Some persons have said that representative government has proved too indirect and clumsy an instrument, and has broken down as a means of popular control.  Others, looking a little deeper, have said that it was not representative government that had broken down, but the effort to get it.  They have pointed out that, with our present methods of machine nomination and our present methods of election, which give us nothing more than a choice between one set of machine nominees and another, we do not get representative government at all,—­at least not government representative of the people, but merely government representative of political managers who serve their own interests and the interests of those with whom they find it profitable to establish partnerships.

Obviously, this is something that goes to the root of the whole matter.  Back of all reform lies the method of getting it.  Back of the question, What do you want, lies the question,—­the fundamental question of all government,—­How are you going to get it?  How are you going to get public servants who will obtain it for you?  How are you going to get genuine representatives who will serve your interests, and not their own or the interests of some special group or body of your fellow-citizens whose power is of the few and not of the many?  These are the queries which have drawn the attention of the whole country to the subject of the direct primary, the direct choice of their officials by the people, without the intervention of the nominating machine; to the subject of the direct election of United States Senators; and to the question of the initiative, referendum, and recall.

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The critical moment in the choosing of officials is that of their nomination more often than that of their election.  When two party organizations, nominally opposing each other but actually working in perfect understanding and co-operation, see to it that both tickets have the same kind of men on them, it is Tweedledum or Tweedledee, so far as the people are concerned; the political managers have us coming and going.  We may delude ourselves with the pleasing belief that we are electing our own officials, but of course the fact is we are merely making an indifferent and ineffectual choice between two sets of men named by interests which are not ours.

So that what we establish the direct primary for is this:  to break up the inside and selfish determination of the question who shall be elected to conduct the government and make the laws of our commonwealths and our nation.  Everywhere the impression is growing stronger that there can be no means of dominating those who have dominated us except by taking this process of the original selection of nominees into our own hands.  Does that upset any ancient foundations?  Is it not the most natural and simple thing in the world?  You say that it does not always work; that the people are too busy or too lazy to bother about