ns for those that are levied? Will
the direct primary for state officers make it easier and surer for the
average citizen of the state to elect to office the kind of men he wants
to have in office? Will a central bank of issue, or some institution
like it, establish the business of the country on a basis less likely to
be disturbed by panics? Will a competing street-car line make for better
and cheaper transportation in the city? In all such questions the only
grounds for decision are practical, and founded in the prosperity and
the convenience of the people who have the decision.

To make arguments in such cases persuasive you must show how the
question affects the practical interests of your readers, and then that
the plan which you support will bring them the greatest advantage.
Generalities and large political truths may help you to convince them;
but to persuade them to active interest and action you must get down to
the realities which touch them personally. If you are arguing for a
commission government in your city on the ground of economy, show in
dollars and cents what portion of his income the owner of a house and
lot worth five or ten thousand dollars pays each year because of the
present extravagance and wastefulness. If you can make a voter see that
the change is likely to save him ten or twenty-five or a hundred dollars
a year, you have made an argument that is persuasive. The arguments for
the reformation of our currency system are aimed directly at the
material interests of the business men of the country and their
employees; and the pleas for one or another system attempt to show how
each will conduce to the greater security and profit of the greatest
number of people.

To make such arguments count, however, you must deal in concrete terms.
A recent argument[61] for the establishment of a general parcels post in
this country presents figures to show that for the transportation of a
parcel by express at a rate of forty-five cents, the railroad gets
twenty-two and one-half cents for service which it could do at a
handsome profit for five cents. Of the validity of these figures I have
no means of judging; but the effectiveness of the argument lies in its
making plain to each of its readers a fact which touches his pocket
every time he sends a parcel by express. It is this kind of argument
that has persuasiveness, for the way we spend our money and what we get
for it come close home to most of us. Of all