The Russellville Democrat., 1891-03-05


 be doing justice to my people. Mir President. the masses of the people are honest, the masses of the people of the
 South have proved that they are brave. and. Mir President, do not oppose this | bill, as | did at first, and, kir. my only hope is that this force bill of Arkansas | will react as the national force or
 Lodge bill did to the Republican party l iu the last campaign. Mir. President, |
 do not impugn the motives of any sena-
 tor in this chamber, for you have the same right to your opinion, but, MT. 1 President, you have got to do some 1 thing, owing to the present state of af- fairs of the treasury.
 Mir. President, 1 believe this senate will pass this bill, but, Mr. President, you could no more have passed this bill than you could have flown to the north pole in one minute had it not been for that hellish caucus in which the halter vas put on the boys ard led up to this force bill.
 Now, Mir. President, see you aim to pass this bill. You seem 10 be so un- easy that no senator is allowed to take his seat before you attempt to put thls question and put this bill on it's final passage.
 Now, Mir. Presiden, I will not detain you lon ger, as I see an unprecedented procedure of not letting any one have second speech on this subject, hence let ihc fraud pass.
 Senator Miller made an able speech in defense of me bill. Said he:
 I take different view of this law from either the senator from Yell or the seu- trr Fr., 4 In fhinE If has tendency to centralize the powers of the government. It is true the state board of three election commissioners, when they go to appoint the county board, they shall appoint three men and they in return shall appoint the judges for the various Irecincts of the county, no more than two of whom shall be of the same political faith. Thus you see the power now exercised by one man, the county judge, is by this bill divided equally among three men. This, must submit, Goes not look to me like cen- tralization. The senator from Greene says his main objection to this bill Is because if the county board should fail to provide place for holding the elec- tion, that the sheriff then in that event shoul provide place for holding t. Now, if this is bad law. we have had a bad feature in our law for long time, and we should be getting used to it by this time, for Sec. 2656 of Mansfield's Digest has so provided since January B, 1875.
 There are many beautiful features in the bill, notably so the secrecy of the ballot and the freedom of the voter from the pol, workers and bulldozers on elec- ton day. Electioneer from the begin ming of the campaign up to the day of election, but for Hea. ems sake give the voter time to sleep soundly one night and the right to get up on elec- ton day and go down to the polls on the morning of the election and east his vote like freeman, unannoyed and unmolested by the politicians and can- didates, cooly, calmly and secretly. This will. if honestly carried out give us q free ballot and fair count. It is true that this as well as the present law and all law may be violated, but we cannot help that. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, and were driven from the Garden of Eden, the mind of man has been tinfully and wickedly inclined, but we have got to trust rome one. We now trust the county juJge for honest elections Under the present bill he will have to trust to the honesty of the governor, auditor and secretary of state. the board of county election com missioners, and for one ana willing to try change, and I believe there is enough honesty and intelligence in the Democratic party, and the party of the people to come after her, to give us free and fai cleo ions. If lhe better element of the Democratic party will , ssert itself, we will have no more, trouble in Arkansas over elections, and to that extent the bill is ia the nature of an experim mt; for myself. l am not afraid of the results. If the state should fall into the hands of the enemies of the people, and dishonest men of tLe Democratic party were put at the head of affairs, of course the law would be failure, and the people would suffer; so would they abuse any law. l do not support the bill as a party measure alone, but as reform measure; and in the hands of its friends, or any honest party, we can reasonably expect favor able results.
 The time has come when the people are saying that we must have change in our election laws. Some want the Aus tralian method, others want an ed ncatio nal qualification, and others want poll tax receipt as qualification, and all these features are good, but we find ourselves hampered by our constitution and can't have them, so we have gone as far on the line of reform as We can, and for me, am willing to accept the results, always relying on the people and believing in their capacity 10 gov ern and control themselves. So, MT. President, I shall support the measure, not as a party measure, but as q measure of reform.
 Senator Hill entered his protest against the measure. In brief his re- marks are as follows:
 am opposed to the pending election bill for several reasons, and will state few of them. First, l am opposed to any law tending to centralization or which will enable minority to perpet- ua,e itself in power in defiance of he wishes of the majority, and Ih bill will certainly have that effect. l am op- posed to any radical change in the pres ent election law from the fact that the people do not demand such change. What they want is the enforcement of l the laws we already have. Soms amend | nents 10 the present law that would se- cure the conviction and punishment of | those who perpetrate frauds at elections or ballot box stuffing or stealing, would be all well enough, but such sweeping change as the present bill contemplates is eitainly not wanted by majority of the people of Arkansas at this time. The people will condemn the bill sooner or later because it is cumber- some, and under it's provisions the
 holding of elections will be much more expensive to the people than under the law we already have. As the law now | stands, election frauds cannot be en- tirely covered up, but must be apparent