Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/66

 52 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

letter-writing, by newspaper tickets, by numerous petty caucuses of undefined membership, and by straggling conventions that were but imperfectly representative, the names of the candidates were presented up to the very night before the balloting was to begin.

Out of these primary forms a system has arisen, which now gathers all the caucuses for a county or for a state within the bounds of a single day, substitutes for a dozen conventions of the same party a single convention, and chooses all the members of a national Congress within a rising and setting of the sun. The average American of today thinks of political action in three successive stages — the primary, the convention, the election. The comparatively lengthy periods between and preceding these he assigns to the deliberative processes of the people. He takes that ancient word "campaign" that has echoed the measured tread of armies for two thousand years, and applies it to the movement of democracy.

But with all of a century's advance, the process of time regu- lation is incomplete. My object is to make clear this imperfec- tion, to show the abuses therefrom resulting, and to suggest lines of further progress.

Until recently the universal authority for fixing the dates of primaries and conventions has been the party central commit- tee. This committee is not a single central authority. The name is legion. In all the United States, from Sandy Hook to No Man's Land, the ward, or town, or city, or precinct, or county, or assembly district, or congressional district, or state, is rare that has not from one to half a dozen central committees. Each party has three grades of them — national, state, and county. The subordination of the lower to the higher committee, very loose in general, is especially so on the score of the times for political action. The presidential year affords a complete study of these time relations. Custom, or party rule, requires the national committee to meet and decide the date of the national convention at least six months in advance of the convention's assemblage. This gives for the primaries and the minor con- ventions a period of half a year or longer. No sooner has the