custom, sometimes called courtesy, places the control of the Senate’s approval in the hands of the senators from the state for which the judicial appointment is made. The two senators from the state sometimes divide the federal judicial districts in the state between them. Thus has the president’s appointment to the lower federal bench been placed at the mercy of two, or perhaps a single senator. The president on his part may have a popular legislative program which he is pledged and is attempting to secure action on from Congress. The support of senators is necessary. The tendency, therefore, on the part of the president to allow senators the upper hand in his appointments to the bench has been very marked. Extra-legal government has in the last few years become a visible force in the selection of the president of the United States through its power to control delegates sent to the National Convention. At both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in 1912 the numerical strength of the delegates representing extra-legal government in particular states or districts of states was very marked. In the Republican Convention these delegates and their allies not only controlled the situation, but actually took issue with the delegates who represented the electorate and beat them. This was not a matter which could end when one faction cast more legal votes at the convention than the other. The contest was one between the forces of extra-legal government and delegates for the moment actually representing the popular choice. The contest between two such forces can be settled only when one or the other has been swept from the field. The triumph legally of the forces of extra-legal government in the Republican Convention could have no other logical outcome than the formation of a new party.