The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1897-06-05

lican PartisanS.
Evades It's Own Pretended Provi-
sions for the Protection OF the
Minority Party During the First
Two Years of Its Operation.
Concocted by Shrewd Republican
Partisans, It Is a Measure of Par
tisan Iniquity Little Short OF the
Odious Force Bill.
Published by Authority of the Maryland Demo
cratic Editors Assoeiation.l
The essential principle of the Australian
ballot system, which has sustained public sen
timent in many States of the Union in incOr-
porating its cumbrous and expensive provi-
sions into their election laws, is that it affords
TO the individual voter the privilege of voting
a secret ballot This privilege, thus so dearly
supposed to be attained, has been understood
to effectually rid the voter from the domina-
ton and power of those who may have a con-
trolling influence. by reason of other relations
in life, over his individual political action.
Upon this ground, solely, of securing liberty
chise on the part of the Individual voter, freed
from the control of those who are in a position
to exercise eoereive or intimidating influence
upon him, has the Australian ballot system
appealed to the favor of the advocates of cleo
ton reform, and this single and distinctive
feature, as has been already stated, is the es-
sential principle of the system. 1t must follow,
therefore, that any law purporting to embody
the Australian system, which, instead of free
ing the dependent class of voters from the
espionage, supervision and domination of the
class whose influence and resentment they
fear and are subservient to, subjects them more
completely than ever before to such espionage,
supervision and domination, is a sham reform
which ought to have the condemnation and
not the support of honest men.
-
In States largely engaged in manufacturing
industries. corporate works and the like, where
the dependent laborers, who were subjected to
the controlling influence of their employers,
are for the most part men capable of reading
and marking their own ballots, the Australian
ballot machinery, which screens the voter
while in the act of voting from all espionage
and supervision, exercises very ealutary in
fuence in securing a free and untrammeled
expression of the popular will. The domina
ton in political matters of corporations and
other large employers of human labor had
grown to be potent and dangerous influence
in elections, and the Australian system as an
elective reform has grown in favor as a remedy
to this great and growing mischief
But the illiterate voter, who cannot read or
mark his own ballot, has always constituted a
troublesome factor in the problem of giving
practical application to the Australian theory.
He, instead of being screened from observa-
ton by the new machinery, is subjected to
more close and complete scrutiny in the mark
ing of his ballot for him by the officers desig-
mated for that purpose, who are always the
partisans of the leading political parties.
Therefore, when the proposition was first
made to introduce the Australian idea into
the Maryland election LAWN 1S90-many of
the more thoughtful Democratic leaders were
apprehensive that the large per centage of
lliterates in Maryland, belonging almost ex-
clusively to the Republican party, would give
improper advantage to that party in the oper-
alton of the system, in that it would subject
the iliterate colored voters more completely
than ever to the espionage and domination of
those who had become the political leaders in
the communities where they predominant.
These complaints came more especially
from thoughtful Democrats in the Negro
dominated counties, which had at that time,
under the old ballot system, just fairly begun
to emerge from more than decade of ruinous
Negro domination. A condition of affairs
has existed for years in those countless of
which the voters of the other counties and
Baltimore city have no fair conception. The
extraordinary methods of intimidation and
coercion by which the wonderful cohesion by
the Negro vote was secured and for many
1 IL i
domination thereby fastened upon them, will
no doubt be surprise 10 many good citizens
of the city and of sister counties, who view
the matter complacently from distance, and
sometimes upon not great proyocation show a
disposition to cooperate with those bad forces.
A sentiment has been cunningly inculated
into the minds of the ignorant and superstiti
GUS Negro voters, and more especially of the
women and children who constitute their
families, that for colored man to vote any
thing but the straight Republican ticket is to
be traitor to his race and sinner of un-
pardonable offense. This sentiment, shrewdly
through well fabricated colored
preachers and other ingeniously chosen
agencies, made a deep impression on the rank
and file of the colored population, which still
exists TO very general extent, especially
among the women.
But gradually, through the ameliorating in
auence of daily and neighborly intercourse
with the whites, this condition of compact
race antagonsm began to show evidences of
relaxation among the more kindly disposed
of the Negroes, and after years experience
under the first National Democratic admins
tration demonstrated that they would not be
''put back into slavery by the Democrats,
as direfully predicted to them at midnight
many of them quietly and unknown
to their political masters voted the Demo
cratic ticket, with the result thai in the elec
ton of 1885 all the counties of the Southern
peninsula at single stroke threw
off the incubus of Negro domination. This
secret ballot the well disposed colored voter
was enabled to cast under the old SYSTEM
when the respective tickets of the opposing
political parties we're printed on separate bal
lots and so delivered TO him. He would con-
ceal the Democratic ticket, which had pre-
viously been delivered to him and which he
desired to vote, carefully in his pocket, and
then joining the vociferous eolored procession
would march up to their partisan boss, the
Republican ticket holder. and receiving a
ticket from him, march along up to the win
dow quite as enthusiastic as any of the rest
But he would easily manage in the enthusiasm
Of the occasion to make the Republican and
Democratic tickets which he carried exchange
places, and the latter would go into the ballot
box from the hands of an apparently enthusi
astic colored Republican. In this way the
we'll meaning colored citizen was enabled
cleverly to avoid the disfavor Of his white
bosses, the ostracism of colored brethern, and
above all the repeatedly threatened and much
feared vengeance of the dear (?) ones at home.
~
Well knowing the system of intimidation
and coercion by which the Negro vote had
been compacted and made controlling force
m their communities, and the deceptive
methods under the old system by which they
had been evaded, the Democratic leaders and
press in the Southern Maryland counties, when
The Australian system of voting was being
considered by the Legislature of 1890, very
naturally entertained and expressed grave APP
rrehensions lest its application to the litter
aie colored voters might prove to be an in-
of again compacting the Negro
vote and restoring the bad domination which
nad proved so hurtful to their section. On
he other hand the Republican leaders in the |
Negro dominated section. chagrined and
alarmed at the large detection in the Negro
vote which had manifested itself in the few
preceding years, and which they were power
ess to locate and coerce renewed allegiance,
naturally welcomed system which promised |
% place the illiterate Negroes under the strict |