Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/84

 70 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of building and loan associations or with the champion of clean streets.

Time uniformity of action in each separate governmental grade — national, state, or city — prevents repeating or colonizing within each party, and restricts each citizen to the caucus of but one party for any given election. By making the formation of slates more difificult, it encourages the choice of candidates on personal rather than on geographical grounds. It secures equality of opportunity among the aspirants for each ofifice. The unscrupulous cannot avail themselves of snap methods. The still hunt that unduly lengthens the campaign backward from the election is no longer a factor. The contest is exalted to the free plain of persuasion and reason. All the aspirants must come to the line and start fair. " Party harmony " is promoted, since Americans acquiesce readily in a fair defeat. Time uni- formity secures equality among political parties. Partisanship loses force when all parties act simultaneously. They feel that, however much they may differ as to means, they are honestly aiming for the same end. Each cannot ask what rival parties have declared, and therefore must ask what is best for the state. Each makes the most of the primary and of the convention, because it knows not just how much its prospective opponents are making of them. Time uniformity secures equality of oppor- tunity among states, and among counties. The unfair leverage of the "moral effect" vanishes. Each county and each state follows its own judgment. The telegraphic momentum of one commonwealth does not divert the course of another. A single county with a million people does not overawe and rout in detachments numerous small counties, each with some twenty thousand farmer folk.

The economic aspects of a simultaneous choice of all state ofTficers, or of all county and city officers, throughout the union are worthy of thought. The interruption of business and com- merce would be less if the primaries preliminary to the choice of governors in New York and Pennsylvania were held on the same day. The election of mayors in Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo on a single day would operate upon the