Bisbee daily review., 1911-05-14
WOODROW WILSON GIVES HIS
 MESSAGE TO AMERICANS

which they conceive to be in danger. do not find anywhere a desire to dispense with or to impedr repre- sentative government What do Ind Is 6 very general impression that our governments have ceased to be representative; that they wear the form. but do not exemplify the reality. If we are to act intelligent ly, we must first of all look into this question and see if this impression is well founded.
 I think that everyone familiar with the actual methods of our pol tiles must admit that under the nolitical methods we have been fn the habit Of using in recent decades the ,people do not select and do not control their representatives. The Sc lection of those representatives has been in the hands of small groups of men who were not chosen by any body but themselves to make the SC lection. The peculiarity of our meth cd of nomination has been that 1t has been left to small groups or seltconstituted managers who have ieterminsd-genersl in private conference--who the candidates for office should be, and who. because they had practically complete con trol of the matter. could use men who would be willing to serve any special purpose that they might have In mind. In recent years these small groups of men have tnem- selves been in large measure con trolled by those who supplied them with money for campaign purposes They have formed very close alli- ances with certain great business interests-in some places with one set of interests, in other places Witn another sst-but always with men who wished, as a return for their contributions to be assured that nothing would be done by legisla- lures and city councils, or execuuVe officers, that was detrimental to thsir private interests, or obstructive of their private purposes.
 Selfish Dletation-
 The eonseouence has been that in the tolscies they pursued. in the measures they have enacted: m a great many of their ofnclal acts, our so-called public representatives, have been guided, not by opinion; not by careful analysis of the real general interest of the communities which they ought to have served but by inc suggestions, in many in- stances by the definite and impera- five orders of little coteries Of men who were under heavy obligations in particular quarters.
 The present popular feeling about our political methods, therefore, IS based upon the conviction that the reople do not really have a free selection os those who are to repre- sent them, and cannot contro them after they are selected. Men shruS their shoulders at party plat'orms' having found that they are TOT use only to win elections, and that aI- ter the elections are won the prom ises contained in them are forgotten and left unfulfilled, only to be re- newed and again broken at subse- uuent elections Not a little cynical feeling has zone abroad among the great body of voters that perhaps there was but little to be gained Dy the time of excitement
 It has been felt, in many instances it has teen proved, that the persons who really controllei political ae- ton were more easily accessible to representatives Of sDeciai interests than to the Peoule theTseives; an that Busluess-with capital B-eX- 5rcised a very much more effective control than cid the voters. This has been the whole trouble-the feeling