Unpopular government in the United StatesKales, Albert Martin
History
Unpopular government in the United States
Kales, Albert Martin
United States -- Politics and government
Under such circumstances
a vote-directing machine, instead of slipping over, in the darkness
and obscurity which comes from a multiplicity of elections and offices
to be filled, those whom it can control, for ends of which the
electorate does not really approve, must begin to appeal to the voter’s
intelligence with candidates of character, arguments, platforms, and
pledges of legislation which those elected have the power to keep.
Such activities on the part of any organization will at once change it
from a mere vote-directing machine into a legitimate party with real
principles and a real program. The leaders of such an organization
will necessarily stand for election in the real government, which will
now be the legal government. Real party leaders will appear in the
legislature with real party programs for legislation and real party
responsibility.
We have, however, in the scheme of state government presented, not
only done our utmost to destroy at the roots extra-legal unpopular
government, but we have provided a government which can operate. We
have cut off all bickering between the legislature and executive. We
have given power to an executive council which will enable it to do
something. We have constituted a government which will be inactive,
not because its hands are tied, but because it chooses not to do
anything. The leader of the successful party cannot say that he has
failed to keep the party pledges because he had no power to act. No
one, however, need fear that the concentration of power in the hands of
a few will prove in any way dangerous to the liberties of the people.
The council of state can exercise power only so long as it retains the
confidence of a majority in the legislature. Even out of the season
of elections the legislature will necessarily be sensitive to public
opinion, and a council of state that did not consider the effect of
public opinion upon a majority of the members of the legislature could
not long hold power. By frequent elections the majority may be changed
and the council recalled in favor of the leader of an opposition. The
effectiveness of voting will thus be enormously increased, for the
electorate will not have to turn out a dozen different officers at
several different elections in order to change control of the legal
government. Voting at a single election does it. Upon a poll of the
districts or of the “quotas” it is determined whether one set of
legislators or another shall control the executive and legislative
power centered in a single chamber. No government can be unpopular
or an executive council remain in office against the will of the
electorate under such a scheme of government. No government can remain
in office and avoid the consequences of failure and inefficiency when
so organized.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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