INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT

SPEECH ON THE SHORT BALLOT AMENDMENT, AUGUST 30, 1915

In the states of the American Union, most of the public officers are elected by popular vote. As candidates for the elective positions are nominated by the different parties, and as the names of all the candidates are printed on one and the same ballot, the ordinary voter finds himself in the presence of many names, among which he must select if he wishes the election of a particular person instead of the election of the party ticket. The idea of the so-called short ballot is to restrict the number of officers to be elected by the people at any one election, in order that the voters may concentrate their attention upon a few candidates and thus select those believed to be best qualified for the positions; to allow the officers thus elected to appoint other public officers, and to hold the elected officers responsible not only for their own conduct, but for the selection and conduct of their appointees. It is believed by the advocates of the short ballot that by this method some of the evils of what has come to be called "Invisible Government" will be eliminated.

In behalf of the short ballot, and of honest, open government, Mr. Root delivered the following address:

I

HAVE had great doubt whether or not I should impose

any remarks on this bill upon the convention, especially after my friend, Mr. Quigg, has so ingeniously made it difficult for me to speak; but I have been so long deeply interested in the subject of the bill, and I shall have so few opportunities hereafter, perhaps never another, that I cannot refrain from testifying to my faith in the principles of government which underlie the measure, and putting upon this record, for whatever it may be worth, the conclusions which I have reached upon the teachings of long experience in many positions, through many years of participation in the public affairs of this state and in observation of them.

I wish, in the first place, to say something suggested by the question of my friend, Mr. Brackett, as to where this short ballot idea came from. It came up out of the dark, he says.

Let us see. In 1910, Governor Hughes, in his annual message, said this to the legislature of the state: "There should be a reduction in the number of elective offices. The ends of democracy will be better attained to the extent that the attention of the voters may be focussed upon comparatively few offices, the incumbents of which can be strictly accountable for administration. This will tend to promote efficiency in public office by increasing the effectiveness of the voter and by diminishing the opportunities of political manipulators who take advantage of the multiplicity of elective offices to perfect their schemes at the public expense. I am in favor of as few elective offices as may be consistent with proper accountability to the people, and a short ballot. It would be an improvement, I believe, in state administration if the executive responsibility was centered in the governor, who should appoint a cabinet of administrative heads accountable to him and charged with the duties now imposed upon elected state officers."

Following that message from Governor Hughes, to whom the people of this state look with respect and honor, a resolution for the amendment to the constitution was introduced in the Assembly of 1910. That resolution provided for the appointment of all state officers, except the governor and the lieutenant-governor.

There was a hot contest upon the floor. Speaker Wadsworth, came down from the speaker's chair to advocate the measure, and Jesse Phillips, sitting before me, voted for it. And so, in the practical affairs of this state, the movement out of which this bill came had its start upon the floor of the state legislature.

Hughes and Wadsworth, one drawing from his experience as governor and the other upon his observation of public affairs, from the desk of the speaker of the assembly, were its sponsors.

Time passed, and in 1912 the movement had gained such headway among the people of the state that the Republican convention of that year declared its adherence to the principle of the short ballot, and the Progressive convention, in framing its platform, under which two hundred thousandit is safe, is it not, to say two hundred thousand- of the Republican voters of this state followed Roosevelt as their leader, rather than Taft; the Progressive convention, in framing its platform, declared: "We favor the short ballot principle and appropriate constitutional amendments."

So two parties, and all branches of the Republican party at least, committed themselves to the position that Hughes and Wadsworth took, in the Assembly of 1910.

In 1913, after the great defeat of 1912, when the Republicans of the state were seeking to bring back to their support the multitudes that had gone off with the Progressive movement; when they were seeking to offer a program of constructive forward movement in which the Republican party should be the leader, Republicans met in a great mass meeting in the city of New York, on the fifth of December of that year, 1913.

Nine hundred and seventy Republicans were there from all parts of the state. It was a crisis in the affairs of the Republican party. The party must commend itself to the people of the state, or it was gone. Twenty-eight members of this convention were there, and in that meeting, free to all, open to full discussion, after amendments had been offered, discussed and voted upon, this resolution was adopted:

WHEREAS, This practice [referring to the long ballot] is also in violation of the best principles of organization which require that the governor, who under the constitution is the responsible chief executive should be so in fact, and that he should have the power to select his official agents;

Therefore, be it Resolved, that we favor the application to the state government of the principle of the short ballot, which is that only those

offices should be elective which are important enough to attract (and deserve) public examination.

And be it further Resolved, that, in compliance with this principle, we urge the representatives of the Republican party of this state, in the senate and assembly, to support a resolution providing for the submission to the people of an amendment to the constitution, under which amendment it will be the duty of the governor to appoint the secretary of state, the state treasurer, the comptroller, the attorney-general, and the state engineer and surveyor, leaving only the governor and lieutenant-governor as elective state executive officers.

That resolution, I say, after full discussion was unanimously adopted by the nine hundred and seventy representative Republicans who had met there to present to the people of the state a constructive program for the party. Mr. Frederick C. Tanner is chairman of this Committee on Governor and Other State Officers today, because it was he who offered the resolution in that meeting that was unanimously approved by those nine hundred and seventy Republicans. He is executing a mandate. He is carrying out a policy. He is fulfilling a pledge to the people.

The time went on and the following winter, in the Assembly of 1914, a new resolution was introduced following the terms of this resolution of the mass meeting, following the terms of the Hughes-Wadsworth resolution of 1910, providing that all these state officers except the governor and lieutenantgovernor should be appointed. That resolution passed the assembly and every Republican in the assembly voted for it. It never came to a vote in the senate. Voting for that resolution were four members of the assembly, who now sit in this convention: Mr. Bockes, Mr. Eisner, Mr. Hinman, and Mr. Mathewson.

Time passed on and in the autumn of 1914 a Republican convention met at Saratoga; an unofficial convention, we are told. Unofficial? Negligible! Here is the law under which it was called, Section 45 of the election law: