These measures were desperately fought by the liquor men, who were finally overcome.

१९

One year ago there was but one county entirely dry" in the state of Michigan. Early last month, after one of the fiercest fights in the history of the state, local-option elections were held in 27 counties, 20 of which went "dry," closing at one stroke 600 saloons and 10 breweries. After a tremendous struggle the Nebraska legislature at its last session passed the Daylight Sale bill, permitting the sale of liquor only between the hours of 7 A.M. and 8 P.M.

The legislature of Iowa on the eve of adjournment passed two bills unfriendly to the liquor interests, one limiting the number of saloons to I to 1000 of the population in cities, the other requiring druggists to file with the auditor of the county signed applications for liquor.

The state of Washington has just passed a county-option law, excluding municipalities of 2500 or more, which have a separate option of their own.

The legislature of Idaho has this year passed a very strong localoption law.

Both branches of the legislature of Utah passed a county-option bill, but just at the last of the session, when too late for a remedy, the governor vetoed the bill.

Prohibition was the main issue in the municipal elections held in Colorado, outside of Denver, early in April. The antisaloon party generally was successful.

LOCAL OPTION IN NEW YORK AND NEW ENGLAND

A local-option bill for cities as a whole is pending before the New York state legislature. The present liquor law of the state permits local option for towns, under which elections have been held this year, resulting in a net increase of 30 "dry" towns. About 330 towns in the state are "dry," about 320"wet," and the rest are part "wet" and part " dry.” The Committee of Fourteen introduced a bill at Albany, providing among other things for the opening of saloons in cities of the first class certain hours on Sunday, which was promptly killed in the Senate Committee. Yates County, by a vote on February 23, carried all the towns in its territory against the saloon, and became the first and only entirely "dry" county in the state.

Recent elections in Connecticut have abolished the liquor traffic from 3000 square miles of territory, closing 300 saloons during the year. Massachusetts has gained 10 municipalities for the "dry" column. During 1908, 429 saloons were driven out of Rhode Island.

IMPORTANT FEDERAL LEGISLATION

For several years the temperance people have undertaken to secure an amendment to the Interstate Commerce law, forbidding the importation of intoxicating liquors into territory made "dry" by state legislation, and have failed. On February 17 last there was incorporated into the penal code of the United States the Interstate Liquor Shipment bill, introduced by Representatives Humphreys, of Mississippi, and Miller, of Kansas. It is considered by many the most important temperance legislation since the passage of the Wilson law in 1890. This bill does three things: (1) it prohibits C.O.D. shipments; (2) it prohibits delivery to fictitious consignees; (3) it requires that all packages of liquor for interstate shipment shall be plainly marked, designating the contents and consignee. The bill was in grave danger and would have been killed in the committee, had it not been that Speaker Cannon obstinately demanded its passage and then voted for it upon the floor. This law, while it will not do all that the friends of temperance might desire, will go a long way toward correcting the abuse that the liquor dealers have practiced upon the citizens of the states that have prohibited the drink traffic, and will pave the way for further relief which the people of the states may demand in the future.

THE SALOON "FIGHTING FOR ITS LIFE"

Almost all of the legislatures meeting during the present year have had bills relating in some way to the liquor traffic. Very few of these bills showing any friendliness to the saloon have been allowed to become laws. A recent editorial in Bonfort's Wine and Spirit Circular, written by T. M. Gilmore, the president of the National Model License League, expresses the opinion of many liquor dealers upon the present temperance revolution. It says:

The Antisaloon League is backed by able men and plenty of money. In the last eighteen months the business we represent has been outlawed in the states of Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and it is now facing destruction in West Virginia, Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Utah, and Idaho. The saloon is fighting for its life in practically every state in the Union.

The liquor dealers strenuously insist that "prohibition does not prohibit," and their literature, which is scattered broadcast among the church people as well as others, claims the failure of the prohibitory laws in the states having them. They insist that the more the traffic is prohibited, the more liquor is consumed, and that hypocrisy and disrespect for law are fostered; and yet the states that have adopted prohibition seem to be very well pleased with their legislation, and none of them have surrendered to license, and other states in pretty rapid succession are joining their ranks.

In Maine, Kansas, and North Dakota, at their last election, governors were chosen on platforms not only declaring for state-wide prohibition, but for a rigid enforcement of the prohibitory law; while in Georgia, Oklahoma, and Alabama the antisaloon forces have held their own, preventing legislation which would in any way weaken the state prohibitory laws.

STRENGTH OF THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT

No great result can come from a small cause. There are powerful causes that are putting the saloon out of business. More and more the economic argument is influencing voters to abolish the saloon. The man who frequents the saloon is not so strong in body, nor intellectually so keen, nor professionally or industrially so efficient as the man who does not. A man who has no scruples on the subject, but has good common sense, soon discovers that he is handicapped in the heated competition of life when he becomes a patron of the saloon.

The New York Central, the Lackawanna, the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Wabash, the Rock Island, the Great Northern, and other railroad systems have adopted the following rule: "The use of intoxicants by employees, while on duty, is prohibited. Their habitual use, or the frequenting of places where they are sold, is sufficient cause for dismissal." The Michigan state law will not permit a man who is not a total abstainer to have anything to do with the running of trains. The premium on temperance in railroad circles is so great that 25,000 employees of the Northwestern Railroad signed a pledge of total abstinence at one time.

Business houses generally discriminate against the drinker in the employment of men. The United States Commissioner of Labor sent a note of inquiry to 7000 concerns employing labor; 5363 of them responded that they took the drink question very much into account in hiring men, and that they had to be the more careful in selecting responsible help because the law held them liable for injuries caused by accident. The young man of ambition and hope who wants to get into a good place and succeed in it knows full well that he must stay away from the saloon. This business argument sends hundreds of thousands of employees into the ranks of those who are fighting the traffic.

The people paid last year a billion dollars for intoxicating drink, $108,000,000 more than for all the necessaries of life, and it is a protest against this colossal material waste, and a desire to divert some of the drink money to better uses, that has prompted many to vote "no license" in the campaigns. The billion dollars paid over the counter for drink for the year is only about a half of the material damage the traffic causes, requiring institutions to be maintained by the public.

The large amounts of money paid into the treasuries of states and municipalities by the liquor dealers are no compensation for the material

as well as the moral waste in the community, and while there are many friends of law and order who vote for license because they think the saloon ought to be made to pay a part of the price of its public injury, the people are getting to believe more and more each year that the damage of the saloon is too great, and they are unwilling to tolerate it and are voting "no" on the proposition to permit it.

The sentimental and moral argument for the removal of the saloon is more powerful with the average voter in the "wet and dry" campaigns than the economic one, strong as it is.

The liquor men have untold wealth at their disposal; the ablest minds in the nation are employed as their attorneys; they have lobbyists at the sessions of every state legislature and national Congress; they have politicians of both parties in every state and city who can be relied upon to promote their interests; they have an army of 200,000 saloon keepers, and more than that of loyal patrons; millions of dollars are spent in advertisements and in their literary department each year, and their fight will be desperate and prolonged. But the self-interest and conscience of the nation are against them, and unless there shall be some reformation in the liquor traffic, which seems now impossible, or if there should occur no disagreement or disintegration among the temperance forces now so united, it is likely that within a generation the saloon, as we see it to-day, will have passed away.

VIII

ELECTIONS AND NOMINATIONS

THE MULTIFARIOUS AUSTRALIAN BALLOT1

BY PHILIP LORING ALLEN

A standard political reference book is authority for the statement that forty-two of the forty-six states of the American Union use the Australian ballot in their elections. If this is true, then the election machinery of Australia would seem to be quite as varied and remarkable as the flora and fauna of that continent. As a matter of fact, the expression "Australian ballot" is used here in two senses. In a restricted sense it is applied to the particular form which America borrowed from Australia, and which the state of Massachusetts led the way in adopting in 1889. But it is also used to designate any secret ballot printed and furnished by the state. In this broader significance it is applied to forms which have scarcely another single characteristic in common.

The plan of voting which was abolished in all but a few of the states during the ballot-reform movement of the early nineties was substantially that which most clubs and associations use for electing officers, and corporations in choosing directors. A ballot was simply a piece of paper bearing the names of the persons voted for and the various offices to be filled. Anybody could print such ballots and persuade as many voters as he could to cast his particular kind, though as a matter of course the party organizations prepared the vast majority of those voted. Three southern states have never abandoned the old system and still allow the casting of unofficial ballots, which may be "written or printed or partly written and partly printed." The average Georgian or South Carolinian deposited in November of 1906 a ballot prepared for him by the local representative of the Democratic party, exactly as he may have cast in one of the New York insurance company elections a ballot prepared for him by the International Policyholders' Committee or his own insurance agent.

The fact that most American voters were accustomed to voting a whole party ticket at a single operation explains how the true Australian ballot came to be modified in this country. The ballot reformers 1 From North American Review, May, 1910. Reprinted by permission.