The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1896-03-19
NOMINATE L. $. SENATOR'S BY
CONVENTIONS.

Senator Mitchell, of Oregon, is en-.
deavoring to get bill through Congress
providing for an amendment to the
United States Constitution to secure the
election of Senators bya direct vote of
the people.
The idea is good one, for it is a ser.
ious question whether the present sys.
TEN OF betraying the people for price,
and wickedly outraging law and decency
by knocking down seats in the senate to
the highest bidder, will not sooner or
later, and soon at the latest, end in the
most detestable Of all forms of despot.
ism. But trying to skim the clouds
from the sky with a teaspoon is equally
as probable as trying to amend the fed
eral constitution so as elect senators by
direct vote of the people.
Every year some senator to curry
favor with the people, will introduce a
bill OF this sort. When once presented
that is the last ever heard Of it. Nobody
knows better than the senator's them.
selves that to amend the federal consti-
tuition for this or any other purpose is
next to an utter impossbility. In the
last thirty years more than five hundred
Joint resolutions calling for amendments
to the constitution have been proposed
in the House and Senate and several of
them have been on the very same ques-
ton which Senator Mitchell proposes, but
scarcely ever does any of them reach a
vote.
The House. however, did pass an
amendment favoring the election of sem
ators by the people during the SD con-
gress, but it will never pass the senate.
There are two reasons why it must
ultimately fail: First, because there is
an organized effort among millionaire
senator's who now hold over one-fourth
Of the seats, to defeat it.
Second, because it is hopeless task to
get any amendment tackled on to the
Constitution. only orce since 1904 have
any amendments to the constitution been
adopted, and then it was done as war
measure.
There is one way by which United
States Senators can practically be elected
by vote Of the people, and that is the
plan which was adopted in 1890 by the
Illinois Democrats. Ex-Governor John
NJ. Palmer was a candidate for United
States Senator and he was nominated by
the State convention. He went before
the people as the Democratic candidate
and it was understood by everybody
that Palmer would be the Senator in the
event of the Democrats controlling the
legislature. The Democrats elected 10l
members, which was two less than a ma
.iority, but Palmer got the vote of every
one OF them on every ballot and finally
won the election by combination with
the POpulists Four years later Frank
lin McNeigh was nominated in the same
way, and would have been elected in the
same manner, but his party was beaten
at the polls.
This is the only practical way in which a
reform can be accomplished in this di-
rection. If such a plan were to be
adopted by both parties in every state
in the Union, a convention would be as
careful about its nominee for Senator as
it would for Governor or any other state
officer. And not until such a plan is
adopted will we return to the days of
old when the United States Senate con-
tanned men, crowned with strict honesty
and clean-handed integrity, who reflect.
ed honor upon their posterity.