The antagonism between the Lords and the Commons is not a matter of recent origin. It is practically as old as the Lower House itself, and may be said to have existed at intervals, at least in one form or another, since the days of Simon de Montfort. It was inevitable that it should be so. When a legislature is composed of two Houses, legally coördinate, the one on an hereditary basis and the other upon an elective, an opposition of views, interests, and purposes is sure to follow with the advance of the democratic spirit.

The present Douma is the outgrowth of well-nigh a century of agitation dating back to the secret societies which brought about the unsuccessful military insurrection of December 26, 1825.

There is an apocryphal story which has gained currency through the efforts of friendly English journalists, to the effect that Czar Alexander II was about to proclaim a constitution on the very day when the bomb of the terrorists blasted the hopes of the liberal portion of the nation. The story would make a fitting climax for “The mysteries of the court of St. Petersburg.” The pretended “constitution,” however, has since been published and appears to have been nothing but a scheme to create a number of special commissions, with a limited measure of popular representation and with the power to make recommendations to the Imperial Council.

The political situation of Turkey is undoubtedly the most complıcated ın the world to-day. To begin with, it contains a full measure of internal problems of the usual sort but of unusual acuteness. It is further seriously conditioned by the actions and interactions of three sets of rival interests: the group of distinct nationalities within the country, unassimilated after centuries; the cluster of small but active neighboring states, formerly a part of Turkey, and not yet satisfied with the terms and bounds of separation; and the family of the distant great nations, seeking strenuously to apportion and regulate the world. In the presence of these numerous forces, the Ottoman Empire, once during a brief period of splendor the strongest state in the Mediterranean sphere of civilization, has for some generations hung balanced on the verge of destruction. Two years ago a new spirit seemed to be breathed into it, a new life to be begun whose precarious thread perhaps furnishes the only genuine hope for the permanence of the nation. This new spirit and life is striving to find a sure embodiment and an effective means of expression in and through the Turkish Parliament.

Public attention has never been attracted to the subject of law reform in the United States as universally as it is at the present time. In the States and in the large cities of the country especially, there is more or less dissatisfaction with the manner in which justice is administered. This dissatisfaction grows out of a failure to secure expedition and thoroughness in the enforcement of public and private rights in our courts, and as President Taft has said, may be summed up in the words, “Undue delay.”

The commonly accepted theory of writers and speakers on public affairs is that, when evils become very great, they provoke such a revulsion among the people that a reform is inevitably produced, but Herbert Spencer said that, when evils become deep or widespread and are generally recognized, they become incurable. The most popular and most universally accepted theory in this country, especially among persons of an optimistic temperament, is that we are always becoming better—that we are always rising to a higher plane and always making progress; but Walter Baghot clearly proved that the progressive status is the unusual status; that the stationary condition is the normal condition of nations. A German poet said:

Die Welt, die bleibt wie immer
Nur die Menschen werden schlimmer.

In conservative quarters, where the state of Kansas has been looked upon as particularly susceptible to the attractions of political novelties parading under the name of reform, the early and wide adoption of the commission form of government for cities has doubtless caused no surprise. Any tendency which Kansas may have to become a laboratory of political experiment is not, as is often inferred, due to sheer instability of political character. It flows, rather, from that supreme faith in democracy common to the trans-Mississippi region, intensified by a lofty idealism and an intense Puritanism inherited from the men and women who emigrated there in the fifties to make Kansas a bulwark of freedom. These original traits of character have, to a remarkable degree, persisted and find political expression even at the present day. Notwithstanding all this, the State had, like so many others, fallen under the control of a political organization strongly intrenched behind a spoils system and, if current reports are true, supported by large corporations for their own good. The recent widespread revolt against such conditions reached Kansas and reacting on the Kansas character brought about a far-reaching political upheaval. The net result of the agitation was a political over-turning, an awakened sense of personal responsibility on the part of the voter and a renewed interest in affairs State and municipal.

The time allotted for this paper will permit only a brief statement of the tendencies manifested in recent municipal legislation. For this purpose, it may be well at the outset to state the classes of municipal legislation. In the first place, there are the constitutional provisions relating to cities which determine the general powers to be exercised by the legislatures and the cities respectively. Next in order of rank are the municipal codes and special charters passed by the legislatures and the charters framed and adopted by the cities themselves.

The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, to achieve a better understanding of the methods, problems, and results of the collection of statistics of cities by the National Census Bureau; and second, to arouse if possible a keener interest among the members of this Association in the accomplishemnt of the ultimate purpose for which this work is being carried on—an interest which it is hoped may lead to active assistance on the part of individual members along the lines indicated below.

Illinois has had an arduous task in its efforts to enact a valid direct primary law. Unusual conditions exist in Illinois which have made the problem peculiarly difficult.

Missourians have been conservative in their political ideas, and have been slow to adopt innovations in their political institutions The first Constitution of 1820 incorporated those political ideas and institutions which had been tested by the older states, and excluded the new democratic doctrines of popular election and rotation in office, which were being agitated, and were just beginning to secure recognition in some of the states. The heads of the state administrative departments did not become elective until 1851, while the judiciary held during good behavior until 1849, and were not chosen by popular election until 1851. While the system of voting by ballot was introduced during the Territorial Period, it was abandoned in 1822 in favor of the viva voce system, which continued to be the general method until 1863, though the ballot system had been introduced in a number of counties by special acts beginning in 1845. Even to this day there is retained the provision for numbering a ballot to correspond with the number opposite the name of the voter in the poll book, so that it is impossible to have perfect secrecy of the ballot.

The first effort toward securing a primary election law in Iowa was made in 1896, when three different bills were rejected by the Twenty-sixth General Assembly. In 1898 renewed efforts resulted in the adoption of a local optional primary law; and by 1902 this local primary law had been adopted in thirty-six of the ninety-nine counties of the State by at least one of the parties.

The movement for a compulsory State-wide primary election law was begun in January, 1902, when State Senator J. J. Crossley introduced a measure in the Twenty-ninth General Assembly known as the “Crossley Bill.” This bill was never even reported to the Senate; while the House measure, which was identical with that of the Senate; was lost after the addition of many amendments and a long and heated debate. Senator Crossley introduced his State-wide primary election bill at each succeeding session of the General Assembly until it was finally adopted on April 4, 1907.

The statewide direct primary became an issue of New York politics in 1909. But it was not because any considerable portion of the voters of the Empire State had been captured by the advancing doctrines of direct government. As in other States, apparently, the direct primary was forced to the front by the attempts of a group within one of the dominant parties to secure possession of the regular party machinery. Just as the convention was used by Jackson's belligerent followers to destroy the caucus system then in the full control of the old office-holding aristocracy, so the direct primary is employed in capturing old intrenchments. It has its great moral and philosophical justification, of course, but it is brought to play in the practical game of politics only when some decidedly strategic points can be captured by no other process.

The success of international arbitrations—between 250 and 260 since 1815—and the present frequency of them, combined with the growing consciousness of the economic waste involved in war and in preparation for war, have projected into the field of practical politics the question of a settlement of international disputes by means other than war. The possibility of avoiding war by entering into treaties of arbitration after the dispute has arisen and after diplomacy has failed to adjust the dispute is no longer relied upon as the sole means of averting a resort to force. Coming into being with the First Hague Conference (1899), the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague, which sets up a list of judges from which an arbitration tribunal may be drawn, marked a distinct forward step. Its very existence has not only invited the nations to use arbitration as a means of settling present disputes but has promoted the making of so-called general treaties looking forward to the submission of a certain category of future disputes to arbitration. From May 18, 1899, to March 21, 1910, there were negotiated 133 such treaties. The First Hague Conference likewise set up the Commission of Inquiry, which provides machinery for ascertaining the facts, and in one notable instance at least—the Dogger Bank affair (1904)—has justified its existence.

A few years ago a committee was appointed by the American Political Science Association to investigate the teaching of American Government in the secondary schools of the United States. The circular letter sent out by this committee contains the following observation:

Is it not a curious fact that though our schools are largely instituted and operated by the government, yet the study of American government in the schools and colleges is the last subject to receive adequate attention? The results of the neglect of this important branch of study in our educational institutions can easily be seen in the general unfitness of men who have entered a political career, so that now the name of statesman is often used as a term of reproach, and the public service is weak, except in a few conspicuous instances. Are the schools perhaps to blame for the lack of interest in politics shown by our educated men until recent exposures arrested the attention of the entire nation?

We think the best place to begin the work of regeneration and reform is in the American secondary schools and colleges. Here we find the judges, legislators, diplomats, politicians and office-seekers of the future in the making. Here are the future citizens, too, in their most impressionable years, in the years when the teacher has their attention.