The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-12-27
Regulation of Congressional EIec-
tons.

That Congress has constitutional power to
regulate the method of elections for members
OF the House of Representatives admits of
no serious doubt. Congress may 90 so far,
even, as to take the control of them entirely
from the States, and place them in the hands
OF the Federal Judiciary or Board of Com
mlssloners specially created for the purpose.
without exceeding its constitutional powers.
UP TO the present time, however, Congress
has exercised this power only to an exceed
ingly limited extent. The States have been
left practically free to arrange these elections
as they saw fit. But at the present session of
Congress an effort will undoubtedly be made
to change all this, and place congressional
elections under the control of the national
government. Indeed Senator Chandler has
already introduced bill having this object
in view, and Mr.. Henry Cabot Lodge is for
mulating one ofssimilar purpose. Undoubt-
edly the cause Of this movement is to be
found in the force and fraud with which
Southern congressional elections held under
the auspices of the Southern States are
habitually tainted. The design of both Mr..
Chandler and Mr.. Lodge is to secure a pure
ballot, where now under existing conditions
a pure ballot is impossible
The existing obstacles TO pure ballot in
the Southern States are intimidation. nv
which voters are kept away from the polls.
and fraudulent counting, by which n false
return is made OF the votes deposited in the
ballot box pure ballot cannot be had nm.
til both these obstacles are removed. The
elimination Of false counting will be at best
but partial cure for the evil, and it NAV be
no cure at all, inasmuch as with the opportu
mites for false counting removed intimidation
may be so stimulated as to make it cover
as much fraud as intimidation and
false counting together had previously
done. The weakness of Senator Chand.
ler's bill seems to be that it pro-
Vldes no safeguard against intimidation
1t will no doubt cure false counting. and if
Will very likely prevent open intimidation at
the polls. That is TO say, if negro comes
to the polls on election day he will not be
driven away, and his vote will be fairly
Counted. There was a time when this meas
ure OF protectionwOuld have been worth
good deal to the negro. But that time has to
great extent gone by. Comparatively little
intimidation is now practiced at the polls.
The work is spread over the whole year. The
idea is instilled into the negroes in a thousand
different ways that it will be for their adyan
tage to stay away from the polls on election
Gay and to keep aloof from politics gener-
any What MI Grady in his Boston speech
called the force Of banded intelligence" is
s'eauliy at work to keep the negro out of
poltics' and how successful it has been the
condition OF things in the State of Missis-
sippi testiles Here the negroes are yerv
largely in the majority, and they are natu.
rally Republicans, yet SO thoroughly cowed
nave they become that the Republicans find
it useless to even nominate State ticket
Mr.. Chambers bill in no way reaches this
form of intimidation. 1t assures the negro
protection on one day in 100 and leaves him
70 the mercy Of his surroundings the remain,
Jog 729 That this will tend IN any conqdeTa-