POPULAR ELECTION OF SENATORS1 AGITATION in favor of a constitutional amendment to this end, begun by several State Legislatures during the past year, was renewed on Saturday before the appropriate committee of the House of Representatives. Every thoughtful mind must welcome the least sign of revolt against the present composition and disgraceful tendency of the United States Senate. The election to that body of Governor Hill, the Democratic boss of New York; the bare defeat of Foraker, the Republican boss of Ohio; the arts to which Senator Sherman was forced to resort in order to save his seat from political brigandage; the motives which led to the election of his new colleague - these recent events have stimulated the growing sense of a vital defect in the Senate-making machinery. It is as yet but a vague and unreflecting sense, that does not perceive the root of the evil, and it is in danger of precipitate action that will breed fresh abuses; but the unrest is wholesome. Once more an idol of the Constitution is challenged, and men are not afraid to think and to say openly that the work of the fathers must be undone or done over in the interest of the people, by the people, and for the people. 1 From the Nation, January 21, 1892, vol. 54, p. 45. The change proposed is so momentous that it is no exaggeration to affirm that it outweighs in importance the burning questions of the tariff and the coinage. These are mere questions of housekeeping, which, however they may be decided, leave the fabric of 1787 untouched. To take from the Legislatures the choice of Senators is to revert to one of the plans rejected in the Constitutional Convention, and to embark on a fresh voyage of experiment. It at once alters fundamentally the relation of the States to the Federal Union by making the party complexion of the State Legislatures a matter of no consequence whatever in Federal politics, so far as concerns the control of Congress. We hasten to declare that this would be a great boon to the citizens of the States and to the people at large-perhaps the greatest that has ever been rendered by any constitutional amendment save that prohibiting slavery. It would aim a well-nigh fatal blow at the identification of State with Federal party lines and party organization, which the fathers unwittingly ordained when they made the Senate the creature of the legislatures. Never again would the voter be called upon to sacrifice his scruples respecting local measures or men, on the ground that the party ascendancy in Congress depended on returning a Legislature which would maintain the party strength in the Federal Senate. This freedom once acquired, we cannot |