Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1885-01-22
A ROMAN ELECTION,

A ROMAN ELECTION.
How the Ancients in the First Republic
Worked the Wires.
Eugene Lawrence in Brooklyn Eagle.
From republican Rome-Our early
teacher-we borrowed most of our polit-
ical ideas, and even language. Our cleo
tions vary little from those of the Roman
forum. 10 the Latins we owe our candi-
dates and our orators, our tribunitian
arts and tribunitian veto, the ballot and
the ballOt-box, the register and polling,
the conception of personal independence,
the sovereignty of the people. The free
Roman would bow to no man; and Cicero
and Cesar were forced to solicit the
votes of their fellow-citizens with
humility that was never feigned.
To obtain an office at Rome the candi-
date toiled for months and even years.
Clad in his white robe he walked the
forum of the busy streets of the city,
saluting every one, asking votes and seek
ing what we now call popularity. He
spoke to every citizen he met Familiarity,
he grasped his hand, he begged his sup
port; he spoke of his own merits, decried
his opponent, promised to advocate some
liberal measures, and sometimes a bride.
Cicero, who was above bribery, has left
us in his letters curious picture of the
tolls, anxieties and the interior life of
the Roman candidate.
An election day at Rome was a scene
of singular excitement Every year the
chief magistrates of Italy were renewed,
and every year the voters crowded the
capitol. The city was agitated by IN
tense party feeling. The rural pOpula-
ton from Latium and the distant col
onies over the Tiber fastened to exer-
else the priced right Of suffrage. Chart
Sabine villages, footmen crossed the
Sub!ician Bridge, great multitude wan
dered through the streets of Rome,
astonished at the magniticence of the
city.
If it was consular election the people
gathered at sunrise in the Campus
Martius, where the voting was to take
place. The candidates in their white
robes, before daybreak, were seen ming
ling with the voters, followed by their
pa tisans and proclaiming their political
principles. Sometimes they stood ON
high position where they could be seen
by all; sometimes the great multitude
covered the tops of the houses and filled
all the extensive plain from the capitol
to the river.
At length, at the sound of a horn, the
voters assembled in the Campus Martius.
If the auspices were favorable and no
peal of thunder heard, standard was
raised on the Janiculum and the Consul
began the ceremonies with prayers and
sacrifices; the people, deeply superstitious,
awaited awe-stricken until he closed.
The spectacle was one of rare interest; it
was an assemblage of Roman freemen.
In the late comitia, at least, all were
equal. The rich noble, accustomed to
luxury and power, the equities, who had
sprung from poverty to wealth, the pros
porous traders of the forum and suburba;
the farmers, even sometimes the freed
men, the manumitted slaves-were
blended by the Roman law into harm
onious and momentary equality. Each
was gifted with vote.
The voting next began. The excite
ment rose. The people, arranged in CEN
turtles or hundreds, passed over bridge
of wood into the polling place. Here, in
the earlier age, they voted orally, and
later with wooden tablets. Each vote
was recorded and counted at once, and
the result announced. The ballOt-bOx
and the register were watched over by
citizens of undOubted honor, and fraud
was scarcely possible. AS one by one
the centuries gave in their ballots the
excitement was redoubled. The candi-
dates and the people hung breathless up
on the cries of the heralds as they pre-
claimed the progress of the election.
Livy has left many picture of these
fierce political struggles. Now on one
side, now on another, the balance hung.
A Scipio, a Cato, Gracious, Cesar
had triumphed, and the victor shouted
in a wild strain of Southern enthusiasm
that echoed far away over the capitol
and the crowded hills. The beaten
party turned silently hOmeward. The
excitement was over, and the Roman
voters went quietly again to their usual
pursuits.
For 400 years at least, every year the
Romans gave in their votes on the field
of Mars At length an Emperor ty-
rant swept away the polls and the
polling places. Despotism reigned over
man for ten centuries; the very eoncep-
ton of popular election and a popular
rule bad persisted; the right of suffrage
the pledge of independence-died. 1t
was revived in the republics Of the mid
die ages; it lived in the homes of the
workingmen; it passed to Holland and TO
England; it crossed the seas to New Eng
land and sprang up in rare strength. 1t
has spread once more to Italy, TO Ger
many, to every european State, never
again to sink before the rage of depot
or perish in the poisonous embrace of
slavery.
-Twelve-carat gold is made of coin gold
seventy-fve parts, further alloyed with
forty part copper, and twenty-five parts