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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 



Are the Masses Qualified to Choose? 

 Political Conditions Change Rapidly. 

 Cities Will be Dominant Factors. 

 Equality of States Will be Destroyed. 

 A Complete Revolution Inevitable. 



The American people are as intelligent a 

 people as live or as ever lived. There are 

 eighty millions of them. It is a large tri- 

 bunal to deal with complicated legislative 

 mechanisms. The number is being in- 

 creased by over a million every year, as 

 more than this number of immigrants 

 arrive through Castle Garden annually and 

 scatter chiefly to the great centers of popu- 

 lation, there to find friendly politicians ready 

 to extend to them and to procure for them, 

 without money and without price, the price- 

 less boon of American citizenship just as 

 soon as their sojourn has been sufficiently 

 long to entitle them to it. 



Did the reader ever sit down in calm 

 reflection and determine, by any process of 

 reasoning, what proportion of citizens is 

 absolutely capable cf selecting pioper ma- 

 terial out of which to make a United States 

 Senator? It is a great responsibility. How 

 many men in any particular state can safely 

 be entrusted with it? Look the office all 

 over and judge it correctly, with its high 

 legislative powers and duties, with the lim- 

 ited membership of the body and its many 

 Senators of long service, experience and 

 prestige; with the privilege of sharing with 

 the executive in making treaties that be- 

 come supreme laws between nations and in 

 our own land; with the power of confirming 

 or rejecting presidential appointments, and 

 with the prerogative greatest of all that of 

 sitting as a member of a high court of 

 impeachment. What number of citizens in 

 a particular state is actually qualified to 

 choose just the man lor this responsibility? 

 Certainly it should not be left to those citi- 

 zens who came last through Castle Garden, 

 or to those of foreign birth who have, by 

 reason of their numbers, become politically 

 powerful in the great centers of population. 



Foreign Born May Decide 



It is a cheap, sweet-sounding and ever 

 welcome phrase that you can always trust 

 the American people. When it comes to 

 Ihe popular election of president and vice 

 president, the judiciary, or United States 

 senator, it will be well to consider the full 

 significance of the declarat'oi?. It will be 

 well to consider what effect the immigra- 

 tion of the myriads of inhabitants of south- 

 ern Europe Slavonians, Silesians, Rou- 

 manians, Sicilians, Italians who are pour- 

 ing into this country at the rate of a mil- 

 lion a year, may have in Settling a political 

 question of this magnitude. These people 

 are fast making up the population of our 

 LTciit ( ilirs. What power will they have in 

 making the political histories of those 

 cities, and of the states in which they are 



located? What power do they pcssess at 

 this moment? Has it been thoughtfully con- 

 sidered how rapidly population and political 

 conditions are changing? 



It has been shown how difficult a thing it 

 is to amend the federal constitution. If it 

 is now amended so as to pe-rmit the popular 

 or direct nomination and election of sena- 

 tors, as it is proposed, it will be even more 

 difficult to retrace the step taken. It will 

 be almost impossible. There will be ele- 

 ments in our citizenship, constantly grow- 

 ing in numbers, that will never te willing 

 to chance tack to the present system, even 

 though it may te conceded a wrong step 

 was taken. So today we are dealing with 

 proposed changes that are evidently for all 

 time. We w 11 te tyi g the hrnds of future 

 generations. We will make our. elves re- 

 sponsible not only for the evil results th;t 

 may follow, and which naturally will follow, 

 but we will a'so become responsible for the 

 better results that might have followed to 

 the people of any particular state cr to t'ae 

 country at large had our work bsen more 

 wise. 



, Cities Gain Power 



The cities cf the country, the great cen- 

 ters cf population, are becoming more and 

 more powerful and dominant factors in the 

 politics of the states. Greater New York 

 is the dominant factor in the state of New 

 York; Chicago in Illinois; St. Louis in Mis- 

 souri; Baltimcre in Maryland, and so on. 

 The city of New York is becoming more 

 and more Italian and Slav. The educational 

 city of Boston the hub-center of refinement 

 and culture is a conglomeration of all the 

 foreign sociolcgical elements, until today it 

 is a question whether the qualified electors 

 of foreign biith and foreign parentage in 

 that city clo not outnumber those who are 

 native bcrn. T^e city of Chic~go is made 

 up in the same way. Baltimore is becoming 

 Slav and Russian Jew, and some of the 

 New England states bordering upon the 

 British possessions are absorbing much of 

 the "Canuck' 1 population, while their own 

 citizenship is percolating through the west- 

 ern states, and giving to them a more sub- 

 stantial citizenship and one more purely 

 American. 



When it is considered what political ideas 

 this foreign element brings with it and how 

 nearly the great metropolis of our country 

 came to the election of a g'c'al'st for its 

 mayor only last spring, it is well to reflect 

 what power this element in our citizenship 

 may wield in the selection of a United 

 States senator, and the more especially if 

 senators are to be nominated, as well as 

 elected, by direct vote of the masses. 



We might bring this question a little 

 nearer home for purposes of illustration. 

 The census reports for 1900 give some inter- 

 esting figures regarding Michigan cities. 

 Take the two largest. The statistics show 



that of the male inhabitants of Detroit 

 the material from which voters are made 

 there are 30,174 native white males with 

 native parents, to 60,179 native white males 

 with foreign born parents, while there are 

 also 46,860 white males of foreign birth in 

 her population, and 2,029 colored males. In 

 the city of Grand Rapids there are 14,236 

 native white males cf native parentage, 

 15,738 native white males of foreign-born 

 parents, and 12,191 white ff.a'es born abroad 

 The colored population is insignificant in 

 number. It is not intended to reflect at all 

 upon the character of this foreign-born citi- 

 zenship in these two cities, independent of 

 political questions. The student of present 

 day problems must realize that every new 

 effort at their solution simply produces, in 

 addition to the progress of the solution 

 itself, new problems to te solved; and this 

 applies with as much force to the vital 

 questions under discussion as to any other 

 proposition affecting the policy and the 

 future of the republic. 



The popular election of United States 

 Senators will not usher in the millennium, 

 no matter what individuals may think about 

 it. It will not cure all the evils that ad- 

 mittedly exist, but will, in its turn, produce 

 a new brood of evils quite as likely to dis- 

 turb, perplex and demand the serious con- 

 sideration of the statesmen of the future. 



Comparisons At Home 

 Let us apply the power of concentrated 

 population, without reference to its char- 

 acter, to this question in Michigan. Ac- 

 cording to the manual last issued, a census 

 taken in 1894 shows \\ayne county to have 

 a population of 386,827, while the total vote 

 for governor in that county at the last 

 t-lection was 72,295. The population of the 

 Ninth Congressional district, with its nibe 

 counties, is but 166,124; total vote for gov- 

 ernor, 31,944. Population of the Tenth dis- 

 trict, 15 counties, 204,478; vote for gov- 

 ernor, 39,174. The population of the 12 

 counties comprising the Eleventh Congres- 

 sional district is 210,680; total vote for 

 governor, 43,934. It will thus be seen that 

 Wayne county has over 16,000 more popu- 

 lation than the Ninth and Tenth Con- 

 gressional districts combined, with 24 

 counties, and that her vote for governor was 

 larger. Compared with the Ninth and Elev- 

 enth districts, composed of 21 counties, she 

 has over 10,000 more population, while her 

 vote for governor is but little less. 



The Third and Fourth Congressional dis- 

 tricts, composed of 11 great and prosperous 

 and wealthy counties Eaton, Calhoun, 

 Hillsdale, Barry, Branch, Kalamazoo, Alle- 

 gan, Van Buren, St. Joseph, Cass and Ber- 

 rien have a combined population of 378,- 

 252, or 8,575 less than the single county of 

 Wayne, while the total vote for governor in 

 these counties was but little greater than 

 that of Wayne county. 



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