Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/65

 THE TIME ELEMENT IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS.

Political campaigns are processes of collective psychology. In the choice of their officers and policies the people deliberate and decide. These two essentials are worthy of study, each in itself, each in its relations to the other. At one end of political evolution, the African selects his chief by the chance spinning of a cocoanut ; at the other, the Anglo-Saxon fills many months with alternate hustings and ballotings. Deliberation is a fer- mentation ; decision is a crystallization. Time is the basis for both, but inversely. Opinion, in the forming, suffers less from slowness than from rashness. With a turning and a returning, the subject of thought freely presents every possible side. But the close, the determination, demands precision, regularit}', and swiftness. The fruitful inquiry belongs not to the child, but to the philosopher ; the admirable action, not to the clown, but to the athlete. Above all, the halting decision and the broken train of reasoning are deplorable ; the two ought to be kept sharply dis- tinct, each in its proper place.

In the development of our American methods for choosing public servants these principles have played an improving part. One hundred years ago the idea of a definite legal hour and minute for the opening, and a definite legal hour and minute for the closing, of the polls was scarcely known. A fire, an attack by Indians, or the tardiness of a moderator might delay the start of a town election. The judgment of the presiding selectmen deter- mined when it should close. Philadelphia or Boston could transact the entire business in three or four hours, but rural regions often required as many as five days. In 1789 the New Jersey polls were open for three weeks. As in electing, so in nominating, extreme irregularity prevailed. From the moment that the people began to think of candidates, the process of nomination was continuous and confused. Everybody could nominate. Every day and every hour was in order. By private

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