=Comparison Between National and Local Effort.=--One reason why some elements of social progress lag behind others which are not more firmly believed in is that confusion of effort has followed the contrary forms of attack upon the national, the state, or the local governments for the furtherance of the object in which all parties believe. Instances are not needed in this connection for every person who has worked or who desires to work for social betterment finds this question at the gateway of organized effort. Shall one turn to the centralizing tendency in political life of our country for support of a given measure, or shall one make a breakwater in that tendency and concentrate attention upon the smaller political units? =Preferential Voting.=--The second problem of political science and art which presses upon the attention of our electorate is one which is bound up in methods of selection and election of our legislators and executives. The ever-recurring question of, "For whom shall we vote?"--rests back upon the deeper question, "For whom shall we have a chance to vote?" The primary was supposed to end the acknowledged corruption and inadequacy of the caucus system. The primary is an advance on the secret caucus with its choice of men for the highest office by a few partisan politicians only, whose business it is to keep party lines strong and to make them carry their candidate into office. The primary, however, we see, is a very expensive method and open to many dangers, and progressive students of political methods are not satisfied with it. Why can we not move, and strongly, for preferential voting? For some plan by which it shall be the public purse only which secures the necessary printing and circularizing for required information, and no personal differences in wealth shall have any weight in the listing of names on the ballot? To have a law by which any legally named number of voters (a sufficient number to keep out lonely cranks, but not a sufficient number to suppress considerable minorities) should indicate by petition desire for a chance to vote for a specific representative of their political ideals? The legal requirement that such persons so named should have a place on the official ballot and that all voting citizens should be able to indicate their graded preference for all candidates thus officially listed, would give the people of a democracy a chance to really choose the kind of legislators they want and the kind of executives they think they need. In the present situation the independent mind and conscientious purpose often has a choice only between "necessary evils" or the refuge of the political "woods."