Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-12-06

evenly divided as are the chief parties of
the present, the liability exists of sudden
and great fuctuation in the character of
the lower house of Cangress. Whatever,
therefore, contributes to keep the Senate
free from sach fuctuation, tends to con-
serve stability and calm and wiser legisla-
ton.
But do similar reasons apply to the pro-
posed selection of the President and Vice.
President by direct vote? We believe
that they do, and that the election of the
Chief Magistrate in that manner would
tend to concentrate too great power in the
chief centers of population, and thus rem
der the Presidential office the creature of
the thickly-settled sections, and independ-
ent ofresponsibility to the State as a men,
Der to the Union.
New York, Boston, Philadelphia and
Chicago, or perhaps any two of them
might be able to dictate who should be-
come Chief Magistrate metropolitan in
terests and demands would override those
more widely distributed, and thus another
check wisely interposed by the fathers to
instability and radical change would be
removed.
Commercial and manufacturing interests
cluster about and create great populous
centers, and gain immense power whenever
they wish in legislative and official posts
To give to them the power the proposed
change would tend to do, would be to take
from the widely-distributed agricultural
interests their power in determining ma
tional policies. The adoption of the plan
would, therefore, be absolutely suicidal on
the part of the very influences that COM
pose the Farmers Alliance
The Electoral College preserves the
more evenly distributed representation of
the expressed will of the people in the
choice Of President, though it may be,
and often is true. that the office is filed
by a plurality of what is termed the pop
ular vote. But this too was foreseen by
the fathers, and it did not swerve them
from their wise purpose in making the
Presidential office more broadly repre-
sentative than it could be if filled by a
direct vote.
These very simply and plainly stated
views, purposely simple, direct and free
from any possible liability of misappre-
| hension, are not made without fully
| understanding all the reasons that are adj
vanced by the proponents of the scheme
endorsed by the Farmers Alliance. The
arguments set forth in support of its
plan are old and have been so often re.
| peated that it is not at all necessary to re.
capitulate them. Less frequently are the
reasons operating in favor of the present
methods repeated.
! The people of the United States are
| slow to change constitutional schemes.
The great current of American thought is
conservative; the troubled surface is not
always indicative of the depths of the
national heart. When it comes to COM
hitting to few great centers of population
| the power to name the President and Vice.
President of the nation, we are confident
that the national heart will protest, and
| that the strongest of human motives, self
interest and self protection, will become so
assertive as to stay the hand that would
loose the bonds which now secure us.the
stability under which we have become a
4 first power of the world.