tees must present them within ten days after the day of the primary or general election in connection with which the charge was incurred. No bills or claims presented later are to be paid. No person or group of persons other than the candidate, or his personal campaign committee, or a party committee may make any disbursements for political purposes otherwise than through a personal campaign committee or a party committee, except for expenses incurred for rent of hall or other rooms, for hiring speakers, for printing, for postage, for advertising, for distributing printed matter, for clerical assistance, and for hotel and traveling expenses. Contributions by corporations to campaign funds are expressly forbidden. So also are contributions by candidates or committees to religious, charitable or fraternal organizations, but regular subscriptions or contributions may be paid during a campaign as usual. No payments whatsoever may be made on account of services rendered on primary or general election day, or for the expense of transportation of any voter to or from the polls. less all the statements relating to his nomination have been filed, and an officer chosen at a general election may not retain his office, if found guilty of a neglect or violation of the law, except that in the cases of United States senators or congressmen, or members of the state legislature, the judge of the court in which the proceedings against an officer are brought shall transmit a copy of his findings to the legislative body to which the candidate has been chosen without a final adjudication of the case in court. Finally, the Wisconsin act limits the sums that may be lawfully expended by or on behalf of any candidate for nomination and election to public office. The limitations are based, not upon the number of voters to participate in the elections for the various offices, as in California under the act of 1909, nor upon a percentage of the salary of the office sought, as under the Oregon law of 1908, but upon the legislature's estimates of maximum reasonable expenditures. A candidate for the United States Senate is limited to $7,500 ($10,000 under the federal law of 1911), for Congress to $2,500 ($5,000 under the federal law), for governor, judge of the Supreme Court or state superintendent of schools to $5,000, for other state offices to smaller sums. Furthermore, the state central committee is limited to $10,000 in excess of sums paid by it on behalf of candidates and reckoned in the calculation of their personal expenditures. The Wisconsin act also regulates the publication of political advertisements, provides for the declaration of ownership of periodical publications by candidates, and for publicity pamphlets for the use of candidates at the primary or general elections after the style of the Oregon candidates' publicity pamphlets. The most important features of the act, however, are the requirements in the matter of publicity of campaign Other States.-This is the most contributions and expenditures. comprehensive and drastic act yet Statements must be filed by candi- passed in any American state. All dates and committees on the second of the ten states which passed corSaturday after the first disburse- rupt-practices acts in 1911, except ment is made, and thereafter on the Maine, provide for publication of resecond Saturday of each month until ceipts and expenditures after the priall disbursements and promises have mary as well as after the general been accounted for, and also on the election, but none follows the examSaturday preceding any primary or ple of Wisconsin in providing for general election. All items of $5.00 publicity before the primary and or more must be separately ac- thereafter continuously until after counted for, and each statement af- the general election. Several of ter the first must contain a summary these states, however, follow the of all preceding statements. The Wisconsin example in placing a limit name of a candidate chosen at a pri- upon the total amount of lawful exmary election or otherwise is not to penditures by or on behalf of canbe printed on the official ballot un-didates for public office. Massachu setts, New Jersey and Ohio pre- violate the law, by forfeiture of ofscribe a scale of maximum expendi- fice. tures in nomination and election As a result of the corrupt-practices campaigns for the various offices, legislation of 1911, no fewer than 21 and North Dakota limits expendi- states now prohibit campaign contritures to 15 per cent. of the annual butions by corporations, and require salary of the office sought in the the publication of campaign receipts primary and to the same in the gen- and expenditures after the primary eral election campaign. Massachu- as well as after the general election. setts also limits lawful expenditures Although 36 states require publicity to $25 per thousand votes cast for after the general election, not more all candidates for the office sought than half that number limit the at the last preceding election, and amount of campaign_expenditures, New Jersey to 25 per cent. of the and the experiment of pre-primary annual salary. North Dakota makes and pre-election publicity has but provision similar to that of Wiscon- been begun. The experiment of apsin for the publication of candidates' propriating money out of the funds publicity pamphlets during the pri- of the state for the use of political mary and general election campaigns. parties, attempted by the Colorado Most of the states specify what dis- legislature in 1909 and held unconbursements may lawfully be made stitutional by the courts, has not by candidates and require the mak- been repeated. In general, howing of all other political expenditures ever, recognition of the fact that pothrough a personal campaign or par- litical campaigning is growing too ty committees. Most of them, also, expensive is becoming wide-spread, penalize delinquent candidates by and a remedy is being sought by the omitting their names from the offi- statutory limitation of expendicial ballot, and elected officers who tures. APPORTIONMENT W. F. WILLCOX The Act of Reapportionment.-At its special session Congress passed and the President signed a bill fixing the number of representatives for the next ten years at 433, with the possibility of two more in case both Arizona and New Mexico should be admitted to the family of states. Under the new law there are to be 42 more members in the House of Representatives than there were in the preceding decade. The average population of a district, 211,877, is greater by 17,695 than the average population of a district under the earlier law. This increase in the size of the House of Representatives was warmly opposed both in the House and in the Senate, the main argument in its favor being that it was necessary in order to prevent any state from receiving a smaller number of members than it previously had. Each of the other 21 states receives its present number. Former Methods of Apportionment. In the method of apportionment a slight change was introduced. During the early history of the country the number to be used as a divisor into the population of each state was assumed arbitrarily as a round number and one representative assigned Increases in Representation.-The to a state for each whole number in states increasing the number of their the quotient. Thus if 40,000 were representatives were as follows: the divisor a state having any pop' lation between 160,000 and 200,000 | tives apportioned to some one state, would receive four representatives. "Alabama paradox." The New Method. The method In 1840 the plan was changed to give a representative for each fraction of introduced in 1910 assumed that the more than one half. Under the con- divisor was a continuous quantity dition just supposed, a state having between certain limits, changing, any population between 140,000 and that is, by indefinitely small incre180,000 would receive four Represen- ments. The critical points at which the tatives. In 1850 the plan of fixing decimal part of the quotient for each the divisor arbitrarily was aban- state passes one-half can be easily doned for the plan of reaching it by determined and divisors were selected dividing the population of all the midway between each two critical states by the assumed number points. A series of tables was thus of representatives. Representatives obtained each apportioning one more were assigned for each unit in the representative than its predecessor series of quotients found by divid- and each apportioning one represening the population of each state by tative for every major fraction and this quotient, and then one for each none for any minor fraction, a comfraction in order of size until the re- bination of advantages theoretical quisite number of representatives and political, which led to these was apportioned. By this method tables receiving practically no critirepresentatives were sometimes giv- cism in the debates and made it en for remainders of less than one- possible for the first time in recent half and at other times not given for years for the discussion in Congress remainders of more than one-half. to center on the political questions Occasionally it happened that an in- involved without digressing into an crease in the size of the House by examination of the method of apone would decrease the representa- portionment itself. 1 George Washington. 19 Rutherford B. Hayes Oct. 4, 1822 Feb. 22, 1732 Oct. 30, 1735 April 13, 1743 Monticello, Va. Dem.. 1801 July 4, 1826 Mar. 16, 1751 June 28, 1836 April 28, 1758 Oak Hill, Va. Dem.. 1817 July 4, 1831 July 11, 1767 Feb. 23, 1848 Dem.. 1829 June 8, 1845 Dem.. 1837 July 24, 1862 Whig.. 1841 April 4, 1841 Dem.. 1841 Jan. 17, 1862 Dem.. 1845 June 15, 1849 Whig... 1849 July 9, 1850 Whig... 1850 Mar. 9, 1874 Dem.. Dem.. 1853 Oct. 8, 1869 The ratio of representation in the House of Representatives, upon which the Electoral College is based, has been as follows: The population at each census for purposes of representation was as follows: Plurality.. 1,271,837 196 12,535,744. 159 NOTE.-In 1908 there were cast for Debs (Soc.), 420,464 votes; for Hisgen (Indep. League), 86,628; for Chafin (Pro.), 251,570. In 1904 there were cast in addition, for Debs (Soc.), 401,587 votes; for Swallow (Pro.), 260,297; for Watson (Pop.), 114,637; for Corregan (S. L.), 32,657. 000. President, William Howard Taft, He presides over the Senate Ohio. Salary, $75,000; traveling ex- with no vote except in case of a tie. penses, $25,000. Secretary to the The President and Vice-President President, Charles D. Hilles, New are elected for terms of four years York, formerly Assistant Secretary by the State Electoral Colleges, whose of the Treasury, who succeeded membership is based upon the conCharles D. Norton in April, 1911. gressional apportionment as shown Salary $7,500. upon the opposite page. This apporVice-President, James Schoolcraft tionment is revised by Congress after Sherman, New York. Salary, $12,- each decennial census. |