Government and Politics in Missouri (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: STATE EXECUTIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS We have just seen that the constitution of Missouri is 1he supreme law of the state and that it says there shall be three departments of our state government- executive, legislative, judicial. Most people pay more attention to the executive than any other department. They like to know especially about the governor, the head of the executive department. There are nearly always a number of men who wish to be governor. So, several months before, about the first of August every four years, as in 1916 and 1920, these men tell the people through the newspapers and in speeches what they will do if nominated and elected. Each one belongs to a political party and would like to have that party choose him to run fo- governor. In order to give the voters of each party a chance to say whether he shall run for them, he makes a statement to the secretary of state of Missouri that he wants to run. At the same time he hands or sends to the secretary of state a little statement called a receipt which says that he has paid to the treasurer of the state committee of his party one hundred dollars. He mast do these things not less thcin sixty days before the voters of his party vote for or against him in August. So the voters of each party decide in August, at what is called a direct primary, who shall run for governor for them and for most of the othei important offices, as secretary of state, treasurer. There are often some lively fights among the voters of a party, and men who are running, to see who will run for them. The persons running are called the candidates and we call the choice which the voters of each party makes a nomination. After the nominations comes the fight among the nominees to get to be elected governor. This fight lasts from...