stantially to that end, and it was found that something in that way. was the only way of safety for the future. But latter-day Legislators latter-day people perhaps have become lax. I don't expect anything whatever out of the proposition that the education of the people and their advancement in morals and all that sort of thing, is going to better this situation. We want it bettered. There will not be any such education or change of morals as that will bring it about. Our people are not going to be reformed in any reasonable length of time so that they will give their attention to caucuses and the like of that. They will not do it. We have as good a caucus system in this State now as there is in the country, and I call you gentlemen to witness, those of you who have been watching in the past, caucuses, if the same gang don't get in there and lead you in your conventions every time there is an election. I have been in caucuses over and over again, when every man, almost, that belonged to my party was there, and it came out that we went into convention with the same old crowd at least I know they used to. It will be so- it will continue to be so, notwithstanding the attention that is given, and a great deal of attention is given, especially in our cities now, but I expect very little from it. But something can be done, and I think Brother Hardin struck it when he said that Congress had the power, by a simple act, to regulate the matter so that some of the trouble, at least, could be avoided. There is no question about it—there is no use beating about the bush; there are a large number of men in every legis lature who are there for no other purpose than to be bought, and they have got up the device of bringing out three or more candidates and working one against the other, and holding back for a raise, until the session gets exhausted, or the trust gets exhausted, and then finally somebody gets in that nobody expected to get there. Now that simple Act of Congress, if, figuratively speaking, it would take the members of the legislature by the nape of the neck, and say "You must vote, every one of you, and you must do it (as it says now) on certain days, and when you have got to such a point that, there being more than two candidates, that a majority of you cannot agree, then you must drop the lowest and go on." Do that, and this thing would be ended in very short order.

man,

Now looking back over the history of our own senatorial elections here, you will see how it was in those cases. Why, in the case of the failure to elect anyone I forget now just which year it was when the Legislature of the State of Washington adjourned, with a simple duty like that unperformed, to the disgrace of the State. Why the whole matter could have been settled in one week reasonably well. There was one of two men whom the party expected to be sent. Possibly the people would have been satisfied with either, but there was a third man held the balance of power; they couldn't get him out; nobody had the majority of their county.

I don't believe, quite, in the idea of letting a pluralist candidate go, because a majority candidate could be found-would be found, if the bottom man were dropped. I believe if you do that, although by such means you cannot stop the use of money, yet we can enforce an election by a majority of the men whom we send to elect. I believe that is a remedy, and a very easily adopted one, and would accomplish very great reform in this matter. A little more agitation-a few more cases like the Montana case, and if we enact upon our statute books a provision which will follow the Constitutional direction, that there shall be such a thing as a probal law, and that a man shall be excused from testifying because his testimony will criminate him. A few years of the operation of such laws as this, and these disturbances will die away, and our country will go on as it has in the past.

MR. STERNE- Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Bar Association: There seems to be a singular unanimity on the part of the members of this Association in indorsing papers which have been read. In its composition and in many of its ideas, it, of course, must be indorsed, because it is an admirable paper; but I, for one, do not believe in the election of Senators through the Legislature. If the general body of the people are to be trusted with the election of the members of the Legislature, then you might just as well trust the same people in the matter of the election of the Senators direct. You are simply whipping the devil around the stump when you permit men to vote for a member of the Legislature who shall vote for a Senator, and at the same time you deny them the right to vote for the Senator direct. It amounts to just the same thing.

men are

But in my judgment, it is better to make an issue before the people of the man that is going to represent you in the United States Senate, and let it be decided directly by the people, without the intervention of the Legislature, than it is through the medium of the Legislative body. All that Judge Stiles has said with respect, at least, to lapses-to failure to elect on the part of a legislature, will certainly thereby be eliminated. You come around to the time when a senator must be elected, and you elect him. You have no dead locks. But, aside from that, so far as corruption is concerned, it is certainly easier to corrupt a few men than the many. If it is true that away in advance of a senatorial election and I have no doubt it is true in many states selected here, there and everywhere, because of their well known wishes upon the senatorial question, or their particular choice for senator, which choice is very easily, of course, arranged for at a price if the man is corrupt, you are putting it into the hands of a few men to accomplish what ought to be accomplished by the people of the entire state, and for that reason, if for no other, I believe that the change that has come of recent years makes it absolutely necessary that men shall stand the test of public scrutiny in the various states; that it shall be our policy to put them upon the pedestal, where people will have their candidates and their qualities discussed and voted for by the public and by the body of the citizens, and not through the medium of the legislature. I say again, it is easier to corrupt a few men than it is the many; and for that reason, if corruption is at the bottom of it, it is a safeguard to look for senators through the ordinary means of election. But aside from that, I believe in that way you get the choice of the entire state, and not the choice of the politicians and the choice of the few, and that many men who now stay away from the caucus or convention would be very much more apt to go to your caucus and convention if that method were adopted. Under the present system, the legislator is pledged in advance, and his wishes may not even be known in public, but are known in secret, and for that reason, if for no other, I am constrained to differ with the very learned gentleman who read the very able paper.

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M. BATTLE Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Bar Association, like my brother who preceded me, I am forced to dissent from the article which has been read by Brother Hardin. Certainly his article, from the standpoint from which it was prepared, is an able document. Now I am not prepared to, Mr. President, nor will I consume but a few moments of the time of the Association in discussing this question. I simply desire to state a few ideas that occur to my mind, which bear upon the correctness, as I view the matter, of the reverse of the proposition.

Now, independent of the difficulties which have been encountered within the last quarter of a century in some of the states in the matter of the election of United States Senators, I believe, as I say, independent of this consideration, and independent of the corruption feature, and independent of all other objections and difficulties that have been encountered by various and different state legislatures in the election of United States Senators, I believe that the choice of United States Senators should come from the mass of the people, or from the people at large. I am not a believer, myself, in the principle that gave origin to the present system of electing United States Senators by the Legislatures. I believe that if the people at large are competent and capable of electing the Chief Executive of this Republic and Congressmen and the Chief Executives of the different States, they are competent and capable of electing officers of minor importance to the one first mentioned; so that if it is wise (and it certainly is) to remit to the people at large. the election of the President, it is certainly equally founded in wisdom to give to them the right of electing United States Senators. There is, in the nature of things, no reason for granting such right in the one instance, and denying it to them in the other. There is no reason why this right should be taken from the people, and remitted to a body composed of a few men.

But outside of this consideration, the object and mission of the legislatures of the various states is that purely confined, or should be confined, to the matter of enacting such legislation as is needed by the state or by the different states. That primarily and principally constitutes, and should constitute, the mission and duties of the different members of the state legislature. Now, all of us know it to be true that in the matter of the candidates for

the legislature in the various counties in this state, the question of the senatorship is made to operate to assure the election or the defeat of a more capable and competent man for the legislature, from a legislative standpoint, simply because he does or does not favor someone for the United States Senate. In other words, the test, and the sole test, too often is made, whether or not the different candidates for the legislature are favorable to the different candidates for the United States Senate, and not tested by the question of their fitness as legislators. Now, the mission of the legislature should be, and in the nature of things ought only to be, the matter of legislation. There, however, is thrown into the legislature an element which is foreign to the very nature of the legislature; which has no place, in the nature of things, there, and it is too often made to consume the entire time of the legislature, to the absolute neglect of the legislative functions and duties on the part of the legislature; and were it not for the fact that the legis lature meets too often, as I view it, there could be no argument to justify this, except that it does sometimes prevent the legislature from doing anything. But, I say, that does not constitute an argument in itself. If it is true, as has been ably presented by Brother Hardin, that the history of the United States Senate presents a creditable display of able and learned Senators, that would be true that is true, Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Association, of the lower branch also of the House of Representatives. It is to be presumed, however, that the same would be true should the matter of the election of United States Senators be by the mass of the people at large, and not by the legislature. These matters in themselves, as I view it, do not constitute any argument for or against the proposition. Therefore I say that as a proposition viewed in the abstract, there is no reason why the matter of the election of United States Senators should not be conducted in the same manner as that of the President and the different members of the Lower House or the different State Officers, and furthermore, that it should not be of the legislature, because the object and mission of the legislature is to deal with matters which are foreign to this, from the very nature of its organization.

JUDGE LANGLEY Mr. President and Gentleman, I agree with the paper of my Brother Hardin. I think it a very able and full