Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-03-13
ENFORCING ELECTION LAWS.

1t was demonstrated yesterday that
minaticn 10 enforce the election laws, they
can secure observance of them. The law was
but partially enforced here. but enough was
done to establish the Feasibility and, indeed,
the ease with which observance can be Sc
cured ifthe officials arein earnest. The fec-
pie invest their officers with all the authority
they have; they will, therefore, obey them
because the officials represent not ruling
class, but the individual sovereign units
of society. Liberty and universal suffrage
are not guarantees of protection granted by
a superior TO an inferior power, but they
are the results of individual consent and
self-guarantees on the part of toe individual
units that are governed. They carry with
them, therefore, individual responsibilities,
duties and exactions, and one of these is
obedience by the governed to the laws and
their executors whom the governed them
selves have invested with power. Every
citizen says to himself, THE Sheriff, the
policeman, is doing to me what l, not an
other commanded him to do. | am,
therefore, by my own act bound to respect
and obev the official who is carrying out
my own orders"
Whenever there is laxity in the enforce
ment of the law; when there is no effort
made to exercise the functions of authority,
the cause is traceable directly to the people
themselves; they either openly and affirm
atively consent TO performance of
duty, or they neglect to exercise that yigi-
lance which is always essential on the part
of supervising authority, and inseparable
from execution, and in this country
that has but one source-the OBJ
ject against which it is directed. II
is impossible, therefore for any man, by
any sort of reasoning, exhaustive or ether
wise, to escape from the responsibility for
neglect of duty on the part of his Off
cial servants. The man, as Professor Sum-
ner once well said, " is a misfortune to his
community who is endowed with political
power and becomes q heavier burden than
he was before such investment The
genius of our system says to every man
coming of age, You have now your
chance; if you do not improve it, if you
do not manifest your power, you will be
held responsible for the bad results, and
there Is no escaping from it,
The obligations are mutual and equal tc
be good citizens. OF the rich man, or the
official, no more is or can be expected thar
of the poor, or the non official-upon each
he responsibility is the same to respect the
laws andto require others to respect and
obey them. Outside of obligation, duty
and responsibility to the State, conditions
may be and are differing, but within those
lines all men stand equal in this Republic
and are equally charged with political duty
Its neglect, therefore, visits results upon all
the people equally. There may be apparent
exception or inequality in some cases, bu
it is merely apparent. When there ha:
been any paralysis of the law, any failure
to command its observance, we repeat, the
evil is visited with unerring certainty
sooner or later, upon every individual u
the community. 1t may not be for time
material or palpable, but it will pay its
visit eventually in some form. That oui
election laws have heen SO frequently dead
letters has, therefore, been due simply and
only to a torpor of the sense of response
bility on the part of majority of the peo
pie. They can be enforced whenever and
wherever this sense of responsibility by
the citizen is ouickened into command to
the officials to obey.