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THE STATE REVIEW 



The Election of United States Senators by Direct Vote of the People 



ARE THE MASSES QUALIFIED TO CHOOSE ? 

 By Henry M. Rose, Assistant Secretary, U. S. Senate 



Equality of States Endangered 

 There are other and grave questions to be 

 considered when it is proposed to base the 

 selection of senators upon capitation the 

 mere force of numbers alone in the several 

 states. Great agitations and political move- 

 ments, no less than great epidemics, do not 

 stop for imaginary boundary lines thrown 

 across a map. This proposed change will 

 naturally and eventually lead to an at- 

 tempted overthrow of the equality of repre- 

 sentation of the states in the senate. Al- 

 ready its agitation has led to the introduc- 

 tion and serious consideration by congress 

 of joint resolutions proposing amendments 

 to the Constitution, to base representation 

 in the Senate upon population. Two ses- 

 sions ago a senator from Pennsylvania pro- 

 posed such a measure and discussed it. By 

 his scheme New York was to have fourteen 

 senators, Pennsylvania twelve, Illinois nine, 

 Ohio eight, and so on down to Wyoming 

 and Nevada, that were to have one each. 

 Of course, under such a plan, Michigan 

 would not suffer as much as would a larga 

 majority of the states, as she now stands 

 ninth in the order of population. 



This would change the vital principle 

 upon which the Constitution was founded 

 the principle without the adoption of which 

 it is notorious as a matter of history the 

 Constituion would never have been agreed 

 to. 



Senator Hoar in his last utterances upon 

 this proposition, on March 11, 1902, said in 

 the Senate: 



"The states' agreed with great difficulty 

 and after there was great danger that the 

 convention would break up without accom- 

 plishing anything, that there should be a 

 union of the federative and representative 

 principle; that the states should remain as 

 they then were, equal, with national power 

 and authority in part, and in part should be 

 merged into a nation, voting as nearly as 

 conveniently might be by a majority of the 

 people, and the solemn pledge was given to 

 every state, small and great, that the equal- 

 ity of the states in the senate should never 

 be destroyed without the consent of every 

 one. It was not merely that they should 

 have some other form of legislative cham- 

 ber. It was to be a senate whose members 

 were to be chosen by one remove from a 

 direct popular vote by state legislatures. 

 That was the chamber which every state 

 pledged should be preserved and which no 

 majority was ever to be at liberty to abolish. 

 "Now it is sought to substitute for that 

 arrangement two Houses of Representatives 

 chosen in a different fashion, but still chosen 

 by a direct popular vote in the method in 

 which officials are chosen by a direct popu- 

 lar vote. For one I do not believe that can 



be accomplished without a breach of a na- 

 tional pledge which lies at the very founda- 

 tion of our government and the adoption of 

 which was essential to its formation. 



"Further, when you get two Houses of 

 Representatives, only differing in that one 

 has a larger constituency than the other, I 

 do not believe that the great states like 

 New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, 

 Massachusetts, and Indiana, will submit for 

 a great while to an equality which makes 

 two Senators from Rhole Island or from 

 Nevada, admirably as both those states are 

 represented here, in two chambers elected 

 in precisely the same fashion, able to hold 

 in check and vote down the fifteen millions 

 of New York and Pennsylvania; and when 

 this change is accomplished I believe that 

 what is left of that whole promise will be 

 swept away like a leaf before the wind. This 

 is a question upon which the American peo- 

 ple may dwell for months and years, at 

 least, if not for a generation. It is one of 

 the greatest questions ever brought into 

 legislative consideration and for legislative 

 action on the face of the earth anywhere." 



New Demands MVill Follow 



If it is the people and not the states that 

 is to be represented in the Senate, the peo- 

 ple will and ought to be fairly and equally 

 represented. Let no man deceive himself 

 (hat this will be the very next demand that 

 will follow the popular election of Senators. 

 Revolutions never go backwards. The in- 

 evitable second step will be to have the 

 people and not the states control the Senate. 



Let us study some figures for a minute. 

 There are nineteen states which have in the 

 aggregate less population and smaller indus- 

 trial, commercial and financial interests 

 than the state of New York, which are rep- 

 resented in the Senate by 38 votes, while 

 New York has only two. Twenty-three 

 states with a population of thirteen million 

 seven hundred and fifty-five thousand three 

 hundred and sixty-four (13,755,364) and cast- 

 ing two million three hundred and sixty- 

 three thousand two hundred and eighty-five 

 (2,363,285) votes, have a majority in the 

 Senate, while twenty-two states with a 

 population of sixty million eight hundred 

 and fifty-one thousand eight hundred and 

 fifty-seven (60,851,857) and casting eleven 

 million six hundred and nine thousand one 

 hundred and seventy (11,609,170) votes, are 

 in the minority. 



The population of New York is rapidly 

 increasing. The population of Nevada has 

 been rapidly diminishing. New York will 

 soon have ten millions of people; Nevada 

 has barely forty thousand today. Does any- 

 one think that New York will long submit 

 to equality in legislation, in the making of 



treaties, in the appointment of great execu- 

 tive officers, in the making of war and in 

 the making of peace, with the voters of 

 dwindling Nevada, who are little more than 

 one two-hundredth part as many as New 

 York possesses? , 



New York will quite naturally say her 

 Constitutional obligation no longer rests 

 when the essential feature that caused her 

 to consent to it. has departed. 



This comparison can be brought nearer 

 home. Michigan, with a population of 

 2,530,000 has more people than the nine 

 states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Dela- 

 ware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Mon- 

 tana, Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada. Mich- 

 igan has two votes in the Senate; the nine 

 states have eighteen. There are sixteen 

 counties in Michigan, each of which has a 

 greater population than the entire state of 

 Nevada. Wayne county alone has a greater 

 population than has any one of the following 

 named states: Vermont, Delaware, North 

 Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming or 

 Nevada. Kent county alone has a greater 

 population than have Wyoming and Nevada 

 combined. Kent county, with Ionia and 

 Ottawa, has one vote in the national con- 

 gress, while the two states named have four 

 Senators and two Congressmen six votes. 

 How long will these conditions be tolerated 

 when the people control the election of 

 Senators? 



Many Contests Sure 



Many evils will attend these popular elec- 

 tions. Today, the Senate cannot go behind 

 the legislatures of the states and investigate 

 the election of their members, but with elec- 

 tion by the people it can investigate the 

 regularity and returns of every election pre- 

 cinct, the same as is now done in the lower 

 liouse of Congress, and contests of sena- 

 torial seats will be numerous. There have 

 been over four hundred such contests in the 

 House of Representatives, and about ninety 

 per cent of them have been decided upon 

 strict party lines. In the Senate something 

 more than mere party lines would have to 

 be inquired into when elections by plurali- 

 ties as such elections would be were 

 close. Chapters could be written upon pos- 

 sibilities and probabilities growing out of 

 such contests. 



The possibilities for fraud and crime in 

 such elections will be even greater in pro- 

 portion than are those in elections for mem- 

 bers of Congress. They will be easy to com- 

 mit, hut difficult in locating and correcting. 



When force of numbers is to control the 

 Senate the whole scheme for which the body 

 was organized is irretrievably gone. 



