Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/79

 THE TIME ELEMENT IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS 65

tendencies, a possible completed procedure may be forecast. An ideal time schedule for political action in the United States ought to provide :

((z) Entirely separate times for the primaries and convetitions of the three grades — 7iational, state, and municipal. Delegates to a state convention should not be selected at a primary meeting which nominates county or city officers. Delegates to a national con- vention should not be selected by a convention which nominates state officers. Municipal elections should not be held at the same time with state or national elections, nor state elections at the same time with national elections. There should be three distinct chains of political action.

(3) Coincidence of times for prifttaries and conventions of a single grade, (i) Throughout the union, all the primaries for the threefold object of naming congressmen, presidential elec- tors, and delegates to national conventions should be held for all political parties on the same day. Likewise, all state or con- gressional district conventions for these national nominating purposes should be held for all parties within a given period of one or a few days. And, finally, all national nominating con- ventions should be held within a given period of days, with a fixed date for opening. (2) Throughout each state, in the election of state officers, all primaries of all political organiza- tions should be held on the same day, all the succeeding county conventions on the same day, and all the succeeding state con- ventions at the same time. (3) Throughout each county or city, in the election of county or city officers, all the primaries of all political organizations should be held on the same day, and all the succeeding county conventions on the same day.

With such a basis of separate times for the three grades, and uniform times in a single grade, a thoroughgoing schedule for a quadrennial period, 1900-1904, may be suggested, as follows :

FIRST SUB-SCHEDULE.

Throughout the union ; for choice of national representative.; and presidential electors only.

(i) Primaries, second Tuesday in May, 1900.