Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/75

 THE TIME ELEMENT IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS 6 1

laws recently passed in several states show a notable appreciation of time uniformity. Kentucky's law of 1892 operates to the holding of all the primaries and all the county conventions of any given party upon the same days. The Massachusetts caucus act of 1895 provides a two-days' period for all the caucuses of a given party throughout the state. The California law of 1897 and the New York law of 1898 mark the logical goal by prescrib- ing the same fixed date for all the primaries of all parties.

I have referred to the fact that state and national elections were formerly held on separate days to a greater extent than now. The topic of distinct times for national, state, and munici- pal elections ranks as the second main division of my subject. Elections for the superior and inferior governments are not mixed in other lands as in ours. On this score Mr. Lusk has contrasted the Australian methods with the American. The poli- tics of Massachusetts in 1804 illustrate our purest primitive practice. In that year the selectmen of Boston were chosen on the nineteenth of March ; the governor, lieutenant-governor, and council, on the second of April ; the members of the general court, on the ninth of May ; the presidential electors and con- gressmen, on the fifth of November — at least four elections within eight months. But, from the beginning of its history, the nation's growth and its absorbing private pursuits have powerfully urged the various states to get through with all the elections of a year at a stroke. Mr. Butler's law of 1872 encouraged the tendency. After that statute had converted the great majority of the states to the national election day for the choice of their state officers, the few lingering " October states" came under the powerful duress of the corruption and demoralization due to the more concentrated efforts of national political parties to secure the " moral effect" of their state elections. Therefore, the Tues- day next after the first Monday in November has become the almost universal time for the choice of both state and national oflficers. Only eight states now cling to the old variation. They are all numbered among the less populous commonwealths, and three of them hold their state elections in the first half of the year.