The failure of the direct primary to improve political conditions in general does not concern this study. But among its various effects, few of which its advocates had foreseen, it undoubtedly furthered the Prohibition movement by increasing the political importance of any organized group of “cranks,” i.e., people interested in one particular question of public policy to the exclusion of other matters. The Prohibitionists were an admirable example of such a group, but other active minorities, such as the suffragettes, have benefited enormously by the direct primary. In the first place, it proved well nigh impossible to get the average citizen to cast his vote in a direct primary, because in cases of contested nominations for minor offices the aforesaid average citizen knew little and cared less as to the whole matter. The cranks he regarded with an amused and contemptuous tolerance. He could not believe that the new nominating device could give power to such people. Hence the cranks of all sorts gained influence out of proportion to their numbers, and promptly brought that influence to bear upon candidates for office, and especially candidates for the minor offices, such as members of State legislatures. Under the convention system it was very hard to put Prohibition into a party platform, for such a course would have been immediately followed by secession on the part of many who were accustomed to vote the party ticket. But under the direct primary, a candidate for nomination knew that those who were cranks upon a certain matter would support or oppose him according to his attitude upon their pet subject without regard to his general fitness for office as compared with his opponents. Besides its immediate effect, the direct primary had an ultimate effect even more important in favour of Prohibition, inasmuch as it weakened the party as an organ of political thought. The convention had served as a forum for deliberation and protest. Deprived of this forum, the party names tended to become mere labels and the allegiance of the average voter to his party tended to become weaker as the party came to mean less and less. Accordingly, the voter became more inclined to throw over his party from time to time, and again the cranks gained in relative importance. Even had the direct primary accomplished the dethronement of the “boss” (which it has not), the result would have been dearly bought by reason of the enthronement of the crank. Yet one more characteristic of the American contributed to the curtailment of liberty. We have already mentioned his naive reliance upon the imaginary power of legal enactment to overthrow long-established custom. This fallacious belief arose somewhat as follows:—