Nevertheless, when the friends of the electorate came to appreciate the failure of independent movements to make headway against the extra-legal government they did not plan to attack the fundamental difficulty of enlightening the voter’s political ignorance. Instead, they did as they had done before and sought a cure by attempting to eliminate the superficial and obvious cause. Mr. La Follette in Wisconsin thought that he could have no political success unless he continued to be a member of the Republican party. As matters stood, however, he could not obtain the nomination from that party because it was controlled by men who did not want him in office. Yet Mr. La Follette was more popular with the electorate who usually voted the Republican ticket than were the gentlemen who controlled the use of the party name. The obvious move for Mr. La Follette was to take the control of the party name from those who held it. This he did by means of legislation which permitted any candidate who could secure a plurality of votes of the Republican party voters at a primary election to use the Republican party name in the election for the office. This was merely a legal and orderly way of depriving an extra-legal government of the advantage of using a revered and popular party name. That is the proper function of a primary election law. The availability of the primaries might, of course, have been limited to situations such as Mr. La Follette created in the Republican party in Wisconsin--namely, when an independent in the party wished to wrest the control of the party name from an extra-legal government which had lost the confidence of the party electorate. If so limited its use would practically have been confined to the occasions when a well-organized revolt was in progress against the wing of a party in control of the party name. Such occasions would be infrequent because such revolts are infrequent. Extra-legal government having become established and having obtained control of the party name, the tendency would be to let the matter alone. Small uprisings in regard to nominations for some particular office might occur, but a well-organized, persistent, and ably led revolt such as Mr. La Follette has conducted in Wisconsin is the event of a generation. Illinois, and no doubt many other states, are just as much in need of the leadership of a man like Mr. La Follette as Wisconsin. But no such leader appears. None seems likely to appear. Our state lines have very effectively excluded Mr. La Follette’s efforts from every state in the Union except his own. The use of the primary as a means of permanently and wholly depriving an extra-legal government of its power to control the use of a party name must be regarded as unusual and extraordinary and not at all likely to occur.