352 
Indiana University 
candidate from their own section. The result, he believed, 
would be that candidates from the cities or large towns would 
always win and that the smaller towns would be “almost 
wholly deprived of representation’’. He believed, also, that 
where several towns made up a representative district, the 
representative to the state legislature would always come 
from the largest town.^^ 
Since the legislature refused to enact the initiated Davies 
Direct Primary Bill, it automatically went before the voters 
of the state. The question came up for decision at the special 
election held on September 11, 1911. Very little public inter- 
est seems to have been aroused, if we may judge from the 
newspaper accounts. Public attention during the weeks pre- 
ceding the election was absorbed almost entirely by the prohi- 
bition constitutional amendment which was resubmitted to 
the voters. 
At the polls, however, the people expressed their approval 
of the initiated Davies Bill by a vote of 65,810 to 21,744. The 
popular majority in favor of the measure was almost as pro- 
nounced as was the majority in the legislature in favor of the 
Pennell Bill. Not only the country towns but the cities, in- 
cluding those under Democratic control, voted in favor of the 
measure. It is difficult to account for the large “yes” vote 
in such Democratic cities as Lewiston where the vote was 
2,613 for, to 340 against;^® possibly the great mass of city 
voters were instructed to vote “yes” on all the questions on 
the ballot in order that they would vote “yes” for the repeal of 
the prohibition clause. The adoption of the Davies measure 
by the people automatically made null and void the adminis- 
tration bill passed by the legislature.^^ 
The direct primary law established the closed type of pri- 
mary election by which each party, in effect, holds a separate 
election to determine for itself its own nominees for public 
office. Each political party has a ballot of its own “printed 
on tinted paper of a separate tint” — white, yellow, blue, green, 
or brown.* *^- The authority to make its own nominations 
by direct vote was granted to any political party which 
polled as much as one per cent of the entire vote cast for 
governor at the last election.^^ 
3'-' Maine, Legislative Record, 1911, p. 1062. 
Letviston Evening Journal, September 12, 1911. 
Bowdoin College Bulletin, Research Series, No. 4, pp. 5-7. 
Maine, Revised Statutes, 1916, chap, vi, sec. 8. 
*3 Ibid., sec. 1. 
