CHAPTER V

PARTY TERMINOLOGY

HAVING briefly discussed the relations of the holders of high official positions to their parties in connection with national administration and legislation and as contributors to party organization and as party leaders, we turn now to consider party organization from the opposite point of view, as it were—that is, from the standpoint of the people themselves. Between the people and their representatives in Federal office are certain intermediary organs known as primaries, caucuses, conventions, and committees.

The primary in the various uses of the term serves as an agency for nominating local officers; for selecting delegates to party conventions; for instructing voters; for giving information to party representatives in office as to the views of their supporters; and, in general, for expressing the attitude of the great body of party electors toward the policy of party leaders. The primary is a name given to the original formal act of the voters in setting in motion the machinery of government. In its several uses the word always has reference to the point of immediate contact of the whole body of electors with their government. All voters belong or may belong to a political party, and all may

affect the conduct of their party by the direct exercise of their personal influence at a party primary. The distinctive, characteristic act of a primary is to agree upon persons to be voted for; but it may be called solely for the appointment of delegates to a political convention, or it may perform both these functions and may also attend to any party business brought before it by the members of the party in attendance.

Political duties of citizens are in some instances performed without the use of the elementary party machinery. Elections are sometimes held without any previous formal nominating procedure. In such a case the election itself may be called the primary; or, more strictly, the primary and the election are fused into one act. But candidates for offices commanding a general interest are usually nominated in some regular and formal manner.

Citizens of a town or a precinct occasionally come together in mass meeting and, without regard to party affiliations, discuss policies and designate candidates for office. Such a gathering holds the rank of a primary and may be spoken of under that name, but it does not belong to party organization. Since the introduction of the Australian ballot into the United States the law has in some cases prescribed the method of nomination by petition. A certain number of voters present to the election officers a request signed by their names that the names of persons mentioned therein shall be placed upon the ballot as candidates for designated offices. This method substitutes nomination by petition for the use of the primary.

Specifically, the term primary applies to a meeting

of the supporters of a certain party called by the local leaders of an organized party for the purpose of making nominations and attending to other party affairs. Two separate forms are in use:

1. All the members of the party within the local area are called together and organized as a deliberative body. They choose a chairman from their own number and proceed to nominate candidates for local offices, elect delegates to nominating conventions, and transact whatever party business the members present may desire. As a party organ it may confine itself to a single function or it may exercise a variety of powers. It may choose officers or delegates by viva voce vote, by ballot, or in such manner as the members of the assembly may decide. To illustrate: the committeeman for the precinct or the town calls a meeting of the party members within the area; as a precinct or a town primary they may nominate candidates for the local offices and, at the same meeting, choose delegates to a county convention for nominating county officers and selecting delegates to a convention representing a larger area.

This is a common but not the invariable method. The county committee may call all the voters of an entire county to assemble for the nomination of county officers, and the same body may choose delegates to conventions of higher rank. Such a gathering would conform to our definition of a primary. For obvious reasons this form of the primary is limited to the smaller areas. Voters cannot meet for deliberation from an area larger than a county, and in most coun ties such a meeting is so large as to be inconvenient.

2. The business of the primary may take the form of a true election. In place of the assembly of a deliberative body, there may be the holding of an election for choosing candidates for office or delegates to conventions. A place is designated where members of the party may cast their votes, as at a regular election of public officials, for candidates or delegates or both. This is called a primary election, and it is not restricted to the small local area. It admits of almost indefinite expansion, and may be applied to a congressional district, to a State, for nominating state officers, or, as in South Carolina and a few other states, to the nomination of Federal senators.

Some of the States have by law required that nominations to certain offices shall be made in this direct way, and a considerable body of Primary Election Laws has already been enacted for the regulation of primary elections.

A mass convention for making nominations may be called, in which all members of the party have an equal right to participate. This, too, may be considered a form of the primary. In actual usage it is not likely to be termed a convention, unless the call is made by the proper officials for a large area. In thinly settled rural counties the mass convention is a common medium for transacting party business.

The word caucus has likewise a variety of applications. It is often used as a synonym for primary and may be applied to either of the forms of the primary described above. In States where the regular nominations are made by direct primary election, a much larger field is left for preliminary conference within

the party with reference to the selection of candidates for nomination. To such a conference the name caucus is given. Strictly speaking, indeed, the caucus is a secret meeting of a few party members to discuss questions of political policy, to determine in what manner the more open and public assembly of the primary shall be guided in its action, and to select the candidates to be brought before it. This was an original use of the term in colonial days, and there was early associated with the caucus the idea of underhand political intrigue and secret machination for securing political control.

For the sake of clearness it is well to distinguish by name the free, open course of action by party voters for setting the forces of government in motion and nominating candidates for office, from the secret conclave of a few party organizers who meet to lay plans for manipulating the party agencies in order to accomplish personal ends. The first is more properly called the primary, the second the caucus. The primary is never secret. If it is ever made so, it is no longer in any true sense a primary, but becomes a caucus in the evil sense of that term.

There is, however, another use of the word caucus which is applied to a perfectly legitimate assembly of the party members of a legislative body. It is customary for the members of a party in each house of a state legislature to meet "in caucus" to determine the course of party action in the house, to choose candidates for the offices to be filled by the house, or to agree upon the attitude which the party shall hold toward specific measures before the legislature. The