The examiner., 1882-02-18
A Secret Ballot.

A Secret Ballot.
 There is now in the hands of the judi ciary committee of the legislature bill to provide for secret ballot.
 The provisions of the bill are very sim pie, and could be very easily enforced. It provides for the publication by the State of electors eaUelopes, to be furnished by the Secretary of State to the different town clerks, who are to place in the hands of some person or persons ap- pointed by the selectmen to have charge of such envelopes, Q number precisely equal to the number of registered voters in such town or voting district. Such per son is to hand each elector as his name is checked one of said envelopes. The elector is then required to enter 8 private room or booth prepared for the purpose, and there in secret select the ballot he desires to vote, enclose it in the envelope, seal the same and then pass out of such room and deposit the envelope on the ballot-box.
 Such are the simple provisions of the bill. There is nothing complicated in the machinery, it can be easily understood, 1t is ill fact so plain that " he who runs may read, and the wayfaring man though fool need not err therein"
 First among the very important reasons why the bill should pass, is because it is the dnty of the legislature to provide for the purity of the ballot, to adopt some plan that will prevent the possibility of fraud in our elections. That our elections are now manifestly impure, that large amounts of money are raised and used for the purpose of corrupting the voter, that large numbers of operatives in our different mills and factories are intimida- ted by their employ CTS, will not be seri- ously questioned. Bribery and intimida- . tion are the order of the day and cannot be prevented under our present system of voting, nor so long as one person may positively Enow ho1o another votes. Evi- dently then, the only plan that can be adopted, with any reasonable certainty of destroying the evils by which we are at present surrounded, is to provide for an absolutely secret ballot.
 It is fact, patent to every intelligent observer, that the success of this or that political party in any election, is largely the result of a price. Especially IS this true at the present time, when the differ ence in the principles of the two great parties of the day is so small and so un- important as to exercise scarcely an appre- ciable influence on the mind of the intelli- gent voter. The use of money in elections Is direct and indirect. Direct where the consideration is immediately paid, indi- rect where the fear of losing or the prom ise of gaining employment controls the vote.
 Money is raised for direct use in cleo tions, by assessing the incumbents of office, their clerks, Scc., the different can didates for office, as we'll as those who may be politically or financially interested in the result. Funds SO raised are usually placed in the hands of the different na- tional or state committees, and by them parcelled out among the town committees, whose duty it is to use the funds to per- s,Ldde the doubtful voter, or to take advan- tage of the necessities of individuals and induce them to vote certain ticket for a consideration. The rapidly increasing amounts of money so raised furnishes the strongest and at the same time the most painful evidence of the rapidly increasing political and moral depravity of our peo- pie, for the result of such use of money in our elections is to corrupt the people, to drag them down from the high position of independent freemen, to place them in @ kind of political live stock market, where they become the mere creatures of the highest bidder.
 The indirect use of money, or the intim- idation of the voter is usually accom- plished by the employer indicating to his employe that it will be for has interest to vote certain ticket. The operative we'll knows what ''his interest" means; he knows it means that if he does not com ply with the wishes of his employer he will very soon be discharged. He may have a wife and family dependent on him for support and it is no easy matter for man to assert his independence in poli- tics when by that very act he endangers the existence of his family by endauger- ing the means of their subsistence. The cry of famishing wife or hungry chll- dren, is more potent than the promptings of a political spirit or the love of political principles, and ill order to secure the hap piness of his family the operative consents to comply with the wishes of his employer, and cast ballot to which he is absolutely opposed. The employer we'll knows the necessities of his operatives, and in this customary method of intimldating them takes advantage of those necessities and thus engages in species of political bribery that has become the rule rather than the exception.