=Popular Election of Senators.=--The dissatisfaction with the old method of choosing senators led to a movement to secure an amendment to the Constitution providing for the election of senators by the people. But the senate itself for a long time blocked every attempt of this kind. Five different times between 1893 and 1911 the national house of representatives by a large majority proposed an amendment for this purpose, but each time the senate refused its concurrence. In one form or another the legislatures of thirty-one states approved of the method of popular election and wherever a referendum was taken on the proposition, as was done in California, Nevada, and Illinois, the popular indorsement was overwhelming. Finally, in 1912, the senate yielded, and both houses of Congress adopted a resolution proposing an amendment providing for the popular election of senators, which was ratified by the necessary number of states during the following year. Under this seventeenth amendment the senators of each state are elected by vote of such persons as are entitled to vote for members of the lower house of the legislature. The seventeenth amendment provides that whenever a vacancy occurs in the senate the governor of the state in which the vacancy occurs shall issue a writ of election for the filling of such vacancy, but that the legislature may authorize the governor to fill the vacancy by a temporary appointment, the appointee to hold until a senator may be chosen by popular election. In practice special elections are rarely called for filling vacancies. In most states the governor makes a temporary appointment, the appointee holding until the next regular election when the people elect his successor. =Qualifications of Senators.=--The qualifications prescribed for eligibility to the senate are the same in principle as those required of representatives, though a little different in degree. Thus a senator must be at least thirty years of age, must have been a citizen of the United States for nine years and must be a resident of the state at the time of his election. It was thought that the longer term and higher qualifications would tend to give greater dignity and strength to the upper chamber than would be found in the lower house, and at the same time a higher average of ability.