I have said that no less drastic plan of institutional reorganization will be sufficient to accomplish the proposed result; and a brief justification must be afforded for this statement.  It was expected, for instance, that the secret Australian ballot would do much to undermine the power of the professional politician.  He would be prevented thereby from controlling his followers and, in case of electoral trades, from, “delivering the goods.”  Well! the Australian ballot has been adopted more or less completely in the majority of the states; and it has undoubtedly made open electoral corruption more difficult and less common than it once was.  But it has not diminished the personal and partisan allegiance on which the power of the local “Boss” is based; and it has done the professional politician as little serious harm as have the civil service laws.  Neither can it be considered an ideal method of balloting for the citizens of a free democracy.  Independent voting and the splitting of tickets is essential to a wholesome expression of public opinion; but in so far as such independence has to be purchased by secrecy its ultimate value may be doubted.  American politics will never be “purified” or its general standards improved by an independence which is afraid to come out into the open; and it is curious that with all the current talk about the wholesome effects of “publicity” the reformed ballot sends a voter sneaking into a closet in order to perform his primary political duty.  If American voters are more independent than they used to be, it is not because they have been protected by the state against the penalties of independence, but because they have been aroused to more independent thought and action by the intrusion and the discussion of momentous issues.  In the long run that vote which is really useful and significant is the vote cast in the open with a full sense of conviction and responsibility.

Another popular reforming device which belongs to the same class and which will fail to accomplish the expected result is the system of direct primaries.  It may well be that this device will in the long run merely emphasize the evil which it is intended to abate.  It will tend to perpetuate the power of the professional politician by making his services still more necessary.  Under it the number of elections will be very much increased, and the amount of political business to be transacted will grow in the same proportion.  In one way or another the professional politician will transact this business; and in one way or another he will make it pay.  Under a system of direct primaries the machine could not prevent the nomination of the popular candidate whenever public opinion was aroused; so it is with the existing system.  But whenever public interest flags,—­and it is bound to flag under such an absurd multiplication of elections and under such a complication of electoral machinery,—­the politicians can easily nominate their own candidates.  Up to date no method has