Genuinely patriotic and national parties may exist; but a genuinely patriotic faction within a party would be a plant of much rarer growth.

From every point of view, consequently, the direct primary has its doubtful aspects.

The device is becoming so popular that it will probably prevail; and as it prevails, it may have the indirect beneficial result of diminishing the number of regular elections; but at bottom it is a clumsy and mechanical device for the selection of party candidates.

It is merely one of the many means generated by American political practice for cheapening the ballot.

The way to make votes important and effective is not to increase but to diminish their number.
A democracy has no interest in making good government complicated, difficult, and costly.