St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-06-21
THE ELECTION BILL.

There is no reason to doubt that
Speaker REED will have the house adopt
the bill agreed upon by the Republican
caucus to control the congressional cleo
tons. 1t may be hard for some of the
party to take, but the speaker can force
them TO it. There are hopeful indica-
tons that the senate will tdrn away
from his dictation. The Republicans
who voted for free silver, it is init
mated, have some sort of understanding
with the Democrats in the matter. If
necessary, the Democrats can defeat it,
probably, by talking. Senator BLAIR
defeated his educational bill by talking
seven or eight days for it. Under the
rules of the senate, not likely to be
Reedized for the occasion, the Demo-
Gratis can all develop into BLAIRs on
this bill. The measure is the expedient
of desperation. In his banquet speech
atPittsburg Speaker REED indicated the
exigency to be met by this legislation.
He declared that continuous victory
the Republicans must have" AS the
essential condition for that he further
said, 'We must do our own registra-
ton, our own counting and our own
certifcation." This is all the bill pro-
posed is designed for. 1t provides for a
supervisory system to be extended to
all the small precincts in any district on
petition of fifty voters, with variety of
gentlemen who may stand around
twelve days or less, at S. day and
double that OH election day. Should the
law be operated in all districts. it is esti-
mated that it will give employment to
100000 men at an expense of SIG, 900, 900.
They are to be appointed by the district
judges, who must, Of course. be guided
by the local politicians. There would
be a Republican returning board in
every district. The intention, of course,
is to have the law operated only
in the South, as in the North
its annoyances and veXations would dis
gust the people. Should it be passed,
probably the Democrats would insist
that its methods should be illustrated in
the other sections as we'll as the South.
These federal agencies are to make re-
turns of the elections as well as the state
officials; and one characteristic feature
of the system is that in case of disagree
ment of the two sets of officials, the
clerk of the house of representatives is
to enter Oh the roll the man returned
by the federal board. A Republican
member moved to amend so that neither
contestant could take his seat until the
house had decided between them; but
this was rejected in caucus. This illus
trates its spirit and purport The only
hope of Republican control of the next
congress is in the exclusion of the men,
bers from the South. Contestants could
easily be had in half of the districts, and
seats given them IN the organization on
the reports of these partisan returning
boards. 1t would be impossible that
there would not be frequent collisions
between these two sets of election off
Gals, and all the bitterness of the re-
construction times would be had
throughout the South. Riots and blood
shed would inevitably ensue. Senator
CARLISLE. who is not an extremist,
prOnounces it Outrageous, revolution
airy and shamefully partisan" Itwould
revive the bloody shirt times, and undo
the pacific work of years. 1t is fortu-
nate that SO many of the Republican