The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1889-12-14
1T WOULDN'T WORK.

A correspondent writing to the Hell
ena Herald suggests that the present
deplorable situation i'm Montana poll
tics be brought to an end by the resig-
nation Of all members of IN legisla-
ture and the ordering of another cleo
ton in every district i'm h state.
Radical rs The plan is, there are
plenty of people who might be disposed
to favor il, but for the cardinal diff
Guilty of which account is not taken i'm
the letter of the Herdid's correspon-
dent. The state is i'm u at this
hour whether the people of MOntanadO
the voting or whether the work of
seating or defeating candidates rests
with obscure boards of county
ers. That is a point on which
the two political parties i'm the state
are squarely at issue, it is the only
cause for the existing deadlock mt
Helena and il is the issue about which
all doubt must be removed before vOt-
ers can yer again go to the polling pre-
cincts with the assurance that their
ballots are to be of m account what
over when the final figures are made.
Take the silver Bow case as an illus
tration. One hundred and seventy
four votes were thrown out there by
the Offsetting fiat of two men. Tech
nical irregularities were charged. The
same general style of irregularities OBJ
tanned at other precincts in that very
county, yet the same gentlemen counted
these precincts i'm. Itappears, therefore,
that two men may exclude a precinct
for any technical fault i'm the returns,
yet they may include another precinct
where kindred errors confessedly are
found. Under this arrangement no
precinct is safe. Its vote is subject t.
"a, .I...x4t<. sA On, ,l--zx aA A.. ,.,l-
of two county commissioners, and il
two precincts, each having irregular
returns, present themselves, these COM
missioners may count the one and re-
ject the other.
Blu the evil may run far back of the
commissioners. Under the precedent
established i'm Silver Bow, designing
men may easily arrang with clerks or
judges at scattered precincts for the re-
currence of irregularities like those al
legged against the tunnel precinct, and
h precinct officers may thus
provide i'm advance, with plan
and purpose. any of the little technical
irregularities needed for n exclusion
of every vote ut the poll they serve,
thus making the C of the popular
will the veriest farce.
The suggestion of the Helena Her.
AIDS correspondent is therefore subject
to radical objection. The people might
go to the polls again i'm January, but
the men who deliberately threw out the
tunnel vote i'm October can find some
new precinct to plumber next month,
and thus the people will be as much in
the dark as ever in their effort to learn
who elects members of the legislature.
or where the voters rights end and the
politicians power begins.
For this reason the STANDARD has
reiterated the assertion that the mere
election of two senators by compro
mise would be meaningless. Ii would
not clear the political sky, il would not
afford any ven of assistance for i'm
perilled popular rights. More than this,
the choice of senators is not IL question
of deep interest to h people. On the
other hand, however, h personal con-
test waged in Helena is doubtless barr
ing h progress of the people. and if
the HeTdid's correspondent were to
propose that Helena be made too hot
for these selfish aspirants, that every
candidate for the federal senate. repub-
lican or democrat. be compelled to
throw up his political hands and retire
from the field for good and
all. we fancy that h popular response
to the suggestion would lack little of
being the unanimous vote of the people.
rhE CrlOA