The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1905-10-07

the Presidents request. he could direct
the militant forces of Republicanism in
the last campaign, has not been able
to even nominally surrender the relnS
of party management, although the
vast responsibilities of the Postmaster
Generalship devolvcd upon him at the
beginning Of this year.
1t was under the Hanna regime that
permanent headquarters of the Repub-
lican National Committee were estab-
liShed in Washington. Mr.. Hanna set
the fashion of the chairman of the Ma
tional Committee settling quarrels be-
tween warning factions, quarrcls that
threatened so to disrupt the party be-
tween campaigns as to seriously darllen
its prospects in intervening State, Con
grCSSional and city elections.
The Democratic. National Commit
tees headquarters are nOminally in the
Offices of Chairman Il. L. Taggart, in
indianapolis, though much of the work
of that organization is still done in
New York by August Belmont and VIM.
+. Shechan, the leading members of the
Executive Committee in the last cam
paign. As the Democrats have no Fed
eral patronage to dispense, the work
that falls to MessrS. Taggart, Belmont
and Shcchan is of purely advisory
and supervisory character. 1t goes
without saying, of course, that the Hon.
William j. Bryan has very great intlu-
ence in the decisions as to policies,
even though he is clothed with no OIL
cial authority.
The organizations next in Importance
to the National Committee are the
State Committees In each of the forty
five States both of the old parties main
tain central committees, whose func-
tons within their respective jurisdic-
tons are similar to those of the Ma
tional Committees.
The Congressional National Commit
tee stands next in the line of our mill
tant political system. These commit
tees are of comparatively recent origin,
and are a logical development of our
party government system. Each party
in Congress selects its own committee
in caucus in Washington usually just
before the expiration of the Congress
then in session. Each committee in
turn selects its officers. who, as a rule.
are members Of the House. Both of
these committees have permanent head
quarters i'll Washington. from which
are conducted those fierce biennial
struggles for control of the House of
Representatives. Attached to each
committee is a corps of salaried assist
ant secretaries, stcnographcrs, etc.
City, ward, county and precinct COM
mittces, State legislative and senatorial
committees, Congressional committees III
each district of the States, judicial dis
trict committees, not 10 mention the
myriad host of political clubs of mush-
room growth and others of stable life
and permanent habitations, complete a
line of political organizations that
ramify every avenue of our activities
and are in the Wool and web of our ma
tional life.
Nearly every candidate for President
keeps always in his employ-rarcly, of
course, avOwedly-a well-OrganiZed ma
chine, usually headed by one or more
alert and enterpriSing press agents ana
seconded by practical politicians rang
ing in the social scale from the highly
respectable corporation president to the
muCl-abuScd ward worker. These PR
vate machines are grinding from the
close of one Presidential campaign to
the opening of the next. In Il word,
so numerous are the political organiZa-
tons, 50 varied are their methods, 50
unccasing are their activities that the
American voter finds it virtually impos-
sible to escape surveillance.
With all this marvellous perfection OF
political machinery, however, il is
worthy of note that at no time i'll the
recent history of the United StaGS has
The American voter shown more indie
pcndencc Of thought. In fact, this is