In a rough way it has long been perceived that the party circle and party column on ballots are a vital part of the machinery necessary to direct the politically ignorant voter how to vote. If the voter is not only politically ignorant but also illiterate, the party circle is about all he can use, and only by directing his attention to that can he be told what to do. If the politically ignorant voter is an intelligent man he needs the party column at least so that he may take its suggestion when he attempts to vote for candidates about whom he knows nothing. It is not strange, therefore, that, in the war on politocracy, the abolition of both the party circle and the party column have been proposed. The more remarkable fact is that such a proposal has received so little support. The fact is that with our long ballots the abolition of the party circle and the party column would result either in a clumsy restoration of the party column by the furnishing of party lists to the individual voter, or else in a disfranchisement of the voter so startling and complete, and a governmental chaos so much more inimical to good government than the extra-legal politocracy, that popular support for such a movement has been generally withheld.

SPECIMEN BALLOT. 10th Congressional, 7th Senatorial District.

SPECIMEN BALLOT. 10th Congressional, 7th Senatorial District.

Imagine, for instance, the party circle and party column abolished for the state and local offices on the long ballot in Cook County reproduced, ante, opposite p. 29. We should then have a ballot with a single column to fill 34 offices, with 181 candidates, the Republican, Democratic, Prohibitionist, Socialist, Social Labor, and Progressive, all lumped together. The large majority of voters could not rely upon their own knowledge of the candidates to make an intelligent choice. The burden upon the voter is too great. If the electorate voted at random there would arise a political chaos in officeholding. The voter would be least likely to do this. If the voter felt he could not vote at all he would be plainly and utterly disfranchised. The voter would undoubtedly enter the voting booth with a party list in his hand as the most rational method of securing advice as to whom to vote for. That would be in effect a restoration of the party column which had been abolished. No wonder then that popular sentiment cannot be aroused over the general abolition of the party circle and the party column where the excessively long ballot is placed before large numbers of voters at frequent intervals.