without injury to the advance of Christianity. This would effect not only more rational methods, but a large economy, as the support of one missionary, if saved, would employ a dozen native workers, each one of whom might be as effective in evangelistic work as a missionary from other lands.

5. Evangelistic tours in pagan lands by preachers and lecturers from Christian countries will increase in number and frequency.

The

Already such tours have had a profound influ. ence, especially on the people of India and Japan. The resident missionary is often regarded as one who, receiving a salary, is engaged in missionary work for a livelihood. They are also sometimes considered as not representing the best thought of the countries from which they come. lecturer or evangelist visiting foreign lands comes as a witness to the worth and standing of the faithful resident missionary; and beyond what he may be able to say, gives power to the labors of the missionary. With the growing world-wide knowledge of the languages of Christian lands, these evangelistic journeys by eminent pastors and preachers from Europe and America will become more feasible and more widely effective.

now

6. Finally, when Christian work in what are non-Christian lands has become gradually and completely conformed to twentieth-century methods, based upon the best experience of the nineteenth century, the permanent residence of foreign missionaries in any country will cease.

As facilities of intercourse increase, visits of Christian workers among all the peoples of the earth will multiply. The Moody of the twentieth century will not be confined to Great Britain and North America, but will carry his campaign for Christ to all the nations of the earth; but no servant of Christ will be called upon to exile him. self permanently from his native country for the sake of the Gospel. Only those who prefer residence in other lands will go; and these will become permanent residents from choice, fully amalgamated with the people, and an integral part of the indigenous Christian system and work.

Three conclusions are to be drawn from these points on twentieth-century missionary methods.

1. Foreign missionary societies are not a permanent feature of the work of the Christian Church.

beyond question come to many Christians in view of a supposed indefinite and unlimited call upon Christendom for increased contributions for foreign mission work. The question has arisen, When is this to stop? To this question the points presented afford an answer. There will be a culmination in foreign missions. A time will come when expenditures for this work may and ought to begin to diminish. The quickness with which the turning-point may be reached depends on the energy and liberality of the Church of Christ in the early years of the twentieth century. The nations of the earth are in a tumult. All the world is about to be open to the preaching of the Gospel of Christ as never before. Bold, aggressive labor for his kingdom, on lines of the best methods, will be more effective in the twentieth than in the nineteenth century. By a few years of strenuous labor and liberal giving, a mighty transformation will be wrought. By wise and adequate labors, Christianity may be made paramount in every nation on earth in the early years of the twentieth century.

2. The prospect presented affords an ultimate solution of the problem of missionaries' families.

Confessedly, the necessary separation of the families of foreign missionaries, and especially the separation of parents from children who are still of an age to need peculiarly the loving care of father and mother, is the most difficult question in foreign-mission administration. Excellent arrangements are made for the children thus bereaved, in various homes for missionaries' children; but no care, however conscientious, can replace the God-given relation of parent and child. Many most ardently interested in the spread of the kingdom of Christ have felt this a serious feature in the foreign mission-work as at present conducted. In the programme for twentieth-century missions this element will be gradually eliminated. Separation of families will be only for a time, and these temporary absences will be cheerfully endured for the sake of Christ and the Gospel.

3. The administration of missions should at once begin to be shaped with a view to these changes in missionary methods.

Sudden and radical changes are not desirable, nor would they be beneficial. But the eyes of all engaged in the executive affairs of foreign missions should be fixed on the final goal; and every man appointed and assigned, every measure adopted, and every dollar expended should aim at the final object and end of all foreign missionwork of every sort and character, -the establish ment of an independent, self-supporting, pure, and self-propagating Christian Church in every nation on the face of the earth.

IF the Constitution of the United States had

worked as its framers intended, we should all be looking forward to the 14th of January with very keen interest, and probably also with excitement, heated controversy, and no little turmoil. For, although very few people seem to be aware of the fact, it is the 14th of January, 1901, and not the 6th of November, 1900, that is fixed by law as the date for the election of the President and Vice-President who are to be inaugurated on the 4th of March.

On the second Monday of the present month of January, 447 citizens who were chosen for that purpose last November are to vote for a President and a Vice-President of the United States. Each one of these men has a perfect legal right to vote for any person whatsoever, or to vote a blank. Or, he may disregard his obligation and not vote at all. So far as we are aware, all of the 447 electors are yet alive, and there is no one throughout the length and breadth of the land who does not expect with entire confidence that Mr. McKinley and Mr. Roosevelt will receive 292 of their votes, and that Mr. Bryan and Mr. Stevenson will receive exactly 155.

Yet no pledges have been exacted from any of these men. Their legal duty does not extend beyond the simple requirement that they shall meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves." There is, of course, the requisite amount of detail in the Constitution and the statutes as to the manner in which the lists of persons voted for are to be transmitted and subsequently counted by the president of the Senate at Washington in the presence of the two houses of Congress.

The power of unwritten law has perhaps never been more signally illustrated than in the charac ter which the Electoral College has assumed as the perfect instrument of a system of government by parties. It is often said that the Presidential electors have become mere dummies, that the body has become a wholly superfluous piece of machinery, and that it is therefore without dignity or importance. And thus many persons advocate the direct election of the President by the people of the whole country. The problems involved, however, are not quite so simple as some of these

advocates of a changed method are wont to suppose, and no change is likely to be made.

It is true that one of the reasons urged in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 for the secondary rather than the primary election of a President was the very imperfect acquaintance of the people as a whole with the qualifications of leading men in different States. But this was not so much a distrust of the people as a recognition of conditions which actually existed in the original colonies. Those were not days of railroads, telegraphs, and newspapers. There was little intercourse between the different members of the confederation. In point of fact, only a very limited class of men in each State were widely enough acquainted to be able to pass intelligently upon the fitness of men living in other parts of the Union. But for their theory of an independent executive, the Constitution-framers would have agreed unanimously upon the plan of assigning to Congress the duty of choosing the President. Because, however, it was desired that the executive department should be distinct and coordinate, it was decided that the President ought not to owe his election to the members of the two houses of Congress at Washington, but should derive his authority from the people through a separate channel. And the channel created for that purpose was an electoral body analogous in some respects to the legislative corps.

Thus it was provided that each State should have as many Presidential electors as it had Senators and Representatives in Congress. This arrangement obviously was to the advantage of the small States, which were by this means certain to have at least three members of the Electoral College, because of their two Senators and the certainty of their having at least one representative in the other house. It was provided that in each State the allotted number of electors should be chosen in whatever manner the legislature might indicate. Thus in the early period of the Republic the legislatures very commonly appointed the electors, without a popular vote. Gradually, however, one State followed another in adopting the better plan of leaving to the people the choice of the electors.

It became the custom in most States to allow each congressional district to choose one elector; while two others were chosen by all the voters of

the State as electors-at-large. It may be regarded as unfortunate that this exact method was not prescribed in the Constitution. It was gradu. ally abandoned in favor of the existing plan of choosing all the electors to which any State is entitled on a general ticket. There has been only one notable departure from this plan, in so far as we can remember, and that was in the case of Michigan, in 1892, when the legislature, which happened to be temporarily Democratic,—believing, as was true enough, that the State would give a majority of its popular votes for the Republican Presidential ticket,-passed a bill authorizing the choice of one elector in each district and two on the general ticket, thus making it reasonably certain that some of the electors would be Democrats. The result was that the Michigan electors were nine Republicans and five Demo

crats.

The present system gives undue importance to the large States, which have a great block of electors. Whenever New York and Pennsylvania have stood together, the country has been carried. Thus New York's delegation in the next Congress by virtue of the recent election will contain 21 Republicans and 13 Democrats. And if Presidential electors had been chosen one by one in congressional districts (in addition to the two electors-at-large), New York, instead of giving a solid body of 36 electors for McKinley, would presumably have given 23 for the Republican ticket and 13 for the Democratic. With such an arrangement the deadlock of 1876 would not have occurred; while, on the other hand, the intensity of feeling over the results in the Cleveland-Blaine contest of 1884 would have been avoided. A mere handful of votes thrown the other way would have given Mr. Blaine the full electoral vote of the State of New York and made him President. He and his friends were of the opinion that the results of that campaign were determined by certain Democratic frauds in the Tammany strongholds of New York City.

As originally adopted, the Constitution provided that each elector was to vote for two candidates for President; and that, when the votes were counted, the man having the highest number should be President and the man having the next highest number should be Vice-President. This system made John Adams Vice-President during Washington's two terms.

In the third

Presidential election it had become clear that Adams and Jefferson were to be competing candidates, and that they represented diverging tendencies which were soon to become the basis for distinct political parties. Adams, as the logical successor of Washington, represented the Federalist forces. Jefferson stood for the new

democratic ideas that were prevailing in sympa. thy with the principles of the French Revolution.

manner.

This was in 1796. There were no definite party organizations, and certainly neither of the candidates was put in nomination in any formal Yet the leadership of these two men was so widely recognized that most of the electors voted for either Adams or Jefferson. Adams received 71 and Jefferson 68 votes. This gave the country a Federalist President and a Democratic Vice-President. Thus if the President had died in office his successor would have made a radical change both of principal officials and of policies.

Some electors in this contest of 1796 had used their legal discretion and voted contrary to the expectations of a majority of their constituents. This led to a much more careful scrutiny in the election of 1800; so that by that time the electors had come to be chosen, not only with regard to their party tendencies, but also with precise reference, to their support of certain Presidential candidates.

Since each elector was to vote for two candidates, it was easily possible that two men might stand at the head of the list with a clear majority of all the votes and with an exactly equal number. And this is what happened in the next election, that of the year 1800, when party feeling ran very much higher than in 1796, and when electors were expected to concentrate their votes for second choice as well as for first choice, so that, if possible, the victorious party might win the Vice-Presidency as well as the Presidency. The new party machinery worked so well that whereas in 1796 there had been some electoral votes cast for a dozen or more candidates, in 1800 there were 73 votes each for Jefferson and Burr, the Democratic candidates (then more commonly known as Republican), and 65 for John Adams the Federalist, with 64 for Pinckney of South Carolina, the other Federalist candidate (John Jay, of New York, receiving one scattering Federalist vote). Thus the Democrats had carried the day and won both great offices; and it was, of course, their intention that Jefferson should be President and Burr Vice-President.

Nevertheless, since these two men had received exactly the same number of votes, it be came necessary, under the Constitution, for the lower house of Congress to select one of the two by ballot for President, the other thereby becoming Vice-President. Jefferson, as the real head of his party, was viewed with especial hostility by his political opponents. The defeat of Jefferson had been the direct object of the Federalists' campaign. Naturally enough. since they were in control in the House, they were

strongly tempted to favor Burr, and thus keep the Virginian in the rôle of Vice-President, which he had been filling for nearly four years. Burr could have stopped the intrigue at once by refusing to allow himself to be voted for, and by demanding that the intention of the people and of the Electoral College should be carried out. But Burr habitually sacrificed his honor to his ambition. The contest lasted for many days, and it was only on the thirty-sixth ballot in the House that Jefferson obtained the requisite majority of the State delegations and was made President, Burr becoming Vice-President.

It is not easy to change the Constitution of the United States; but this scandalous deadlock aroused the country even to that point. It had come near making Burr President of the United States, and it had as one of its sequels the slaying by Burr of Alexander Hamilton, who more than any other man had been influential in securing justice for his own great opponent, Jefferson. It was plain that the Constitution must be so amended that electors should vote, not for two Presidential candidates, but for one man specifically for President and for another man for VicePresident. Accordingly, the Twelfth Amend ment, under which Presidents have been elected ever since, was framed and adopted by Congress in December, 1803, and ratified by the requisite number of States in time to have effect in 1804, when the Jefferson and Clinton ticket was voted for by 162 out of a total of 176 electors.

This election year of 1804 is notable in the history of American politics as the first in which regular nominations were made, -not, however, by party conventions, but by congressional caucuses. The congressional - caucus system was abandoned in the Jacksonian period, when in 1828 Jackson's candidacy was indorsed by the action of State legislatures and innumerable organizations and gatherings throughout the country. Four years later, in 1832, the period of great national party conventions began, which has lasted ever since. With the consolidation of parties by means of these representative national conventions, the selection of Presidential candidates became a strict party function; and the men nominated in the several States to serve as Presidential electors became the representatives of the parties, with the universal understanding that if elected they would cast their votes for the Presidential tickets of their respective organizations.

Thus it has become a purely formal function that the electors ordinarily exercise. But it is an office of dignity and honor. It is almost invari ably conferred upon men whose selection is a tribute to their standing as good citizens of high probity, esteemed in their several communities.

The trust reposed in them has never in any case been violated.

In the election of 1872, the leading candidates were General Grant and Horace Greeley. The Republicans secured a large majority of the Presi dential electors. Before the electors met, Horace Greeley was in his grave. Since the Democratic electors were in a minority, they did not attempt to concentrate absolutely upon any one else, although about two-thirds of them voted for Mr. Hendricks of Indiana. A question that naturally arises is, What would have happened if it had been General Grant, rather than Mr. Greeley, who had died? Probably the Republican national convention that had nominated Grant would have been called together again at once to make a nomination, on the understanding that the whole party, including, of course, the Republican electors themselves, would abide by the result of the convention's work.

This solution, of course, presupposes a sufficient interval between the death of the successful candidate and the meeting of the Electoral College. Several hypothetical questions must at once occur to the thoughtful mind. It may suffice to suggest a single one of these. Suppose President McKinley should meet sudden death in a railroad wreck on the morning of the 14th of January, previous to the meeting of the electors. Congress might instantly suspend the rules and pass a bill postponing, let us say for two weeks, the meeting of the Presidential electors. This would give the Republican party time to select another candidate.

But in the failure of Congress to act with such rapidity, the electors would be obliged to meet and vote. First, let us suppose that all or most of these electors had not heard the sad news. In that case they would have voted, of course, for McKinley. When Congress came to count the votes in February, two radically different opinions might be presented. One opinion would be that the McKinley votes should be counted for President and the Roosevelt votes for Vice-President, but that Mr. Roosevelt must at once take the oath of office as President. The other view would be that the McKinley votes were null and void, and that the only votes that could be counted for President would be the 155 cast for Mr. Bryan. In the case of the election of 1872, three Georgia electors voted for Mr. Greeley, although he was dead. When the votes were being counted, Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, objected to these three votes, and the two houses had to act separately on the objection. One sustained Mr. Hoar and the other did not. The consequence was that the three votes were thrown out. In our hypothetical case, both

houses being Republican, it is probable that it would be decided to count the votes as they were cast for McKinley, and to allow the Vice-President, Mr. Roosevelt, to take the oath of office as President. This would carry out the intention of the country; for, as every one knows, the object of choosing the Vice-President is to provide a man who in case of the death of the President is prepared at once to assume the executive functions.

Im

The Constitution itself does not fix the date for the assembling of electors. The present datenamely, the second Monday in January-was fixed by act of Congress, as also the date-the second Wednesday in February-when the elec toral votes are to be counted at Washington. provements in the law that provides for the counting of the electoral votes have done away with some uncertainties that previously existed. Whether or not one regards the existing system as theoretically the best, it is certainly in no manner discreditable. It is not destined to early change, moreover, and it is by far too important— even though to so great an extent a merely formal institution to be allowed to fall into any greater obscurity than now envelops it in the general mind.

How obscure it has actually become any man might have found out for himself if he had but attempted the apparently simple matter of getting together the names of the 447 electors who were chosen on the 6th of November. To these men has been committed the responsibility of actually electing the President of the United States. Yet neither in connection with the pres ent electoral period, nor yet with that of any of its immediate predecessors, have we ever seen anywhere, whether in a newspaper, a periodical, or a book, any list of Presidential electors. And so it has occurred to this REVIEW, which is preserved in bound form in many libraries, public and private, to print not merely for reference this month but also for the benefit of future readers a list of the names of the American citizens who serve as trustees for the 15,000,000 voters who participated in the so-called Presidential election of November 6. and who conferred upon these men a sort of moral power of attor ney to do a particular thing. Incidentally the names themselves are interesting as a collection of typical and representative American patronymics at the opening of the twentieth cen tury.