The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1891-11-11
American Election Days.
New York Evening Post. !

ment, attended with the 1alnlllar scenes
of violence, of bribery, and Of coercion
Of voters which English writer's have
described so picturesquely. In hi
journal Of travel, part of which la:
been published, along with severe cri!i
cisms Of this British mob law at elec
tions, Mr.. Brisbane naively says: How
much more preferable is our method O
electing members of the Legislature il
South Carolina, where the electors give
their votes by balloting, in doing
which bribery is cut up root anc
branch" At that far-away time, when
the whole population of the United
States was but few millions, we have
no doubt that Mr.. Brisbane's views
were shared by Intelligent Americans
North as we'll as South. The ballot
was to them as an emblem Of sanctity
as well as secrecy. In, the soil tilling
communities of the simple time, with
every voter independent, a property
qualification, and wealth and social
rank very nearly equalized, bribery
fell to it's very lowest terms, and about
the only election "trick" we find as
passing plot Of land by deed so as I'd
qualify men for the suffrage; while
election violence was all but impossible
in a nation of stolid and law-loyine
farmers.
At the end Of almost a century since
Mr.. Brisbane's words were written, the
changes in American temper and meth
ods at elections, and in the "cam-
paigns" which precede them, are a
most suggestive study. In that study
nothing is more impressive and cheer
ing than the persistency Of the princi-
pie Of "order" at our elections, in con-
trast with our mother land. For a
number Of decades after the opening
of the present century, British mob
rule and head-cracking at elections
continued almost undiminished. Even
now, at any general British election,
reports Of rioting are not uncommon,
and on one Of the Bradlaugh voting
days in Northampton a few years ago,
a large body of troops had to be trans
ferred to the city to aid the local police
against an anticipated outbreak. Con-
trast with this those quietudes Of an
American voting day which have
never ceased to amaze the De Tocque-
villes and Bryces. 1t is true that for a
while during the middle of our cen-
tury, and in our large cities where they
hod but few voting places, the inevita-
BILE crowds at the polls led to serious
disorders. But the simple mechanical
invention Of small election districts has
made our election days in cities as
quiet as a Sunday. So that, essentially,
the long record of election-day peace
has been unbroken throughout the
country's whole history. Exactly
why, with much the same Anglo
Saxon tempers as our kin beyond sea,
and besides with so many rough voting
elements of other races to be restrained,
we have so long and so successfully
maintained peaceful elections, is per-
haps hard to say, but the creditable
national fact remains. Even our Irish
voters poll their ballots decently in the
United States, while they break each
others heads aud fill the hospitals in
Cork.
The American election day, however,
when we leave its quietudes and conf
pard it with the same occasion in the
ancestral time, becomes much more
sombre. Looking back to the early
decades Of the the century, we find un-
doubtedly defects enough. The Fed
eralists and Democrats were obstinate
10 their partisanship, and often utterly
blind. Politics cut deeply into their
social life, and the Yankee Federalist
inn-Keeper who put out the sign "No
Democrats entertained here" an ex-
ception to therule of partisan bitterness.
The political literature of the time, and
the party Eewpaper, was
savage and truculent enough to make
the organ of to-day seem gentle. But
more than ofsetting all these, there
were none of the sinister forces which
now converge so powerfully on one Of
our election days. There is, in truth,
sort of evil grandeur when we view the
to which these forces have
grown, as our national constitution
has, during half g century become big
and diversified. There are the party
machines in nation, State, town, city
and wards; hundreds Of assistant Or
CARNATIONS, not formerly within the
parties, but co-workers with one or the
other of them; literary bureaus often
sowing lies, and political clubs number
less, all focusing their energies and
trickeries upon the polls. What used
to be very simple and essentially
honest voting act Of our communities
has now become an enormously COM
plex thing, against whose elements of
bribery rnd terrorism and fa!sehood
the contest for pure ballot has gone
on like the battle Of the big guns
sgainst plate armor. Strangely enough,
too, with all quick American aptitudes,
we have followed our mother country
but slowly in purifying our elections
by secret ballot laws and corrupt-prac-
tice acts. The great wave of ballot re-
form which, in three years, has swept
over thirty of our commonwealths did
not come until an Australian ballot had
been tested many years in England,