America are controlled by the national parties, and are exploited by the
notorious "machine" organizations. We may sympathize with this object,
for parties in an administrative body are a serious evil, but with
legislatures the case is quite different. Professor Commons admits that
third and fourth parties, if given their proportionate weight in
legislation, would hold the balance of power, but he declares that "the
weight of this objection, the most serious yet presented against
proportional representation, varies in different grades of government."
He then proceeds to examine the objection "as applied to Congress (and
incidentally to the State Legislatures), where it has its greatest
force, and where pre-eminently party responsibility may be expected to
be decisive." And the only answer he can find is that the objection
"overlooks the principle of equality and justice in representation. It
may prove here that justice is the wisest expediency. It is a curious
anomaly, showing confusion of thought regarding democracy, that a people
who insist on universal suffrage, and who go to ludicrous limits in
granting it, should deny the right of representation to those minor
political parties whose existence is the natural fruit of this
suffrage." But these minor parties would not be denied representation if
they were allowed to exercise freely their true function, which is to
influence the policies of the main parties; and it is essential to the
working of the political machine that they be limited to that function.
Professor Commons continues:--"The argument, however, of those who fear
that third parties will hold the balance of power is not based solely on
a dread of the corrupt classes, but rather of the idealists, the
reformers, 'faddists,' and 'cranks,' so called. They would retain
exclusive majority rule and party responsibility in order to prevent the
disproportionate influence of these petty groups. They overlook, of
course, the weight of the argument already made that individual
responsibility is more important for the people than the corporate