Accuracy, Fidelity

POLITICAL NOTES

It is strange how little stir is made in this country over the election of a President. The people make a great fuss and a hullabaloo about going to the polls in November and electing 531 citizens, mostly nobodies, who never make or administer. But when, in January, these 531 "nobodies" assemble in little groups here and there and elect the President of the U. S. for four years to come, the people know little of it and care less. So little interest attends the event that it is some weeks before the ballots are assembled and counted.

Last week, these little groups of nobodies assembled and elected a President. They were not all nobodies, however. One of the groups that met in a place called Albany, in New York, was presided over by Elihu Root, who has held many more important posts--those of Secretary of State and Secretary of War, for example, and Ambassador Extraordinary at the head of the special diplomatic mission to Russia, 1917.

It was the first time in several years that Mr. Root has presided over a public meeting; he rose to speak, said:

"This is one of the most interesting proceedings historically which occurs in the entire course of the life of our Government.

"The Constitution invested the persons elected to the Electoral College in each State with most vital and momentous discretionary powers. In the course of but little more than a century, custom, without any changes of the Constitution or law, simply the custom of the people of the United States, has changed the office from one of discretion and authority to one purely ministerial under all ordinary circumstances.

"It remains that if death or disability shall overtake one of the persons in favor of whom the Presidential Electors received the majority of votes between the election day in November and this second Monday in January, the discretion will still be found to exist and the members of the Electoral College will still be found to exercise it. .

"We are performing a necessary duty in the great process of peacefully changing kings, and it is of vital importance that every step shall be performed with scrupulous accuracy and fidelity."