Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/73

 THE TIME ELEMENT IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS 59

The politicians of the party that acts later regulate its course according to the course of the party that acts earlier. If one party presents a bad candidate or a platform of glittering generalities, the other may do likewise with impunity. If one party declares for a certain course, the other may make an issue, often exceedingly artificial, by declaring for the very opposite course.

All these motives have worked for variety and irregularity in the times of political action. But opposed to them has been a tendency marked throughout the long history of elective gov- ernment. It is the trend toward a uniform and intelligently planned time schedule for elections. Its presence is traceable even in the colonial laws of America, notably in those of New England. The constitutional convention of 1787 took, for the day, advanced ground in recognition of time uniformity and periodicity. It fixed the first Monday in December for the regu- lar annual meeting of Congress. It prescribed one and the same day for the meeting of the electors of president and vice- president in all the states. Above all, it made possible further uniform prescriptions as to national elections, by vesting in Con- gress a supplemental or supervisory power over them.

In exercise of this power Congress passed the law of 1792, which required the presidential electors to be chosen at least thirty-four days before the first Wednesday in December, the date fixed by the same act for their meeting. This was the only congressional regulation until 1845. With this slight limitation, each state, during the first half century of the union, named its presidential electors and congressmen on such days as it might please. The confusion that resulted is epitomized in the proverb of 1825 and onward: "As goes Pennsylvania, so goes the union." To this proverb Ohio and Maine have successively fallen heir. The earlier election in the populous Keystone State influenced unduly the later elections in the other states. With the invention and introduction of the telegraph and the railroad, the evil was accentuated until it became intolerable. To it, as population grew, was added another evil ; namely, the migra- tion of voters from one state to another. Having voted at his