The Voiceless Voter

...But in the absence of constitutional reapportionment, the possibilities of a legal contro-versy growing out of a close election are such that they would seem to be impressive even to a member of the national legislature...

...Who could expect them to consider the constitution in such circumstances ? The census of I92o revealed a decided drift of population toward the larger cities and away from the rural sections...

...HOMESTEADING THE CITIZEN By E. L. CHICANOT W ESTERN Canada is in certain respects unique on the North American continent...

...Needless to say, the members of the lobby came from states which would lose representation on the basis of the 193o census if the bill had become a law...

...9 . . The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States and within every subsequent term of ten years...

...Neither Illinois nor Pennsyl- vania ever consented to these infringements upon their rights to equal suffrage...

...It is the dominion's melting-pot and no one can say with any definiteness what will come out of it...

...It was reasonable to expect they would be no worse in western Canada, and things were permitted to take this course...

...What of the Senate...

...Note that the provision is for the number of sena- tors and representatives to which a state may be "entitled...

...This is perfectly reasonable, but has never been appre- ciated or given any adequate consideration in forming the national attitude toward immigration...

...President Hoover, be it said to his credit, in his first message to Congress recom-mended that congressional reapportionment legisla- tion be enacted during the present special session of Congress...

...The opposition which killed the bill was led by the senators from Alabama and Missis- sippi, assisted by colleagues from other southern com- monwealths, usually most vociferous for "law enforce- ment...

...It is a rare visitor to the galleries of the House or Senate nowadays whose ears are not assailed by fevered oratory on the subject of law enforcement, coupled with denunciations of those who would at-tempt to "nullify" or even amend the constitution...

...That such a controversy has not arisen to confront the country with confusing anomalies is better luck than it deserves...

...they have all taken oaths to that effect...

...The census of 19IO showed a population of about 9I,OOO,OOO and the census of I93o, according to official estimates, is ex- pected to show a population of about 123,ooo,ooo...

...It was a revelation in many ways...

...most of all they were not willing to run the risk of losing their own precious seats in Congress...

...And they mean it too...

...All this has come about because the two Houses of Congress jointly have refused to reapportion the mem- bership of the House of Representatives since the census of I92O, and because the Senate, acting alone, has repudiated the constitutional provision which, the- oretically, guarantees each state equal representation in the Senate.9 The result has been, and is, an astound- ing though conclusive proof that the constitution of the United States takes second place in the minds of the national legislators when the unmistakable dic-tates of the constitution conflict with sordid, selfish political interests...

...It is regarded as probable that this situation will be accentuated by the information to be gained by the I93o census...

...Moreover, it should be recalled that the election of I916 was determined by a margin of precisely twenty-three electoral votes and that in the famous Hayes-Tilden contest of 1876 the margin--as officially determined, at least--was exactly one elec-toral vote...

...The matter is not so much one of imme- diate political importance as of underlying constitutional principle...

...Smith because of scandals connected with his primary campaign in i926, and Illinois had only one vote in the Senate from the time of Senator McKinley's death in I926 until Sena- tor Glenn took his seat in December, I928...

...The constitution was taken seriously in the early days of the republic, and it is a matter of record that on one occasion Henry Clay withdrew a tariff bill after Daniel Webster had pointed out that reapportionment should be given precedence over all other legislative considerations...

...They planned to turn out new Canadians of a more even balance through permitting their retention of a measure of individuality, by fostering instead of destroying whatever culture they brought with them from their European homes...

...Doubtless the framers of the constitution were innocent enough to assume that a Congress which owes its existence to the constitution would see to it that each state always had the representation to which it was entitled...

...In Michigan, for example, there are three city districts with an average population of 8oo,- ooo each, while many representatives from rural dis- tricts have only about I6o,ooo constituents...

...Eleven states will gain as follows: Arizona 1, Cali- fornia 6, Connecticut I, Florida I, Michigan 4, New Jersey 2, North Carolina I, Ohio 3, Oklahoma 1, Texas 2, and Washington I. Seventeen states will lose as follows: Alabama 1, Indiana 2, Iowa 2, Kansas i, Kentucky 2, Louisiana I, Maine I, Massachusetts I, Mississippi 2, Missouri 3, Nebraska I, New York I, North Dakota x, Pennsylvania I, Tennessee x, Vermont I, Virginia I. It is interesting to note that the filibuster which prevented action on the reapportionment bill in the last Congress was not engineered by senators from the so-called centres of wet "nullificationist" sentiment, New York, Massachusetts, Missouri and Pennsyl-vania, all states which will lose under the contemplated reapportionment...

...Men of every race, class, condition and creed are being drawn to it...

...The climax was a petition to the city and province for assistance in the establishment of a museum to house the handicrafts and native lore of western Canada's new citizens...

...These comparatively few individuals felt that the system, or lack of system, could be improved upon...

...4 nation which is obliged to consider seriously the problem of law enforcement cannot afford to ignore one of the very first provisions to be found in its basic code of laws.--The Editors...

...It so happens that no presidential election since the census of 192o has been decided by twenty-three electoral votes or less, but that does not remove the fundamental question as to whether or not the Elec- toral College has functioned as a constitutional body since that time...

...From the west's towns and hamlets and from the many farm- ing colonies they came, to exhibit the work of their hands and to entertain with folk-songs and dances...

...It means that the ballot of the bucolic citizen is worth, in some instances, the ballots of ten city voters...

...In that body, it is specified by the constitution, each 94 THE COMMONWEAL May 29 , ~929 state shall be represented by two senators and "no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate...

...The fault is entirely with Congress.9 Whatever taint there may be in the constitutional status of the executive and judicial branches, it is not there as a re- sult of their own action or inaction.9 The Supreme Court cannot interpret laws until they have been en- acted, nor can it initiate legislation...

...As to the membership of the House, the constitution states : Representatives . . . shall be apportioned among the several states . . . according to their respective numbers...

...But it is only the very superficial observer who be- lieves that the Senate was responsible for the failure of these two bills...

...An enthusiastic co6peration proved how anxious were these people, still close to the homelands, to give of what they possessed to the common store...

...The result is that a congressman from a city district may represent several times as many constituents as his colleague from a rural district...

...The great national problem there has been Canadianization--the assimilation of the many Euro- pean peoples into the best possible fusion...

...The President cannot enact laws, nor can he enforce them until they have been enacted...

...A situation which results in twenty-three misplaced seats in the House of Representatives, of course, means twenty-three misplaced votes in the electoral college, if, indeed, either the House or the College can be said to be organized in the constitutional sense when they are apportioned in defiance of the constitu- tion...

...Since March 4, I927, when former Senator Pepper retired----for one entire Congress and part of another so far--Pennsylvania has had only one vote in the Senate...

...The plain fact is that neither would have been passed by the House if it had not been understood that it was to be killed in the Senate...

...Vare shall be seated...

...of violating the Volstead Act was shot to death on a public street in the national capital, Article I of the con- stitution--the section to which Congress owes its own exlstence--is ignored and a population three times the population of the union at the time the constitution was adopted is denied its constiorganized in defiance of the constitution for eight years and the Senate for two years...

...Murphy con-tends that it does not and draws the conclusions which follow...

...The only guide the country had was the experience of the United States, where this lax procedure of letting the problem work itself out apparently produced fairly satisfactory results...

...A little attention to these outbursts reveals that to most of the orators the constitution is the Eighteenth Amendment...

...Many states have representatives to which they are not legitimately entitled...

...The maritime provinces and Ontario, from solid foundations of British stock, and Quebec, through more than a century of equitable British rule, are characteristically established and developing after the accepted Canadian pattern...

...The Catholic clergy in particular, who are so well acquainted with the undercurrents of life among the foreign groups in western Canada, have long preached to unheeding ears the destructive effect upon the character of these simple newcomers of the removal by any means of religious or other refining influences...

...British people, with eyes still cast back across the ocean to homelands but recently left, were...

...The Senate refused to admit Mr...

...others are short of their proper quotas...

...Other western provinces became actively interested in what such a movement seemed likely to effect, and offi- cially asked to have subsequent festivals staged within their confines...

...Their courses are fairly clear ahead of them...

...The constitution provides that: Each state shall appoint . . . a number of electors equal to the whole number of senators and representa- tives to which the state may be entitled in Congress...

...The enthusiasm carried far beyond the festival...

...The first experiment made along this line was a New Canadian Folk-song, Folk-dance and Handicrafts Festival held at Winnipeg, western Canada's metropo- lis, in I928...

...The constitution must be preserved and safeguarded at all costs, so senators and congressmen assure the world...

...In Cali- fornia there is one district with a population of 1,5oo,- ooo...

...The fallacy of this inequal- ity, particularly at a time when a certain rivalry between urban and rural districts is noted, need not be demonstrated...

...Smith having already been elected to succeed Senator McKinley for the term beginning on that date...

...In all of that period of I2O years Congress never permitted more than two years to elapse between the completion of a census and a reapportionment based upon that census...

...From the time of the adoption of the constitution down to the census of I92o Congress obeyed this plain mandate of the fundamental law...

...What western Canada is to be still remains a matter of some doubt...

...Thus, since the I9~O census is the last upon which a congressional reapportionment has been made, there are approximately 32,ooo,ooo persons in the United States of whom no account is taken in the matter of representation in the House...

...After the late Senator McKinley died in December, I926, the governor of Illinois appointed Frank L. Smith to fill Senator McKinley's unexpired term, ending March 4, I927, Mr...

...How naive such a thing would seem today 1 Since August 8, I9tI, when the apportionment act based on the I9IO census became a law, the House of Representatives has passed two reapportionment bills, one in I92I, based on the census of 192o, and another in January, 1929, anticipating the census of 193o and providing for a ministerial reapportionment by the executive branch of the government in the event Con- gress itself did not enact a new apportionment law fol- lowing the next census...

...In I927 also, the Senate refused to seat Senator-elect William S. Vare of Pennsylvania and has not to this day reached a final decision as to whether or not Mr...

...T HERE are indications, as this is written, that Congress is contem-plating a step in the direc- tion of restoring constitu-tional government in the United States...

...and that a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States as well as innumerable circuit and district judges have been appointed by those two Presidents--and a large number of the circuit and district judges confirmed by the Senate during the two years mentioned...

...After the i929 bill had been passed by the House, members of that body--many of whom had voted for the bill--duttered up the floor of the Senate and the offices of senators from their states conducting one of the most active lobbies against the bill that has ever been observed in Washington...

...So much for the situation of the House and the bearing which that situation has upon the status of the executive and, through him, upon the judiciary...

...These conscientious legislators were not willing that they should lose their unconstitutional share of power to dictate to the more populous states or to drain the revenues of the latter by federal appropriations and taxation...

...If a reapportionment bill should be enacted retain- ing the present limit of 435 on the membership of the House, and the method of computation by the system of major fractions which has been used in most prior bills, it has been estimated by government statisticians that there will be a change of 23 seats in the House...

...In the view of certain idealists, however, the proc- ess tended to rob the immigrant of anything he pos- sessed in the way of culture or spirituality, gave him a measure of material prosperity in exchange, and turned out citizens very much after a pattern...

...92 THE COMMONWEAL May 29 , 1929 THE VOICELESS VOTER By WILLIAM C. MURPHY, JR...

...As it proceeded, however, and word circu- lated of the unique entertainment provided, interest became keener and attendance swelled until the end came in a burst of enthusiasm...

...It brought to light numerous unsuspected groups which had been organized throughout the country with the object of preserving national crafts and the lore of native lands where there seemed danger of these being lost...

...that two Presi- dents, including President Hoover, have been chosen by Electoral Colleges not apportioned according to the constitution...

...To a very large extent this process has been left to take care of itself, with a sort of desperate hoping for the best...

...And while Congress cheers wildly as it listens to an account of how a boy who was suspected tutional representation in Congress...

...It is in point of development the youngest sector, just in the primary stages of the evolution through which all the others have passed...

...while there are states in the union with approxi- mately the same population which are represented by as many as eight Congressmen...

...What has been termed Canada's Nordic complex produced a very apathetic attitude toward the festival at first...

...The bill passed by the House in 192I was embalmed in the then existing Census Committee of the Senate, and that passed in i929 was filibustered to death in the Senate near the close of the last Congress, and has been revived in the May 29 , I929 THE COMMONWEAL 93 present extraordinary session with several additional amendments...

...This was a considerable undertaking, since it involved a revolution of the gen- eral Canadian regard of the foreign settler as an emotionless, unimaginative worker with no finer feelings or sensibilities...

...The situation is superficially paradoxical, but only superficially...

...Those who recall that the constitution was written by a convention in 1787, and not by the Anti-saloon League in i917, will remember that there was a famous compromise whereby the rights of the smaller states were to be safeguarded by equality of repre- sentation in the Senate, and those of the larger states by representation in the House based upon population...

...In the following paper Mr...

...The magni- tude of this task may be appreciated when it is re-called that the House of Representatives has been Does Congress as at present constituted truly represent the people...