The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-07
A PRIMARY ELECTION LAW.

There are several bills now pending be-
fore the Legislature having for their pur-
pose the amendment of the existing
primary election laws of the State. There
can be no doubt that our primary election
laws in their present form require amend
ment. The reason they do so is principally
because the adoption of the Australian
ballot law so changed about the numbers
OF the code sections referring to elections
in general as to make unintelligible the
chapter of the code which provides for
primary elections and which refers back to
those sections. The issue, therefore, is not
whether an amendment of the primary
elections law is necessary, but rather what
amendment among those suggested is the
best
Two conflicting ideas are to be found in
the proposed measures amending the
primary election law. One aims at making
primary elections compulsory, and re-
quires that all parties shall hold their
primary elections on the same day, and
that all shall be governed as to the time,
place and manner of conducting said cleo
tons by the same rules and by a non
partisan board of election officers selected
IN some non-partisan way. The entire
scope and object of this measure seems to
be to eliminate party organization, abolish
party control and Danish party spirit from
primary elections.
The very statement of the scope and
object OF this measure embodies the strong
est objection to its success which could
possibly be urged. 1t is grave mistake to
attempt to discourage and destroy party
spirit as an element of political organiza-
ton. The existence of parties is a vital
feature of our social system, and their
maintenance an indispensable element of
healthy political life. They are to the
State what the ceaseleSs motion of its
waters is to the sea-au essential to its
purity and preventive of stagnation
and decay. There has been already too
much interference on the part of recent
statute-makers with the rights of men to
ally themselves in parties and to advance
their political views by means of party
spirit. The primary election ought not
to be subjected to the disintegrating
influence of n-partisanship. Every
party, in the selection of the men who
shall compose its own conventions and
nominate its own candidates, should be
free to adopt its own mode of action
There may be some general provisions laid
down by statutes which shall SO regulate
the conduct of primary elections as to
guarantee to the majority membership of
party the right to rule it, and which shall
encourage party spirit to organize along
lines of honest politics. Further than this,
however, the law should not attempt to go.
The former statutes of this State as en-
bodied in the Political Code, contained
simple and satisfactory way to conduct
primary elections which parties might or
might not adopt, as they saw fit, but
which, if selected, insured a reasonably
honest primary. The insertion of the Aus
tralian ballot system into the code, as we
have already stated, disarranged the sec
tions which contained this primary cleo
ton law. The Republican State Central
Committee has had measure drafted and
presented to the Legislature for passage
which proposes to restore the former law,
with certain additions which would more
completely insure the honesty of elections
held under it. If a primary election law is
to be adopted at all by this Republican
Legislature it should be this one or one
similar to it, which preserves party organi-
cation and party spirit at the very foun-
tain OF political activity, the primary cleo
ton,