38 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



consin regulations separate primary ballots were provided for each eligible 

 political party. Aspirants for party nominations qualified for a place on 

 the ballot of their choice by obtaining the signatures of a specified number 

 of voters, but each candidate was required to swear that he was a member 

 of the party to whose nomination he aspired and that he would support 

 the candidate who won the nomination for which he contended. Each 

 voter at the polls was presented with a "separate ticket for each party all 

 fastened together," from which he selected and marked one, depositing 

 all others in a blank ballot box. The Wisconsin law, while not the first 

 primary law to be passed, was reputed to be "the first state-wide law with 

 fairly complete provisions for legal supervision." 22 



The direct primary, of course, was designed as a means to other ends, 

 but the La Follette forces did not await its coming before attacking the 

 special interests that had long dominated the state. At the same time that 

 La Follette was promoting the primary elections bill, he was also urging 

 upon the legislature a drastic reform in the method of railroad taxation. 

 Under existing procedure, Wisconsin railroads paid an operating fee, 

 assessed against their gross incomes, in lieu of other taxation. According 

 to the Wisconsin Tax Commission, this meant that they paid only ".53 per 

 cent, of their market value (based on the average value of stocks and 

 bonds)," as compared with the 1.19 per cent paid by real property on its 

 market value. 23 To remedy this condition, La Follette favored the taxation 

 of railroad property on an ad valorem basis, the same as other property, 

 and in 1903 he succeeded, despite the most frantic railroad opposition, in 

 transforming his wishes into law. Nevertheless, every effort was made to 

 be fair to the railroads. When it came to making the new assessment, not 

 only was the market value of railroad stocks and bonds taken into con- 

 sideration, but these figures were checked with engineers' estimates of the 

 cost of replacement. As the reformers had foreseen, the railroads paid 

 higher taxes. During the first six years the law was in operation the state 

 took in from the railroads about four million dollars more tax money 

 than the roads would have paid under the old system. Furthermore, expert 



22. Charles E. Merriam and Louise Overaker, Primary Elections (Chicago, 1928), 

 pp. 62, 402; William Francis Raney, Wisconsin, A Story of Progress (New York, 

 1940), pp. 289-90; Laws of Wisconsin, 1903, ch. 451, pp. 754-66. 



23. La Follette, Autobiography, p. 243 . 



