ELECTING A PRESIDENT

Evening Star, Issue 18698, 29 July 1924, Page 6

ELECTING A PRESIDENT

AMERICA'S TORTUOUS SYSTEM. TEX MONTHS’ CAMPAIGNING. In immensity and complexity the quadrennial campaign for tho election of tho President of the United States is unrivalled (writes B-.L.C., in the ‘Argus’). The Constitution and tho cxtra-Constiiu-tional developments of party mechanism have Tendered an election year, which is always a leap year, strenuous enough for tho most ardent lover of bustle and intrigue. The Constitution provides that the people shall db their part in appointing a President and a Vice-President on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November of every leap year, with the result that a Presidential election falls upon November 4, 1924. It also provides that on tho same day in every second year the whole of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate shall go to the country; and, as most of the Constitutions of the forty-eight States follow that of the Union, tho great majority of tho State Governors, Stato Legislatures, and Stato officials are also elected. Theso circumstances show the immense importance of the election. Its complexity has grown with the years. Proceedings begin about ten months before the election proper with the election of dlelogatos_ to the national conventions of the political parties, popularly known as the Presidential primaries. Thus the first stage in tho long and tortuous process of electing a President is tho choice of delegates, who shall decide between the rival candidates for tho party nomination, or the right to represent the party in the contest. Delegates to the convention are chosen by all the enrolled electors of tho appropriate party in each State, which sends to the convention roughly twice as many delegates as it has senators and members of the House of Representatives at Washington. The meetings are thus considerably more than 1,000 strong, and are necessarily held in large cities. They take place about July, and! are the second stage in the campaign. They are really huge, highly-systematised party caucuses, not only for the choice of candidates, but also for the framing of party platforms.

STATES BOUND TO CANDIDATES. Generally each State instructs its delegates to vote for this or that candidate. When this system was instituted about fifteen years ago it was hoped that the popular instruction of delegates would obviate or at least minimise tho bargaining and intrigue between candidates and their managers, but it has had little result in that direction. Each State has tho right to nominate a candidate. What with tho tendency of one State to support a local hero wlio is not of national status, and the reluctance of others to vote for an “ outsider,” it seldom happens that a majority of delegates to the convention is ready to support anyone at tho first ballot. Gradually, however, in the interests of unity, delegates concentrate their votes on the'most promising candidate, or possibly upon one who is a compromise between the two most powerful, each equally determined that the other shall not win. This is not achieved!, however, without furious contention, especially in the Democratic convention, which requires a twothirds vote to nominate a candidate. President Wilson in 1912 was nbminated on tho forty-sixth ballot by tho Democratic convention, Governor Cox in 1920 on the forty-fourth. On the other handl, President Taft, in the Republican convention of 1912, was nominated practically offhand, Mr Hughes in 1916 on the third ballot, and President Harding in 1920 after only ten ballots.

So far, then, the proceedings are entirely exira-Constifcntional. After the selection of tho candidates come a few weeks of nominal peace, while the parties prepare their machinery for’ the next stage of the struggle. In reality the atmosphere is electrical. Everything, foreign affairs included, is measured in terms of party politics. About the middle of September campaigning begins in real earnest. Candidates live in special trains, politicians travel assiduously from hustings to hustings. There is a veritable orgy of politics, culminating in November in the elections. The Constitution provides that the President and Vice-President shall be elected by an electoral college, in _ which the States are represented according to population: and nominally it is the members of the electoral college who are elected in November, bnt the original system has been modified almost out of recognition. The electoral college was discarded over a century ago as undemocratic, a way being gradually discovered -of surmounting its supposedly undlemocratic features without doing violence to the letter of the Constitution. In each State a “ticket” of electors is put before the people, with tho understanding that the Republican electors will support the candidate chosen at the Republican convention, and that tho Democratic electors will be as loyal to the choice of their party. Thus the members of the electoral college have no initiative whatever—-con-trary to tho intention of the Constitution—and' it is the people and 1 not they who elect the President. ELECTION BY MINORITY. In this way the name of the new President is lenow'n to the Republic as soon as tho returns of the voting for members of the electoral college are complete. The electoral college never even meets. Some months later, probably after the Presi-dent-elect has chosen his Cabinet, the Government of each State sends to Washington tho tally of its electoral votes, which are solemnly counted in Congress, as required by the Constitution, and thus tho

election is formally confirmed. Though virtually chosen by direct popular vote, however, the President is not elected by a national plebiscite. In each State the party which obtains a majority at the election of electors acquires the whole electoral vote of the State. Thus the President is elected by the people of each of the forty-eight States acting collectively through the unit of the State vote, as they would have done in the electoral college. The voting strength of the State being based on population, New York, as the largest State, has some forty-five votes, while Nevada, as the has but three. This system has the obvious weakness that it renders it possible for a candidate to bo elected to the Presidency upon less than half the actual _ votes cast throughout the country. President Wilson. to name but one of many, was on neither occasion sent to the White House by a majority of the people. President Harding, however, was returned by a substantial majority in 1920. After the election comes the required period of transition, in which the new Government is known but the old Government continues in office. Not until four months after his election is Urn new President permitted to take office. The electoral vote is counted and confirmed on the second Wednesday in February, and on March 4 the new' President is inaugurated at Washington, continuing m office for four years. His powers are infinitely wider than those of a constitutional monarch. In war he is almost a despot. In peace ho appoints his Cabinet and all foreign Ambassadors and Ministers,_ bo concludes treaties, subject to the ratification of a turn-thirds vole of the Senate; he can veto any measure passed by Congress (which, however, can over-ride the veto by a. two-thirds vote), andl he has the distribution of offices under the Government, which is part of the “spoils to the victors” system, long recognised ®s a normal feature of American political life. He can be removed from office only by impeachment. TWO DOMINANT PARTIES.

Republicans and Democrats are not the only political parties participating in the Presidential campaign. At the Presidential election of 1920 there were also candidates representing tho Socialists (who nominated Eugene Debs, then serving a term of imprisonment for disloyalty in war time), the Farmer-Labor Party, the Prohibitionists, Socialist-Labor Party, and tho Singletaxers. The real issue, however, is between tho Republicans, the high protectionist and more conservative party, and tho Democrats, free-traders, supporters of the prerogatives of tho States as against the Union, and in some ways more liberalminded, despite the conservative temper of the Smith, whence tho strength of tho party is chiefly derived. There is no living i> 1 .■ Party. The American Federatin'- Labor,' under tho presidency of 0 ..uel Gompers, refuses to do more than to support the candidate who promises it most. Tho Socialists roly .upon the support of tho revolutionary and extremist elements in tho electorate. Tne FarmeiLabor Party, a combination of radical intellectuals and a certain number of farmers is more moderate, but as yet counts for’ nothing, and, like the other minor parlies, serves no better purpose than to furnish an interesting background to tho contest between the two chief protagonists.