Such a permanent organization was suggested for the National Progressive party.But the early disintegration of the party made impossible what would have been an interesting experiment.After the election of 1916, Governor Whitman of New York suggested that the Republican party choose a manager and pay him $10,000 a year and have a lien on all his time and energy.The plan was widely discussed and its severest critics were the politicians who would suffer from it.The wide-spread comment with which it was received revealed the change that has come over the popular idea of a political party since the State began forty years ago to bring the party under its control.
But flexibility is absolutely essential to a party system that adequately serves a growing democracy.And under a two-party system, as ours is probably bound to remain, the independent voter usually holds the balance of power.He may be merely a disgruntled voter seeking for revenge, or an overpleased voter seeking to maintain a profitable status quo, or he may belong to that class of super-citizens from which mugwumps arise.In any case, the majorities at elections are usually determined by him.
And party orthodoxy made by the State is almost as distasteful to him as the rigor of the boss.He relishes neither the one nor the other.
In the larger cities the citizens' tickets and fusion movements are types of independent activities.In some cities they are merely temporary associations, formed for a single, thorough housecleaning.The Philadelphia Committee of One Hundred, which was organized in 1880 to fight the Gas Ring, is an example.It issued a Declaration of Principles, demanding the promotion of public service rather than private greed, and the prosecution of "those who have been guilty of election frauds, maladministration of office, or misappropriation of public funds." Announcing that it would endorse only candidates who signed this declaration, the committee supported the Democratic candidates, and nominated for Receiver of Taxes a candidate of its own, who became also the Democratic nominee when the regular Democratic candidate withdrew.Philadelphia was overwhelmingly Republican.But the committee's aid was powerful enough to elect the Democratic candidate for mayor by 6000 majority and the independent candidate for Receiver of Taxes by 20,000.This gave the Committee access to the records of the doings of the Gas Ring.In 1884, however, the candidate which it endorsed was defeated, and it disbanded.
Similar in experience was the famous New York Committee of Seventy, organized in 1894 after Dr.Parkhurst's lurid disclosures of police connivance with every degrading vice.Acall was issued by thirty-three well-known citizens for a non-partizan mass meeting, and at this meeting a committee of seventy was appointed "with full power to confer with other anti-Tammany organizations, and to take such actions as may be necessary to further the objects of this meeting as set forth in the call therefor, and the address adopted by this meeting." The committee adopted a platform, appointed an executive and a finance committee, and nominated a full ticket, distributing the candidates among both parties.All other anti-Tammany organizations endorsed this ticket, and it was elected by large majorities.The committee dissolved after having secured certain charter amendments for the city and seeing its roster of officers inaugurated.
The Municipal Voters' League of Chicago is an important example of the permanent type of citizens' organization.The league is composed of voters in every ward, who, acting through committees and alert officers, scrutinize every candidate for city office from the Mayor down.It does not aim to nominate a ticket of its own, but to exercise such vigilance, enforced by so effective an organization and such wide-reaching publicity, that the various parties will, of their own volition, nominate men whom the league can endorse.By thus putting on the hydraulic pressure of organized public opinion, it has had a considerable influence on the parties and a very stimulating effect on the citizenry.
Finally, there has developed in recent years the fusion movement, whereby the opponents of boss rule in all parties unite and back an independent or municipal ticket.The election of Mayor Mitchel of New York in 1913 was thus accomplished.In Milwaukee, a fusion has been successful against the Socialists.And in many lesser cities this has brought at least temporary relief from the oppression of the local oligarchy.
