Evening star., 1940-11-05
Election History

No one can say with perfect as
Surance just when men began to
vote for other men to govern them.
The custom of election is of vast an
tiquity. Among savage peoples
chieftains were chosen ccmpetitively
If not by processes of balloting SINH
lar to those employed in the city
states of Greece and Italy. Cicero
appears to have favored the "viva
voce" method. His doctrine, it
seems, reSembled that which Robe
spierre in the eighteenth century re-
garded as ideal-a representative
sovereignty of all the citizens
acting by the people and for the
people in an elective council"
But continued increase in popula-
ton gradually demonstrated the i'm
practicability. of a system dependent
upon open assemblies. The ecclesia
Of Athens and the comitia of Rome
necessarily were small groups to
which not everybody was admitted.
Under the Caesars the practice of
calling the public together to decide
important matters was abandoned
because it was infeaSible to assemble
all the inhabitants of the imperial
realm. Yet the tradition OF election
persisted and was recognized when
it was discovered among the north
ern barbarianS who were democratic
in their attitude toward leadership.
The captains of the Gothic invaders,
the VandalS, the Huns and, later, the
scandinavian pirates" who con-
quered much of France and most of
Britain were at least as freely raised
to power as the bosses" of modern
American communities.
Early settlers of the western world
brought with them the intellectual
patterns Of rational republicanism.
With them the legends of the free
towns of the Middle Ages, the medic
val guilds and companies crossed the
Atlantic. The pioneers of MaSSa-
chuSetts elected John Winthrop
governor on May 18, 1881. Mean
while, members of the Virginia As
sembly had been selected by means
of votes. The first accredited pro-
ceeding of the sort after the forma-
ton of the federal association of the
revolutionary colonies was author
lied on September 13, 1888, by the
Constitutional Convention, which re-
solved that the first Wednesday in
January next January 7, 1882 be
the day for appointing electors in
the several states, which, before the
said day, shall have ratified the said
Constitution, that the first WedneS-
day in February February A. next
be the day for the electors to assem-
BILE in their respective states and
vote for a President; and that the
first Wednesday in March next
March A. be the time, and the pres
ent seat of Congress New York. the
place for commencing the proceed
ings under the said Constitution"
During the hundred and fifty
years now passed the business of
choosing persons to fill Offices" has
become steadily more complicated.
A vast literature has developed from
what originally was a Starkly simple
device-the raising Of hand or the
casting of a pebble into a jar. But
the natural instinct of the human
race has not altered in any funda-
mental sense. 1t is Symptomatic of
the normal individual to wish to be
free and to cooperate with others
to the end that all shall be similarly
advantaged. The earth may be
afflicted by dictators, yet even the
most intolerant of them must know
in his heart that he defies the basic
aspiration of civilized community
life.