ession of the preference of the voters, and this may even be
made a party ballot. That is to say, voters at party caucuses, or
even at elections where the ballots are so marked, may express their
preference for this or that candidate for the United States Senate,
and the moral obligation will then be on the State legislature, or
at least on its members of the corresponding party, to vote for the
candidate so nominated. This has been universally done in the case
of election of the United States President by the force of public
opinion; no instance is on record of an elector having voted
differently, or of a bribe or even of an attempt to bribe. But with
legislation--statute law not being so strong as the unwritten law,
contrary to the popular opinion--it is by no means certain that this
result will happen. The law has worked in Oregon, where first adopted,
with the striking result that a Republican legislature elected a
Democratic United States senator; but if the writer is correctly
informed, the contrary has been the case in Illinois. The movement for
the direct nomination of members of the lower house of Congress
also exists in many States. "Direct nomination" of course means a
nomination by the mass of voters, either in assembly or by a written
list. The value of this reform is probably exaggerated. Direct
nominations in the city of Boston recently had the somewhat amusing
result that there were two or three times as many names on the
nominating petitions as voted in the election, and that one gentleman,
indeed, fell short of his nominating petition by nearly ninety per
cent.

The mode of legislation is not much changed from the early days.
Usually bills have in theory to be read three times and must be voted
for by a majority of a quorum. Many States forbid new legislation to
be attempted after the first few days of the session. There has in the
last few years been an effort at the proper drafting of bills, but it
has hardly made much progress as yet, and will be discussed in our
final chapter.

The two most radical changes of all are, of course, the initiative and
referendum, and women's suffrage. The latter has, on the whole, made
no progress since it was adopted in Colorado and three other States,
about the year 1890. The people of the States where it exists appear
satisfied and it is probable that they will never make the change
back; on the other hand, the better opinion seems to be that the
existence of wom