The record-union., 1896-11-29
AMERICAN CONSERVATISM.

CSOe lIOiu ueT Olu SYSTEM VI SleCtluS
State officers and legislators annually.
| All the other States except Rhode
Island have changed to the longer
terms. Massachusetts, adheres to the
one-year term by reason Of her radi-
cal conservatism. The arguments in
favor Of longer terms seem overwhelm-
ing, yet the voters of the old Bay State,
on the question being submitted to
them recently, voted largely against
change
Vermont requires that her legislators
shall be elected by a majority vote,
while all the other States require only
a plurality vote. The majority system
necessitates frequent reballoting, and il
has often happened in Vermont that
towns have been without representa-
ton for some years because a majority
vote could not be secured. Many sea-
sons of balloting work hardships upon
the voters also, and therefore it was
thought best to submit a proposition to
the Vermonters to change to the plu-
rality system, but so conservative are
the people that they voted it down.
This they did because Of the feeling
that every officer of the State should be
elected by majority of the voters.
In New Hampshire and in Minnesota
in November, constitutional amend
ments were submitted to the people, but
in both cases they were all voted down,
the good and the doubtful alike. The
result is attributed solely to the unwill-
ingness to make changes, the growing
disposition to let well enough, and
sometimes bad enough alone rather
than experiment.
Concerning the conservative DISPOSE
ton Of the American people the New
York post" concludes from all the evil
dences before it, that the conservative
tendency is on the increase among our
people, but that 1t is not Of the radi-
cal order that checks advancement Ct
the genuine kind.
Mr.. S. j. Stinson is quoted as an au
thority. He has made State laws and
cons stitutions and their amendments a
close study for some years, and has
carefully compared them by groups Of
years. In recent issue Of the Yale
Review" he says:
No one who attempts summary Of
the legislation of the forty-fve States
and three Territories of the Union for
recent years can fail to be struck with
the wave of conservatism passing over
our many sovereign Legislatures. That
this wave of conservatism ''is so
marked as to convince the student that
it is more than temporary eddy, and
betokens permanent and rational con-
viction in the minds Of the people and
their representatives that the funda-
mental principles of the common law
had better be left alone"
The Post" is correct in adducing the
result of the last national election as an
evidence of growing conservatism of
the commendable kind. Here was q
case in which a long season of hard
times and commercial stringency would
seem to have justified the people into
accepting a remedy with a seeming Of
reason behind 1t, and promising a
speedy change for the better. But the
people by an overwhelming majority
rejected the proposed relief and con-
cluded that it was best to make no
radical change.
Foreign critics Of our system have
noted this conservative drift in our leg
islation, and Mr.. Bryce in his "Ameri-
can Commonwealths" Is quoted as say
ing, after referring to the fact that
we are 'in a sense changeful people.
and citing the rise and fall Of new par
ties in evidence:
After this it may seem a paradox to
add that the Americans are conserva-
tive people. Yet anyone who observes
the power of habit among them. the
tenacity with which old institutions
and usagcs, legal and theological for
mulas have been clung to, will admit
the fact. A love for what Is old and
established is in their blood.
They are like a tree whose pendulous
shoots quiver and rustic with the light
est breeze, while its roots enfold the
rock with a grasp which storms cannot
loosen.
These considerations and criticisms
draw from our New York contemporary
| these remarks:
Grave fears have been entertained
that the spirit which had animated New
Englanders of native descent, living for
the most part in small agricultural COM
munities, would not be found dominant
In great cities made up of heterogeneous
foreign elements, nor in agricultural
ccmmonwealths at the West where the
majority of the voters are men who were
born in other countries. This fear has
been effectually dispelled when Chicago,
city where 60 per cent. of the males 81
years old and over We're born abroad,
gives 10000 majority on the side of
conservatism, and North Dakota, a
farming State without one large city,
where almost two-thirds Of the men are
of alien birth. gives 5000 majority on
the same side out of 90 900 notes.-the
equivalent of 10000 majority in q poll
as large as that OF Indiana.
Doubtless we shall continue 70 try