they often selfishly devise, are closely parallel,~d in vol ume, scope, and human significance by those which are well handled and unselfishly devised for great corporations by very small groups of exceptional men, in very short time, with very small waste of money and effort. There is an old New England proverb: "You can't run business by town-meeting" which applies perfectly to public business; in spite of the [ 223 ] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation fact that American government originates in a towr: meeting. Again I say, it is time to simplify.

Realization of this has now been growing amongst us for several years. The so-called commission form of city government. 15 evidence thereof. Some 250 cities have adopted it by popular vote, and on the whole it is succeeding admirably. The .problem of city government has simmered down to that of wise election of a limited number, usually of five Commissioners, who make the city laws, appoint the administration, lay and collect the taxes. The essence of the plan is the abandonment of the old New England ictea of distrust. Every man of ex perience .in the organization of large business knows that the way to get good work out of men is not to distrust them; but the contrary. First pick a good man for the particular job in hand; then trust him with power and authority to act; and, finally, hold him responsible for results, meantime leaving his hands free to get them. Do not check or bal ance him, do not bother or hamper him with too many bosses; do not let him escape responsibility by imposing checks and balances on his authority.

Simplify, concentrate, trust, and reward, if you wish results. But I am wandering from the Long· Ballot. As an excellent example of complex politics, I cite personal observations at Chicago, about 1890, when I happened to study the local situation. Here is the tangle of constituencies in which I was attempting, and utterly failing, to vote intelligently; I lived in the old 18th Ward, which was my smallest political constituency. I there voted for two aldermen, one one year and one the next. (An excellent device to keep the people from accidentally capturing the Board of Aldermen some fine election day-a~ Henry Villard once said to me of the Oregon Trans~ [ 224] Long Ballots. Initiative and Referendum .continental Stockholders and its Board of Directors; only one third elected each year.) The boundaries of the I8thWard were marked by certain city streets.' It stretched from the Lake across to the Chicago River. On the Lake were residences of the rich; on the River and covering the· larger part of the ward were the residences of the far-more-numerous poor.

The River end of the ward swung the vote. Ot':' casionally a rich man was picked out from the other end, for the sake of a campaign contribution; but for the most part the aldermen were chosen from the River end. The Republican boss of the ward was, I think, a livery-stable keeper, and the Democratic boss . a saloonkeeper. Their organizations were well in hand, and they picked their candidates for the most part to suit themselves. When election day arrived, it was ofttimes a choice between a Repub lican grafter and a Democratic ditto-there was not the toss of a biscuit between them. The matter of aldermanic elections became perfectly indifferent to me, though I tried to be a good citizen.' No one but the candidate of one party or the other could be elected, and .there was really no choice between them, though they voted and spent most of the taxes. I also voted for a Representative in the State Legislature, his district covering part of the 18th and part of another ward. I voted for State Senator in a larger district, including my Representative's dis trict and one or two others. I never could recall the boundary lines of Senatorial or ... Representative districts, but as they crossed ward lines, other ward bosses were concerned in the makeup of the party slates. Of course I knew nothing and could know nothing about the personality of the candidates, or about their political views. Then I voted for [ 225 ] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation officials of the North Town, Chicago· being divided into three towns, North, South, and West, separated by the branches of the river. Each of the towns included several wards, and here again, though I knew the town boundaries, I had no knowledge of the candidates for the various town offices, nor of their political views, nor of the ward bosses who nominated them. N ext I voted as a citizen of all Chicago, for the Mayor and other city officers, the constituency comprising the entire city. As the constituency grew larger, my grasp of its politics grew smaller. There was, however, a compensating advantage, that the office of Mayor was sufficiently important to attract at least conspicuous or notori ous candidates, whose personalities were familiar from newspaper reports, or otherwise.

Before passing outside of the city lines, let me not forget to mention that I voted for a Representative in Congress, as resident of a Congressional district, in cluding several wards (Chicago had 4 representatives in Congress) . Next I voted as resident of Cook County, including all of Chicago and some outlying territory, for various county officers. Next I voted as resident of a certain judicial district for Superior and Circuit Judges. The boundary lines of these constituencies I learned but once, and promptly forgot them. I occasionally knew a candidate for Judge, as he was generally a pretty good lawyer, whom one might meet in the life of a large city; but I could know but very little of the political machin ery which nominated him. Then I voted as resi dent of the so-called North Side for the North-Side Park Commissioners, the district embracing the North Side of Chicago and vicinity. Then I voted for Drainage Canal Commissioners, whose con stituency comprised the entire City of Chicago, with [ 226 ] .Long Ballots. Initiative and Referendum a large territory north, west, and south thereof. They built and operated the drainage canal; taking the waters of the Lake down to the Mississippi River, and carrying with them the sewage of Chicago.

Then I voted as a resident of Illinois for the Governor and State officials and United States Senators; and finally I voted as resident of the whole United States for President. As I said above, I knew the boundary lines of all these districts only once, and for a very short time. While making this study, I took a city map, and hav ing ascertained these boundaries, marked them in different colored inks on the map. The result closely resembled a crazy quilt. Except in the payment of taxes (every single one of these elections, except for the judiciary, carried with it the taxing power), I· never knew or thought of their boundary lines. Nobody else ever thought of them, and no one I ever met knew them. Even the election commis sioners had to refer to their maps to ascertain many of them. Of course their multiplicity resulted in an excessively long ballot. In Illinois, city and local elections took place annually in the spring; county, state, and national elections in the fall every other year; making three regular elections every two years.

Besides that there were judicial elections, votes on bonds, constitutional amendments, etc., and other sporadic submissions to the people, including the Presidential election. In every cycle of four years the voters were called to the polls to vote about I I times, more or less. Too Many Politicians At the time I made this study, long before female suffrage, Chicago polled about 450,000 votes. There, as everywhere, they had to be polled within a few [ 227] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation hours of a single day. This then necessitated about 1,450 polling places, scattered about the city. More over, the voters were required to go to them, first for registration, afterward to the same or other places for primaries, and, finally, to vote; three trips in all to be made, each within certain hours on a certain day. During those hours on each occasion, these places had to be taken charge of by judges and clerks of registration and election, ticket peddlers, challengers and party-workers representing the vari ous parties active in the election; usually at least three, Republican, Democratic, and Socialist. Also policemen had to be in attendance to keep order; and incidentally to favor the party in power at the City Hall as far as possible in the exercise of their duties.

As nearly as I could ascertain, it took from six to seven workers of each political party to man each place, aggregating somewhere from 25,000 to 30,000 working politicians whose services were indispensable merely to go through the routine of getting out and counting the vote. But that was not all; the vari ous parties were obliged, in order to handle these frequently recurring elections to advantage, to organize in permanent Ward Clubs with regular monthly meetings, meeting places, officers, etc. For several months before each election the political columns of the newspapers were filled with accounts of factional contests within these clubs, looking forward to the nomination at the primaries of this or that factional candidate for office. As the different offices covered different constituencies bounded by different lines, the Ward Clubs neces sarily had to act together as a party organization, and eventually to parcel out amongst themselves the nominees for different offices for whom the party strength should be thrown at primaries and elections.

[ 228 ] Long Ballots. Initiative and Referendum This was no easy task, as the ambitions of all fac tions had to be recognized. The result was "trad ing" of various candidates amongst themselves; a candidate for Alderman, for instance, saying to an other candidate to stand out of the way, and in re turn re-support. as candidate for County Commis sioner. To deliver that support required on both sides continuous personal work among the voters through the entire year. I go into all this detail in order that the reader may realize that to be a working politician demands prac tically continual attention for many months prior to each election; and where electIons are as numerous as indicated above, a man must give his entire time, must be a working politician, and in practice nothing else, in order to succeed. It is unquestionably true that of the great army of 25,000 men above men tioned as necessary merely to man the polls of Chicago, everyone was a working politician who made politics his main business in life.

Now these 25,000 men had to live and support their families just as other· men do; but under our form of government the work of election of governors is supposed to be voluntary; the right and duty of each citizen, provided for him for his own benefit and protection. 'There is no provision made by law for payment for this enormous task or for the support of these 25,000 men and their families. Necessarily, then, they must get their living indirectly from the fruits of political victory. Andrew Jackson ex... pressed this in his statement: "To the victors belong the spoils." The enormous and, as it seems to me, the entirely unnecessary, complication of our political system, resulting from the original New England principle of distrust of government and of continuity of political power, has created a situation which [ 2291 Too Much Government-- Too Much Taxation necessarily throws the control and handling of these innumerable elections into the hands of a permanent professional political body of predatory character; one which continues itself in office and subsists upon the public taxes quite as completely as did the hereditary autocracy which our ancestors were so determined to destroy.

The same thing is true all through the United States whether in city or country. In Chicago they have just now the regime of Mayor Thompson and its machine; in New York they have Tammany Hall; in Boston we have Curley, Lomasney, and the domi nation of the Irish contingent. In the other cities and states there are other bosses. And there are everywhere the Labor Unions with their bosses, the Farmers' Non-Partisan Leagues with their bosses, etc., etc. But, you will say, that is democracy; that is the formation and operation of public opinion; that is the result of the necessity for leadership, which must exist everywhere and always-seeing that few men think for themselves, but follow those who do think for them. How, then, can the situation be altered for the better? The answer is, that it cannot be fundamentally changed; but that much can be done in the way of simplifying and modifying the principles of govern mental organization so as to reduce complexity, and the power of unavoidable political machines to the very minimum, by what might be called good poli tical engineering. Free government must be rep resentative; but there is no reason for representa tion by the poorest, instead of by the best; Granted, we are in trouble now; and the reader may say to himself that we cannot get out of it; that government is a big and complex thing at best, [ 23° ] Long Ballots. Initiative and Referendum and that we must simply face its difficulties. This, of course, is true; but it is no excuse for enduring a completely stupid mess of things. Every now and then some collectivist gets off the sounding phrase: "The cure for the evils of democracy is more de mocracy"; and he proceeds to agitate for, let us say, the Initiative and Referendum! May I rejoin with out seeming to appear too contemptuous of his sincerity, "Bosh!"? The Initiative and Referendum are usually attempts to submit, to the vote of the uninformed crowd, questions which are actually in debate among the few who really understand them; upon which they have not arrived at unity of opin ion. The result of such popular submission is neces sarily farcical! No better illustration of it could be given than the Referendum in supposedly intel ligent Massachusetts in 1918, upon the Amendment to the State Constitution establishing the Initiative and Referendum itself. The Amendment was car ried by a very narrow majority of a so-called vote upon it, totaling, as I remember it, less than one third of the total voting power of the state and less than two thirds of the total vote cast for the candi dates for Governor. Here was the most important Initiative and Referendum that could ever by any possibility be submitted to the people of that state; because without it no future Initiative or Referendum could be had at all! The very existence of the institu tion depended upon this vote. Yet more than two thirds of the voters did not take the trouble to record their judgment upon it, and a minute fraction carried it! What a perfect farce!

Such has consistently been the history of that in stitution in this country. Woodrow Wilson, when a professor of history, examined into this subject and correctly certified to the fact. To be sure, the same [ 23 I ] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation Woodrow Wilson, as Democratic candidate for President, when the New York State Democratic platform included a plank favoring the Initiative and Referendum, and he badly needed the New York vote, reversed his former verdict, saying that he was mistaken and the thing did work. But it seems to me that Wilson, the professor, was honest; while Wilson, the candidate-for whom, by the way, I voted that year-was-a politician! But why pile Pelion on Ossa of evidence? It is time to simplify our politics and get busy about it. The total vote on the Initiative and Referendum was: Yes, 170,646; No, 162,1°3. Majority for it, 8,533. Total vote on question, 232,749. Total vote for Governor, a little over 422,000. Estimated total voting strength of the state, about 800,000. Poll tax paid by 1,097,000.

[ 23 2 ] CHAPTER X TOO MANY ELECTIONS-TOO SHORT TERMS I MET, one Christmas Day years ago, at the Chicago Club, the late Marshall Field. He, like myself, happened to be alone at home, and had gone down to the Club hunting for company upon that festal day. We lunched together, and I remarked upon a recent item in the papers suggesting his name as Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency of the United States. I asked him in jest whether there was any thing in it. He answered with some vigor, "No. Some of the politicians think that I might make a big campaign contribution to get the honor; but they are mistaken. There is no office in the gift of the ' people that I would take." I said, "What, none?" qnd he answered, "Yes, on second thought, there is one, namely, Alderman of the city of Chicago under certain conditions. It would be fun to clean this city up and make it a decent place to live in; and it could be done for half the money the city is spending now."