Popular Election of Senators
Performed by William Jennings Bryan
Recorded July 21, 1908
The Democratic national platform,
recently adopted at Denver, contains a declaration
in favor of the election of United States senators
by direct vote of the people, and expresses the opinion
that this reform is the gateway to other national
reform. This is the third declaration of this kind
made by a Democratic National Convention. The first
having been made at Kansas City in 1900, and the second
at St. Louis in 1904. The Republican National Convention
held at Chicago last month, declared against this
reform by a vote of more than 7 to 1; and the Republican
party has in former campaigns, refused to endorse
it in its platform; and yet so insistent are the rank
and file of all parties, that the House of Representatives
of the Federal Congress, has five times declared in
favor of the election of senators by the direct vote
of the people. Two-thirds of the states have also
endorsed this proposition to their legislatures, and
there is no reason to doubt that among the voters
there is an almost unanimous sentiment in its favor.
Why do the Republican leaders oppose a reform which
even Republican voters demand? There can be but one
explanation. The favor seeking corporations have made
the Senate the center of their political influence,
and as the Senate must concur, before any remedial
legislation is possible, predatory wealth is able
to prevent legislation by controlling the Senate.
The excuse, however, given by those who oppose the
popular election of senators, is that the Senate represents
the states and that a popular election of senators
would destroy the representative character of that
body. There is no foundation whatever for this argument,
because senators will represent their states just
as completely when elected by the people as when elected
by legislatures of the several states. I may go farther
and say that state representation will be even more
secure under popular election because the present
method of election has dropped such odium upon the
Senate that the Senate as a legislative body has suffered.
The state is not a thing apart from the people, the
people of the state constitute the state, and the
people of the state have just as much right to a voice
in the United States Senate as they have to a voice
in the House of Representatives. If the people of
the state have intelligence enough to select their
governors, their state legislators, their members
of Congress, and their presidential electors, who
will say that they have not intelligence enough to
select their senators by direct vote. Men may differ
as to whether the country would be benefited by a
high tariff or a low tariff. They may differ in regard
to financial systems, and they may even differ as
to the economic advantages of great corporations.
But among those who believe in the right of the people
to self government and in the capacity of the people
for self government, there can hardly be any difference
of opinion as to the wisdom of putting the election
of United States senators in the hands of the people.
So urgent is the necessity for this reform that a
number of states have already joined in the call for
a constitutional convention to reform the method of
electing senators in spite of the opposition of the
Senate itself. But it is probable that the Senate
will yield when it finds further resistance useless.
In the meantime, the voters ought to see to it that
only those who are elected to the Senate and to the
House of Representatives who have sufficient confidence
in the people to grant their reasonable demand for
the control of the United States Senate.