Chapter XVIII - Simplification of Nomination and Election

If we boil down each election to that of a very few men for a single office, it becomes entirely practicable to adopt the method of self-nomination, which has been practised for centuries in England in the election of Members of Parliament. Any man in that coun try can offer himself as candidate for any seat in [ 298 ] Nomination and Election Parliament, from any borough, whether he is resident of it or not.· One might suppose that a vast number of ambitious men would put themselves forward as candidates, for mere notoriety, if for nothing else. But such is not actually the case, because of the small chance of accomplishing anything except to be laughed at, in the case of insignificant and unsup ported personalities. A candidate must have either the support of one of the political parties, obtained from its committees in the usual way, or he must hav~ a large personal following acquired by public work, or agitation, or in some other fairly legitimate way. For instance, a great Socialist, or great labor agitator, could present himself as candidate with reasonable prospect of election; but a mere ward politician of the type so familiar in this country would have small chance except in his own home borough; while even there at home he would be sure to be opposed by one or more candidates, perhaps from outside, of national reputation, or special fol~ lowing.

In short, the method works over there. It does not at all do away with party organization or party politics; but, as I understand it, it does minimize the machine. In order to do this, and in order to reduce my thought to concrete form, I added to my project of some years ago the following outline of methods of nomination and election: I. Candidates to nominate themselves, whether for local Commissionership or State Senatorship, by the simple process of advertising their candidacy in the daily papers long enough before election, say six months, to permit full investigation and discussion of their personal records, character, political views, and purposes in seeking office. This does away at one stroke with the entire necessity for primary elec[ 299] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation tions and permanent party sub-organizations, such as ward clubs; though, of course, there is nothing to prevent the continuance of such party machinery; and it would probably survive, though much reduced in size, because it would hardly pay anybody a living.

2. Do away with registration days, and substitute a permanent Bureau of Registration and Election, with branches, whenever necessary, located at nat ural centres of traffic; that is on the main street of country villages, and at the prominent subcentres found in every city, by one of which every adult resident must pass once or twice a week in everyday life. Divide the voting population into regional blocks of about 25,000 voters; at least one block to each local governmental unit, even though smaller than 25,000 voters. The Registration Bureau to employ a permanent staff of canvassers, who shall make a houseto-house canvass of the entire popula tion at least twice a year, say the middle of May and the middle of October; so as to catch the spring and fall movings. Keep at each bureau, or branch bu reau, a complete duplicate-card census-index, alphabetical and residential, of every man, woman, and child in its district, with full street address and cen sus particulars; with a third index: card for each voter, consecutively numbered and bearing also for identification his signature; the residential cards to be filed by streets and numbers, the alphabetical cards to be filed alphabetically, and the voters' trip licates also to be filed alphabetically.

3. A sufficient time after the announcement of all candidacies, say six weeks before election, the canvassers of the Bureau to prepare and distribute from house to house to every voter an Australian ballot bearing his name and index-card number, and containing· the names of all candidates for election [ 300 ) Nomination and Election with such party designations or symbols as they may request; with three columns at the right of the column of names for marking first, second, and third choices. A detachable coupon to form part of each Australian ballot, duplicating the names of candidates and the three choice-columns. 4. Divide the territory served by the Bureau or branch into regional blocks of approximately 1,000 voters, taken in neighborhood order, to each block; and mark on each Australian ballot conspicu ously for each block a certain day of the election month. For instance, the first week day of the month for the first thousand voters, the second week day for the second thousand; and. so on until at the end of 25 week days the entire 25,000 voters can be polled, at the rate of 1,000 a day. Modify the elec tion law accordingly, so that the existing congestion of polling the entire vote on a single day may be done away with, and the polling conveniently spread out over the month.

L 5. Furthermore, permit the voter to vote by marking his Australian ballot with first, second, and third choices for as many candidates as are to be elected; signing it, and delivering it by mail or in person to the Bureau on or before the voting date shown on its face. Give him the alternative, if he desires to vote a secret ballot, to sign and deliver his ballot personally at the Bureau, on or before its elec... tion date, without marking it; and then personally to register his votes for the res'pective candidates upon voting machines installed there for that purpose. 6. Each candidate to pay the advertising ex pense of announcing his candidacy; and a reason able sum for printing his name upon the Australian ballots, and allotting to him a special adding wheel upon the voting machines at all bureaus. [ 3°1 ] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation 7. Make it the duty of the Bureau to register upon the voting machines all ballots properly marked and sent in, so that· from day to day the total vote polled for each candidate, whether by marked or secret ballot, can be ascertained publicly from the voting machines. The voter in all cases to fill out and retain the duplicate coupon as his private record of his vote, and as evidence in case of investigation and recount.

8. The first, second, and third choices for each candidate to be registered on the voting machine, the total thereof to be recorded as his total vote. The intention of this provision is to provide a sort of substitute for the primary in concentrating party votes upon the actually strongest party candidates by giving them and their party the benefit of the first, second, and third choices. As far as I can forecast things in the entire absence of experience, this project would work out in practice about as follows: Let us say that five Commissioners are to be elected to govern the city of Utica, N. Y., and its tributary region. Say that five or six gentlemen were 'to nominate themselves for each vacancy, or a total of thirty names. Each of them would pay for his own advertisement, and in addition pay to the city a stated sum for placing his name upon the ballot and upon the voting machines. For the next four months and a half the merits of the respective can didates would be debated in the papers, and from mouth to mouth. They might hold the usual mass meetings, or present their views by advertising, as is now being done more and more; and their parties or adherents could trumpet their respective merits, as they do now.

Meantime, the Bureau of Elections would make its [ 3°2 ] Nomination and Election canvass and bring down to date, six weeks before election, its verified card index of voters, which would detect voters who had moved into the district, or from some other branch of the Bureau, since the last election. Those who moved from one branch to another within the six weeks before election would not lose their votes, as they do now, but would merely be obliged to report their shift both to the old and new branches, in order that their index cards should be transferred from one to the other in time for delivery of their Australian ballot; or perhaps to vote at their old branches for the nonce. Each voter would talk the matter over with his friends and his party managers and mark his ballot in peace and quietness at home, or elsewhere, and sign it and drop it in the box the next time he hap pened to pass the Bureau-which he certainly would do two or three times a week because of its situation -always keeping the coupon.

As received, the votes would be registered from day to day by the Bureau officials upon the voting machines; and the candidates, the reporters, and others interested would report the state of the race from morning to morning in the papers. The count would be automatically completed with the registra tion of the last vote, on the last voting day, and the result could then be announced. Bad weather should have no influence whatever upon the vote cast, even in the silk-stocking districts. Repeating, and colonizing votes, should be absolutely impos sible. The card index so maintained could supply all information now obtained by several different and expensive canvasses; viz.: for the city directory, for the post office directory, for the school census, for the police census of vagrant and criminal char acters, and for poll taxation, as well as for registra[ 3°3 ] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation tion of electors. In other words, a complete record of much floating and all permanent population would be in the hands of the authorities at all times; which should be extremely useful in the prevention of crime, and should cost considerably less than, the various separate canvasses now made.

I have been able to discover but two political dis advantages in the proposed method of nomination and election: the first, that it would facilitate the buying of votes. For the voter could simply mark and sign his ballot, and hand it over to the purchaser in return for so many dollars in cash. However, that is about what he does now, excepting that, to make sure, some ward worker goes along with him, marks his ballot for him, and watches him put it into the box. I see no way now or then in which a man who wants to sell his vote can be prevented from doing so. The second objection should be made only by the existing parties whose strangle-hold on the situation would be somewhat interfered with. Of course independent candidacies should be much easier and more numerous; while the very small number of elective offices and the very great importance that elections would necessarily assume by reason of .limited numbers and longer terms involved would make it almost imperative for the great parties to name candidates of the highest standing. Fortu nately, they have always been obliged to do so for the Presidency, and to a lesser extent for the United States Senate, the Governorships, and a few other very conspicuous offices. I do not see how it would be possible, for very long, with such a simplification of government, to pay the enormous number of party workers whose services are now indispensable, but who would then have almost nothing to do, as far as the detail of running elections is concerned. It [ 3°4] Nomination and Election seems to me that the business of the ward politician would be absolutely gone, and that he would have to seek some other means of livelihood-which were, as Shakespeare says, "a consummation devoutly to be wished."

The voter would never have to go to a registration place or to think about registration at all; it would come to him. He would never have to go to a primary or think of one at all. His first, second, or third choice on the ballot would express his preference as between candidates. The "slate" now made up, upon our long ballots of 30 or 40 candidates, for merely administrative offices,· would entirely disap pear; and all the preliminary fighting and trading of the working politicians merely to get their names before the voters would be utterly unnecessary and would vanish. It is possible that there might be too many candidates; men who for mere advertise ment, if for nothing else, would offer themselves to the voters. I think, however, that this would not often happen, both because of the considerable expense involved, as aforesaid, and because an in conspicuous or crooked candidate would hardly get his money's worth from the voters in an election at large. He might be laughed at, that is all. As to the permanent staff required to man the Registra tion and Election Bureau, it would not be very costly, because the distribution·· of the polling of the vote over the entire month instead of its congestion into a single day makes it possible to handle the polling with very few men.

The suggestion comes from my own experience in the gas business. When I was at the head of the gas consolidation in Chicago we used to read in the old fashioned way some 275,000 gas meters on the last day of every month, and then get the gas bills out in [ 3°5 ] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation a night-and-day rush within the next two or three days. In order to do this, we used to hire 2,000 students of Rush Medical College and the University, and give each man 100 or more meters to read; and when he had read them, he worked afternoons and evenings to write up the respective gas bills. The men were amateurs, and many of them unfamiliar with their routes. Ofttimes they could not find meters in dark cellars, and would skip them, guessing at the reading from the last month's bills; on the theory that the meter would keep on running and eat up any excess or catch up any shortage by the time the next inspector actually found it and read it.

Since my day, some clever gas-man saw there was no sense in reading all those meters on the same day of the month. All that is necessary is to read each one once a month ; 1,000, for instance, on the first of the month, another thousand on the second, and so on, spreading the work over the whole month, and ren dering the bills from the first of one month to the first of the next, from the second to the second, and so on-the consumer does not care which.' The discoverer of this simplification at once applied the idea, and it resulted in ctl~ting""aown the force re quired to read, ~tr~ an,d write 'pills to consider';lblY less tha~ one tentIt\qff~h~ 014 n~1Pber. MeantIme, the publIc are exactly~' 1*11 sa'tIsl'ied, and the work is better doNe.J ~ ~\ \,' : It seems l~\? "exactl~ ,tpe{saqle' with elections. There was in my ·~ime no eartlUJ reason why they should have to po'll;450,000 Votes ,in Chicago in a single day. It meant a congestion of work and an expense altogether disproportionate to its value.

Public opinion on the merits of candidates can just as well be expressed during the course of a month as during any particular 24 hours; and such expression [ 306 ] Nomination and Election is far easier to handle and to keep track of than the other. Conversation at the time with the publishers of the Chicago City Directory led me to believe that the permanent staff required at the Registration Bureaus would not exceed one person for every thousand voters, and that that number could not only make and keep up accurate card indexes of the entire population, and handle the entire vote, but could also compile all information for the city directory, the post office directory, etc., above re ferred to. To my mind, however, the great result achieved would be doing away with the present unquestion able necessity of the existing political "machines," which are the most costly, the most corrupting, and the most destructive parasites that affiict American democracy.

[ 3°7] CHAPTER XIX EFFICIENCY AND COMPENSATION OF GOVERNMENTAL PERSONNEL TURNING back to the question of efficiency of the small and concentrated governing bodies (namely: the local commissions and the State Senate) vested by my plan both with legislative and administrative control, it is probable that for the first two or three terms 'they would have to live strenuous lives. If, however, the methods of handling big business cus tomary in the great corporations are of value as criteria, such bodies would very rapidly cut legisla tion to the minimum, and confine it to matters of wide and general application only. They would probably commence by employing first-rate lawyers, to boil down and codify the great mass of statutes now on the books; and thereafter would pass no laws, and adopt no resolutions, which had not previ ously been filtered to clarified form by the best expert talent. As to administration, they would turn over existing complex organizations, of many wheels within wheels, to their appointed Manager, and leave them to him to reduce also to an orderly minimum; which would take a little time. One thing they would almost certainly do, and that is to arrange a system of compensation for the General Management, and for administrative heads of depart-, ments and their more important assistants, which would make it as interesting and profitable for an [ 308 ] Efficiency and Compensation of Personnel able man to serve the community as it would be to go into business on his own account. Our public policy throughout the United States has heretofore been to underpay the men entrusted with the large interests and great expenditures of the people. Private busi ness life is far more remunerative, far more inde pendent, and far more attractive than the higher grade service of the city and the state. The public servant's only compensation is that his name is oftener in the papers, though very frequently but as a target for abuse. As to his remuneration, our public policy is all wrong. He who serves the state well· necessarily does far larger and more disinter ested work than he who runs a grocery or a motor factory for himself and a few stockholders. The consequence of underpayment is for the most part mediocre talent in our higher service, waste and inefficiency in our public operations, and the con tinuous mounting of our tax rates. If control of our local governments were vested iIi men of successful record as managers of large affairs, they would be fote long, I am sure, invent methods of accounting which would enable them to give shrewd and eco nomical managers of public activities and finance an interest each in his own results attained; so that a faithful and successful public officer might retire, at 50 or 60 years of age, with an ample fortune, hon estly and openly earned by. constantly incre'lsed ser vice of the people, at constantly reduced cost, just as he would in private business.