Up to date no method has been devised which would prevent
them from using their personal followers in the primary elections of
both parties; and no such method can be devised without enforcing some
comparatively fixed distinction between a Republican and a Democrat, and
thus increasing the difficulties of independent voting. In case the
number of elective officials were decreased, as has been proposed above,
there would be fewer objections to the direct primary. Under the
suggested method of organization each election would become of such
importance that public opinion would be awakened and would be likely to
obtain effective expression; and the balloting for the party candidates
would arouse as much interest, particularly in the case of the dominant
party, as the final election itself. In fact, the danger would be under
such circumstances that the primaries would arouse too much interest,
and that the parties would become divided into embittered and
unscrupulous factions. Genuinely patriotic and national parties may
exist; but a genuinely patriotic faction within a party would be a
plant of much rarer growth.
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