EDITORIALS

...If heads of departments cannot keep employed for the entire eight hours in their office they must go out and take personal supervision of municipal works in their department...

...So it transpires that Congress and the country are edified by the spectacle of a conference committee with the majority representing the Cannon-Aldrich combine, bringing in a conference report which is a full concession of the demand of the insurgents of the House and the progressives of the Senate...

...The departments are Public Affairs, Finance and Supplies, Highways, Health and Civic Beauty, Water and Sewers...

...However that may be, the prices are going up, and the consumer will have to bear the brunt of the increase...

...This has come to be a favorite method of disposing of progressive measures in the public interest inserted as amendments to pending legislation, which the System managers prefer not to meet in the open in debate, or on a Roll Call, or the adoption of which may be forced on a Roll Call in one House or the other...

...It shows how it is possible to bring about the rule of the majority...

...The Initiative and Referendum and the Recall are provided for, but every elective officer has a ninety-day immunity from the operation of the recall after election...

...Still Going Up LAST Wednesday, the Philadelphia North American reported that the cotton manufacturers had decided to make a general increase in the price of hosiery, underwear, and other articles made out of cotton...

...When the investigation resolution was brought up in the House, as prepared by the Cannon managers, three important modifications in the form of the resolution were forced through by the insurgent Republicans, supported by the Democrats...

...Now it sometimes happens in the course of legislation that provisions like these that are not desired by the System management are inserted in pending measures upon the floor of either House...

...But in this Grand Junction plan, we have what appears to be the most practical plan that has yet been put into use...

...No measure of any consequence passes both Houses in the same form...

...It is merely an understanding,' they emphasize...

...These modifications were as follows: The amendment by Congressman Poindexter of Washington providing that any official whose conduct was involved in the investigation should have the right to appear and be heard before the committee by himself and counsel...

...Its success may prove the stimulus that will impel other cities and even states to adopt the preferential or second choice system...

...McEnery of Lousisiana is an Aldrich-tariff Democrat...

...Here may be the beginning of a change in our political institutions that will make our government, in fact as well as in name, a government by majority...

...Poindexter's amendment was adopted upon a division demanded by Mr, Livingston, only two members of the House having the hardihood to stand up and be counted against it...

...second, an amendment offered by Congressman Cooper of Wisconsin, the effect of which was to provide that all hearings by and before the committee or any sub-committee, shall be open to the public...

...Too often the loosely-organized majority is ruled by a highly-organized minority...

...But when it came to the question of elections the members of the charter convention accepted the preferential system of voting rather than direct primaries (as in Des Moines) or second elections (as in Berkeley) because, as the official summary explains, it is a means of "securing a unique and accurate expression of the public will at the polls, with the minimum of cost and effort...

...They were in session sixty days, and at the end of that period reported to the people...

...And usually it is adopted...

...Often such amendments are accepted by Aldrich and Cannon committee chairmen, in open session in order to cut off debate upon them and to avoid a record vote...

...If it had been employed in the last Senatorial primary in Wisconsin, it is quite certain that another man would have been nominated...

...If" The success of a political leader lies in saying now what everybody is going to say tomorrow, but does not quite dare to today...

...The conferees on the part of the Senate were Senators Nelson of Minnesota, Clarke of Wyoming, Republicans, and McEnery of Louisiana, Democrat...

...This system of voting was used in the Grand Junction election of November 2. For the first time in the history of this country preferential voting was put to a severe practical test...

...Second elections is another...

...Dalzell and Smith are "trusties" of the Cannon machine of the House, and Fitzgerald is the Tammany Congressman who led the Democrats of the House, who, at the beginning of last session, joined hands with the standpat Republicans and saved Cannon and the Cannon rules...

...It is a matter of more than local interest, then, when the people of a city depose their local boss and place the city's affairs in charge of a commission, responsible to popular will...

...Norris' amendment, depriving Speaker Cannon of the power of appointment went to a Roll Call on which the insurgent amendment won by a vote of 149 to 146...

...The commissioners can make no contracts that exceed their term of office and cannot sell, abandon or grant any real estate belonging to the city without the sanction of the people...

...The Second Choice form of preferential voting is one...

...Mr...

...Such a committee has no sympathy for independent amendments that may be inserted in measures of legislation upon the motion of individual legislators and which are not on the System program...

...We haven't it now...

...The measure agreed upon by the Conference Committee is called a conference report and when it is presented in each House for final action, the measure reported by the conference committee must be either adopted or rejected as a whole...

...Seven of these men were union labor men, three were bankers, one was a lawyer, and the balance were business men and local capitalists...

...But they had to "come through...

...Under the single-choice form of direct nominations, the progressive vote may be divided among several candidates, all of whom stand on a progressive platform, while a single reactionary candidate, backed by the united strength of the "machine," may win...

...Under the preferential system, this result would be extremely unlikely...

...Here is a subject that cannot be ignored by any committee of Congress that may be entrusted with the ta *k of investigating the present high cost of living...

...When the Pincbot-Ballinger investigating resolution passed the House, carrying with it these insurgent amendments, there was immediate scurrying about in the Capitol and there were conferences and meetings, and representatives of the Cannon machine hastened to Senator Aldrich and to the White House in an effort to "frame up" a program for the defeat of those provisions in the Senate, or if not in the Senate, at least in the conference...

...The remarkable spread of this plan is cited as evidence that the people are turning to it as a practical and efficient method of bringing the control of government back into their own hands...

...A conference committee so appointed represents Mr...

...Conferees on the part of the Senate are appointed by the vice-president at the dictation of the Aldrich management...

...The conferees on the part of the House were Dalzell of Pennsylvania and Smith of Iowa, Republicans, and Fitzgerald of New York, Democrat...

...No franchise can be granted without the consent of the voters at either a special or general election...

...Thinkers in this country have turned their eyes to Australia, where preferential voting is in operation...

...all officials under the charter must give a full eight-hour day to their work...

...It became apparent that the insurgents with the support of the Democrats had the voting strength and the determination to see to it that the investigating resolution should be passed in a form which would make possible, at least, a full and fair investigation in the broad light of day...

...paving and all municipal works must be done by the department chief under whom the work is being planned, and cannot be done by contract...

...City wards and saloons are abolished...

...Sir Leslie Stephen...

...Clarke of Wyoming is the Aldrich-System chairman of the Committee on Judiciary...

...Cannon on one hand and the Aldrich machine on the other...

...But the scheme fell through...

...Cooper's amendment was accepted by the management on the floor of the House rather than enter upon a controversy...

...Various plans have been brought forward to overcome this...

...All public utility franchises are indeterminate and can be revoked on failure of tihe corporation to fulfill its franchise provisions...

...A TRIBUTE TO THE INSURGENTS THE form in which the joint resolution, providing for the Ballinger-Pinchot investigation was finally agreed upon by the Committee of Conference of the two Houses of Congress, is a frank acknowledgment of the growth of the progressive movement in power and influence...

...That is what men have been striving after ever since popular government was conceived:—majority rule...

...As provided by the constitution of Colorado, after the people of the city by a large vote had determined upon the calling of the convention, a body of tweny-one men were selected at a special election to draw up a new charter...

...But in Grand Junction, Col., the people have adopted a development of the commission plan that challenges the attention of every voter in the United States...

...Practically every piece of legislation of any importance, before being finally passed, is referred to a Committee of Conference, consisting of members of both Houses, which adjusts and compromises the differences between the two houses...

...The charter provided for the commission system of municipal government with five commissioners in charge of the departments...

...Yet in such a case the successful candidate does not represent the political ideas of a majority of the people...

...With the price of these textile products already higher than last year, an increase of tweny-five per cent, has been "agreed upon," so that, as the manufacturers explain, they, "can get some profit out of the business...

...There was a counting of noses and a casting up of votes...

...If this system had been in operation in Boston the other day^ the result of the election would doubtless have been far different...

...It is almost a uniform rule that such amendments "go out in conference...

...Conferees on the part of the House are appointed by Speaker Cannon...

...and the third was the amendment of Congressman Norms of Nebraska providing that the House members of the committee should be appointed by the House itself and not by the Speaker...

...The possibility of minority control would be reduced to a minimum...

...That is why the Grand Junction experiment is arousing popu-ular interest...

...Especially have they no sympathy for such amendments when inserted upon the motion of progressive Senators or insurgent Congressmen...

...Bickel on another page of this magazine...

...As long as forty years ago, John Stuart Mill suggested preferential vot-% ing, but did not work out his suggestion into a specific plan...

...The story of this election is told by Mr...

...Says the American: "The Sherman anti-trust law forbids 'combinations' to put up prices, but the officers of the Association insist that there is no 'agreement' to increase prices...

...Each official must publish a report as to the progress of work in his department every three months...

...A "gentleman's agreement" to make this increase effective was put through on Monday in New York at a conference between representatives of the National Association of Hosiery and Underwear Manufacturers and the Wholesale Dry-goods Association...

...Making the People's Will Prevail THERE are many people who see in the commission plan of city government the hope of democracy in the United States...

...Again we are reminded that the cotton schedules of the new tariff law were so outrageously excessive as to create something of a scandal...