"STRATFORD EVENING POST* FRIDAY, MAY, 25, 1928. AMERICAN PRESIDENCY.

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 62, 25 May 1928, Page 4

"STRATFORD EVENING POST* FRIDAY, MAY, 25, 1928. AMERICAN PRESIDENCY.

A Presidential election in America is a complicated business. The elaborate preliminaries are due ip the first ptaoe to tlie aims of those who drafted, the Constitution, <andl in the second to the expedients whereby the party organisations endeavour to circumvent them. The Convention of 1787 intended the President to be a reduced and improved copy of the English King, He is George HI., .shorn of? portions of Iris prerogative, and. subject .to certain restraints. He holds office for four years, and he cannot bos tow titles, but, otherwise hia position is analigous to that of the English Monarch in- that he is conjceivedi jto ’be tlie representative of tlie nation as a whole, standing above all political parties. This idea is apparent in the machinery provided for his election. To have left the tihoj’ce of the First Citizen "to ‘a popular vote would have encouraged the success of the mediocrity or the self-advertiser. Accordingly, it is laid down by the Constitution that the President shall be chosen bv an electoral college, the members tf which have been previously elected by tlie voters of the various States. This plan wa® expected to ensure the choice by a tranquil and deliberate way, of the man whom they, in their unfettered discretion, deemed fittest to ho the chief magistrate of the Union, The expectation has not been fulfilled. The President is. in fact, if not in theory, elected by a popular vote. The mem* hers of the electoral college have no freedom of action. They are pledged to support the nominees of their respective parties, that pledge has never been violated since 1790. Although the President is formally elected in January, his identity is known early in November, when the electoral college is chosen. The proceedings Lu January are a mere surplusage. But long before November the issue lias been narrowed down. In the June preceding the election, the National Conventions decide who shall ho their standard bearers. But before ever they meet that question is usually settled. The delegates to those conventions have already been chosen at the primaries. They have announced which candidate for the Presidency they favour. Consequently, when the primaries are cumplete, it is merely a matter of arithmetic to ascertain who is likely to receive the party nomination. Hence their importance. Once thifir result is known, all that remains t 0 be determined is victory wliil eventually fall to the Republicans or the Democrats. Tins, of course, docs not always occur. While with the Republican Convention a bare majority is sufficient, in flic Democratic Convention one of two-thirds is necessary. A candidate may command a majority which is, nevertheless, not largo enough to win him the nomination, and in this event a dark horse in the shape of a compromise candidate may he chosen. In general, however, the verdict of tlie primaries is echoed by the convention.