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1919] DOCIME.NT Xo. 1 11
our cities, and there is no reason wliy it should not be applied to these
great permanent highways. The lauds abutting on the highway would
be doubled and quadrupled in value. The time would soon come when
water mains and electric light lines would be established along these
highways and the abutting lands would sell by the front-foot instead
of by the acre. People living along these highways would enjoy prac-tically
all the advantages of town and city life. Such a scheme would
prevent unseemly scrambles among the people, and communities ob-taining
the roads would pay for what they got.
THE SHORT B.iLLOT
At the expense of repetition I am constrained to again insist that the
principle of the short ballot should be applied to all State administra-tive
offices. There is something attractive to the popular mind in the
theory that all the people select these officials, but the truth is that the
people do no such thing. A few men, an average of not more than three,
select themselves as candidates and then the people are accorded the
privilege of saying in the primaries which of these three are least ob-jectionable.
There never was a more tragic delusion than that the people
select these officials.
But if the people should be actually consulted it is plain that all the
people cannot secure sufficient information about the qualifications of a
man for these administrative offices to enable them to arrive at a
conclusion satisfactory to themselves.
There is no more reason for electing the Governor's Council than
there is for electing the President's Cabinet. I take it that no one would
favor electing the President of the University by a vote of all the people,
and yet the people can pass upon his qualifications quite as well as they
can on those of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The
Commissioner of Agriculture is elected by the people, the President of
the Agricultural College is elected by a board of trustees, and yet the
people can pass upon the qualifications of the President of the College
quite as intelligently as they can upon the qualifications of the Com-missioner.
Presidents of railroads and other corporations are selected
by small boards of directors. Railroad commissioners and corporation
commissioners are elected by all the people. Who are most efficiently
served by their chosen officials ?
T have supreme faith in the judgment of all the people when they
know the facts. They can know the facts about a few men on a ticket.
They should vote for these few, and then hold them rigidly responsible
for results.
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