The National tribune., 1883-03-15
The Right of Blackbau.

ball, lest worthy ex-soldiers should be
unjustly denied admission to the Order.
We have now before us a letter from Maine
comrade to the same effect The writer
mentions several cases which have come
to his notice, where honorably discharged
soldiers of uDblemished reputation have
been refused admission by local Posts, and
expresses the opinion that personal preju-
dice must have influenced the action of the
members who cast the blacl1balIs. OF course
we have no means of knowing whether our
correspondent is correctly informed or not,
but his intentions are evidently honest
The blackball, however, is an essential
institution Of every secret organization, and
in its secrecy lies the chief protection of the
Order against the admission Of unworthy
candidates, while the fact that the Order is
everywhere rapidly growing would seem to
indicate that if personal feeling is ever al
lowed to enter into the question of admit
ting or rejecting candidates for membership,
it is the exception rather than the rule.
The Rules and Regulations of the Order,
in regard to the election of members, pro-
vide that the application shall be presented
at a stated meeting of the Post; that some
member shall vouch for the applicants
eligibility; that the application shall be
referred to committee of three, of which
the member recommending the candidate
shall not be one, for investigation and
report; that this committee shall examine
into all the facts set forth in the application,
calling upon the applicant personally, and
that after the reception of its report, the Com
mander of the Post shall give opportunity
to any comrade to state such objections as
he may have to the election of the applicant.
On ballot being taken, should not more
than twenty balls be deposited, two black
balls shall be required to defeat, and for
every additional twenty balls that may
necessary to defeat. In the event of the
applicants rejection, his name is required
to be forwarded to headquarters, and he is
rendered ineligible for admission to the
Order for period of six months thereafter
and at the end of that time is still ineligible
for admission to any other Post than the
one for which he was originally proposed
except with the consent, by two-thirds vote
of the Post.
The safeguards thus thrown about the
election of new members are, in their gem
eral nature, as we have said, essential to the
preservation of the high character of the
Order, and if the power which they confer
upon few individuals to prevent the
admission of applicants is sometimes
unwisely exercised it must, nevertheless, be
admitted that the general effect is whole
some. 1t seems to us, however, that when
it comes to the knowledge of the Com
mander of Post that this right of black
ball has been deliberately abused-that is
to say, where no specific charges are made
against an applicant, and the committee of
investigation reports, on the contrary, that
his military record and personal character
are absolutely stainless, that some provision
ought to be made for righting the wrong
4hnc Innn IN the iIota onI inIirooflry
the loss sustained by the Post itself One
of the chief obstacles with which the Order
has had to contend in the past is the idea,
more or less prevalent, that it is in some
sense exclusive. In many places, and es-
pecially where Posts have been long in
existence, our ex-soldiers have got the i'm
preston that the Post government is in the
hands of a clique, and that unless they are
persons of means and social standing it is
useless for them to apply for admission
That any such impression should exist is, to
say the least, unfortunate, yet it is very easy
to see from what cause it arises. The fact
that Mr.. so-and-so, who served with dis
tinction in the army and has conducted
himself since then as an industrious and
law-abiding citizen, is known to have been
rejected as candidate for admission to the
Grand Army, naturally deters others from
applying for membership, and those who
have no actual acquaintance with the rules
and regulations governing the Order are
apt to attribute his rejection to unworthy
influences and come to look upon the Order
with suspicion, if not positive hostility.
The case of our Maine correspondent, al
ready mentioned, is one in point. He evil
IDENTIFY feels that the Post to which he refers
has been guilty of great injustice in refusing
admission to his fellow-soldiers, and we
dare say his opinion is shared by many
others in the same vicinity, much to the
injury of the Order itself. For these reasons,
it seems to us that our comrades of the
Order cannot be teo careful how they exer-
else the right of blackball. No comrade
should permit anything verging upon per-
sonal prejudice to influence his action. He
should always bear in mind that the ques-