the farmers are not found in one party, all the business men in another, and all the workmen of the cities in a third. Moreover when a large convention of farmers, business men, or trade unionists is held there immediately ensues a violent difference of opinion among them as to just what their interests are and just what measures are best calculated to realize them. The idea that every person knows what his economic interest is and pursues it automatically and relentlessly is wholly untenable. Men of the same class or occupation tend to have similar ideas, emotions, and habits; one can usually tell a banker from a farmer without making an inquiry; and there easily comes about a solidarity among those of the same economic group. Solidarity of interest is one of the highly significant facts of politics; it cuts across party lines; it operates continuously; but it does not account for everything in the course of political evolution. Economics is the most fundamental branch of politics but it does not exhaust the science of the subject. In fact the political party itself tends to become an institution apart from its origins and purposes. When created to serve some more or less specific end, it continues after the end has been attained. All this is explained in a concrete way below,1 but it may be noted here that a party has its slogans, watchwords, and catch phrases which attract and hold followers; it has officers and paid jobs; it controls large funds; and when in possession of the government it distributes employments, honors, emoluments, and favors. In many countries the government officials tend to form a bureaucracy or ruling class; they coöperate with some party and are ever mindful of their positions and their salaries. The spoils of office are often sufficient to maintain a large party quite independent of any ideas or opinions as to the policies or work of government. Hence we must say that some of the forces of politics are clear and others obscure; but nevertheless in practice the will of the people is usually made manifest through political parties. How shall the people express their will? There was a time when a short and simple answer sufficed: the will of the people on any matter is to be expressed only through agents chosen by them. The business of the people is to elect officers and representatives who in turn are to discover the will of the people, to 1 Chap. vii. debate and decide all public questions. Naturally, however, in choosing representatives the people cannot be oblivious to the way in which those representatives will speak and act; hence the will of the people reveals itself more or less in the election of agents. By a gradual process, "representative" government was supplemented by "direct" government. It became a practice for the people to express their will directly by voting on state constitutions submitted to them for their approval or rejection. In the course of time the idea has been extended in many states and cities to such lengths that the people may now initiate laws and constitutions and refer these measures to all the voters for their decision without the intervention of any agents or representatives. This is the initiative and referendum. The details of the matter are discussed below, but it must not be forgotten that the problem of how the people should express their will is still open and controverted. If the will of the people is to be made manifest mainly through representatives, what agents should be elected by popular vote? When we look at the national, state, city, and local schemes of government in force in the United States to-day, we find that question answered in fact in various ways. In the National Government only the members of Congress - Senators and Representatives are chosen by direct popular vote; the President and Vice President are selected by a popular vote in an indirect manner; the important executive officers and the judges are in turn appointed by the President and Senate. In most of the states, on the other hand, the legislature, the governor and other chief executive officials, and the judges of the courts are all selected by popular ballot. In the cities things are mixed. In the great cities the mayor and council are elective, but in cities having the city manager plan the chief executive, the manager, is chosen by the council or commission. The question is not easy and the way we answer it depends upon many things our idea of the rôle of the executive in government, our theory as to the relations of the various branches of government, our trust in or fear of popular government. Nevertheless, it is a vital problem in securing effective government and fixing responsibility in government. We shall encounter it many times in the course of this book. 1 See chap. xxiv; also Ireland, Democracy and the Human Equation. The Legislature All are agreed that the legislative branch of the government, the branch that formulates the popular will into laws and ordinances, should be elected by the voters. At this point, however, agreement about the legislature ends. Shall it be composed of one house or two? The answer of the national and state governments is decidedly in favor of two, but the great cities which once slavishly followed the model at Washington are almost unanimous in their adoption of the single-chamber council. Shall the members of the legislature be chosen in districts or at large on one common ticket? As to the House of Representatives, state legislatures, and many city councils the district system prevails. On the other hand, in numerous cities, especially those that have the commission plan, all the city councilors or commissioners are chosen by the voters of the entire city; in other words, every voter votes for all members of the city legislature instead of for one from his ward or district. Should the district be large or small? That depends. If it is very large, the representative is likely to be removed too far from the interests, prejudices, and daily opinions of his constituents. If it is too small, he is likely to be what is called in political slang "a peanut politician," that is, one narrow in mind, devoted to petty business, and incapable of taking a large view of things. Somewhere between is the golden mean. Far more perplexing is the problem of assigning representatives to districts. If practice is a guide, then we are uncertain whether representatives should be distributed throughout the districts of a particular area, on the basis of the number of citizens or the number of voters, or according to geographical units. In the case of the National Government, each state, irrespective of its population, has two Senators; in other words, a political and geographical subdivision of the Union is taken as the basis of representation. The members of the House of Representatives, on the other hand, are distributed among the states according to their respective populations, but each state, no matter how small, has at least one. In the formation of state legislatures, American practice varies: sometimes members are distributed among the districts of the state on the basis of total population including aliens; in some cases only citizens are counted; sometimes voters are taken as the units. In every instance, however, respect is paid to local units such as counties, towns, and cities. In the original home of representative government, England, the community was the prominent element in the early makeup of the House of Commons. Each city and each county in the beginning had a fixed number of representatives — usually one or two-but in those ancient days the population was somewhat equally scattered throughout the country so that the system resulted in a rough numerical equality among districts. Now the logical outcome of democracy - strict equality among the voters demands the distribution of representation among districts as nearly equal as possible. While the theory makes headway in practice, it is still more or less restricted by historical traditions. In the beginning of representative government, the legislature represented classes, not abstract and equal persons. The English Parliament represented the great landlords, the smaller landlords, and the burghers or townspeople. The French Estates General spoke for the clergy, nobility, and the third estate or the bourgeois. Our first state legislatures were, some of them, class agencies. The idea of class representation runs through the whole history of popular government,' but in the course of the nineteenth century it was altered by revolution after revolution in Europe and by progressive changes in the United States. The doctrine that all men at length men and women politically equal and alike won a place. The logical application of this principle means that the members of a legislature should be apportioned among districts containing approximately equal numbers of human heads, without respect to their wealth, their occupations, their interests. It means also that all heads should have the same weight in the election of officers and the determination of public policies. are Political science and political practice based more or less on the theory of abstract human equality and alikeness were hardly established before they were sharply challenged. Economic, social, moral, and intellectual inequality still remained. To say that an employer and his employees engaged in a desperate struggle over wages are alike and have the same interests is to tell only half a truth. Two manufacturers desiring a protective 1 Beard, The Economic Basis of Politics, chap. ii. tariff have more in common, though they live two thousand miles apart, than a manufacturer and an importer living side by side in the same apartment house. Moreover in actual fact the various economic and social groups in each political district tend to draw together and act together in voting and influencing their political representatives. In real politics we find labor organizations, manufacturers' associations, merchants' associations, real estate owners' associations, dairymen's, fruit growers', and farmers' leagues, and a score or more economic groups pulling this way and that. In order to marshal a majority of heads in his district a candidate for office must usually be very vague, facile, and elusive for fear of offending one or more groups. This state of affairs has produced a large crop of gentlemen known as "politicians" - men without any business or practical qualifications — men whose stock in trade is oratory, rhetoric, and confusion. Such men usually understand none of the requirements of business enterprise or labor organization or agriculture. So a cry went up against government by oratory from conservatives and radicals, especially in Europe; there arose a demand for the abolition of "political" democracy and the substitution of "economic❞ democracy the frank representation of commerce, property, industry, labor, and the professions as such in government return to the discredited class system. For a time the idea had a great vogue; experiments with it were made in various parts of the Old World.' Then followed a reaction, but the dust raised by the storm has not yet settled. a In fact there is only a half-truth in the concept that economic groups alone should be considered in making up legislatures. People are not equal and alike in all things or even many things. Persons engaged in the same occupation or owning the same kind of property do have much in common and they naturally coöperate more or less in bringing their influence to bear on the government. Trade unions want to enjoy certain rights to strike without the interference of the police; the owners of railroad stocks and bonds do not want their property destroyed by low rates fixed by the government. But a person is more than a trade unionist or a bond-holder. The possibilities of his nature 1 Brunet, The New German Constitution; McBain and Rogers, The New Constitutions of Europe, chap. vi. |