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The Operation of the Direct Primary in Michigan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Arthur C. Millspaugh
Arthur C. Millspaugh
Affiliation:
Whitman College
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Extract

The purpose of the direct primary, in so far as its purpose can be formulated in general terms, was to realize within the party organization, and especially in the process of nomination, accepted principles of democratic control. It is a commonplace, however, that political machinery must in the long run be judged not by its theoretical democracy but by its practical results. In a study of direct nominations, then, it appears most fruitful to examine the system in its operation rather than in its theory, and, whenever possible, to compare its working with that of the system which it supplanted.

Since 1901 the Michigan legislature has passed more than thirty acts, original and amendatory, relating to the nominating machinery. From 1901 to 1905 legislation applied to selected counties, cities, and districts; from 1905 to 1909 it was both local and general but optional with the parties and with the localities; since 1909 it has been general and mandatory. On the whole it has been halting, half-hearted, opportunistic, and unscientific, and is still far from perfection. At the present time all state officials elected in the spring, including judges of the supreme court and regents of the university, all elective state administrative officers except governor and lieutenant-governor, and all township and village officers are still nominated by the old method, a method which is also retained for the selection of delegates to state and national conventions and in a modified form for the drafting of party platforms.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , November 1916 , pp. 710 - 726
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1916

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References

1 General Primary Election Laws: Public Acts, 1905, No. 181; 1907, (ex) No. 4; 1909, No. 281; 1911, No. 279; 1912, (ex) No. 9; 1913, Nos. 118, 392; 1915, Nos. 219, 313.

2 Provisions in the laws requiring all county conventions of the same party to be held on the same day and declaring illegal the hiring of personal workers have contributed to make the appeal of the candidate general and direct.

3 Detroit News, April 25, May 18, 31, June 1, 14, July 7, 13, 15, Aug. 16, 22, 23, 29, Oct. 11, 1910; Aug. 16, 1912. The length and strenuosity of a pre-nomination campaign was illustrated in 1910. In that year the campaign of the successful Republican candidate for governor lasted eight months, and during this time, according to a newspaper report, he delivered 800 speeches and traveled 16,000 miles, most of the distance by automobile. Detroit Free Press, Sept. 5, 1910.Google Scholar

4 Detroit News, May 14, 1912.Google Scholar

5 Detroit Tribune, Jan. 20, 1896.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., Jan. 20, 1896; Oct. 23, 1898.

7 Detroit Free Press, Aug. 19, 1908.Google Scholar

8 Detroit News, April 19, 1912Google Scholar; Rapids, GrandHerald, Sept. 18, 1910.Google Scholar

9 Public Acts, 1913, No. 109.

10 The law prohibits expenditure in excess of 25 per cent of one year's compensation, but provides that candidates for governor and lieutenant-governor may spend 50 per cent.

11 One of the Republican candidates in 1912 said in a newspaper interview that he had tried to reach every registered voter with printed matter. DetroitcNews, July 18, 1912.Google Scholar

12 Statement in office of clerk of Chippewa County.

13 Ibid., Ingham County.

14 Statements in office of clerk of house of representatives.

15 U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 37, p. 28.

16 Sheriff, prosecuting attorney, clerk, registrar of deeds, and treasurer.

17 Statements, Ingham and Washtenaw counties.

18 Ibid., Calhoun County; and conversations. In 1914 the nomination for clerk was uncontested.

19 Detroit Tribune, Jan. 20, 1896.Google Scholar

20 Detroit News, July 9, 1912.Google Scholar

21 Simons, Direct Primary Elections, Mich. Pol. Sci. Assoc., Publications, V., March, 1904, pp. 134–144.

22 Files of the Grand Rapids Herald, 1901, 1902, and 1903.Google Scholar

23 The vote for the candidate for secretary of state is taken as the party membership.

24 Alger, Baraga, Cheboygan, Iron, Mackinac, Presque Isle and Schoolcraft.

25 The percentages were: 1910, 120; 1912, 134; 1914, 109.

26 Calhoun, Hillsdale, Ionia, Lenawee, Livingston, St. Joseph, and Washtenaw Counties. The percentages were: 1908, 54; 1910, 69; 1912, 51; 1914, 46.

27 The fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh.

28 The first, second, and seventeenth.

29 The above statements hold good for the total primary vote of all parties as compared with the total election vote, although the percentages of course are smaller. Those for the state, however, are: 1908, 39; 1910, 56; 1912, 40; 1914, 55.

30 The Republican percentages were: 1910, 86; 1912, 90; 1914, 93. But the combined Republican and Progressive vote in the primary in 1912 was only forty-nine per cent of their combined vote in the election. The Democratic percentages were: 1910, 16; 1912, 25; 1914, 19.

31 In wards in Detroit which were strongly Democratic more Republicans were enrolled than Democrats. Detroit News, Aug. 23, 1912.Google Scholar In 1912 in Detroit which at the time had a Democratic mayor there were 11,584 enrolled Democrats and 46,676 enrolled Republicans. Detroit News, Aug. 3, 1912Google Scholar; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 26, 1912.Google Scholar

32 The percentages were, in Ingham: Republican 1910, 66; 1912, 42; 1914, 78; Democratic, 1910, 12; 1912, 20; 1914, 15; in Washtenaw: Republican, 1910, 57; 1912, 43; 1914, 47; Democratic, 1910, 25; 1912, 30; 1914, 43.

33 In the first of the second, the primary vote for governor was: Republican, 166; Democratic, 2; while the election vote for governor was: Republican, 38; Democratic, 147.

34 Public Acts, 1915, No. 313.

35 I say “accidentally” because Owens received the votes of Democrats and disgruntled Republicans who had no idea of nominating him, but who aimed to discredit the mayor by giving his opponent a substantial vote. Many voted for Owens as a joke. Detroit News, Oct. 29, 1910.Google Scholar

36 Detroit Free Press, Sept. 2, 3, 1910.Google Scholar

37 “Apparently the rule is that the primary is harmful in proportion to the in terest taken in it. ‥‥” Detroit Free Press, April 24, 1916.Google Scholar

38 As in the nominations for governor and for congressman in the first district in 1914.

39 See my paper on Bi-partisanship and Vote Manipulation in Detroit, in the National Municipal Review, Oct., 1916.Google Scholar

40 I am told that the Republican state leaders attempted to hold a pre-primary conference in 1912 for the purpose of agreeing upon a candidate, but objection was at once made that this proceeding was a violation of the spirit of the direct primary.

41 A Petition to the Michigan Legislature, printed by the Rapids, GrandHerald, 1914.Google Scholar

42 Of course, various other reform proposals find adherents in Michigan. Some of these proposals, especially the short ballot and the preferential vote, would doubtless accomplish much good.

43 Testimony before the Clapp committee. 62d Cong. 2 Sess., U. S. Sen. Doc. I, pp. 778–779.

44 Ibid., p. 976.

45 The tendency has been to retreat rather than to advance. An act of 1913 (No. 395) providing for the popular election of state central committees was supplanted in 1915 by an act (No. 231) which legalized the customary selection of the committees by the state conventions; and there is a justifiable demand for the repeal of the presidential primary law. “The utter futility of the presidential primary needs no further demonstration. It is a useless, expensive, and undesired innovation in our political system.” Detroit Free Press, April 5, 1916.Google Scholar I have not seen the official canvass of votes in the primary of 1916, nor the statements of expenditures filed by candidates; but, so far as my observations have extended in 1916, they suggest no modification of the conclusions reached in this paper.

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