The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1897-01-23
LIVE QUESTIONS.
A Series Of Articles Contributed by
Advanced Thinkers.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS.

carry NEWS Iom NC" A"1PshAro w
Georgia was then matter OF weeks.
The dispatch which announced the
opening of the war at Lexington was
carried by expresses, who thought to
show their patriotism by the swiftness
with which they rode. And this dis
patch was 81 days old when it reached
the patriots in Savannah.
But the inventions of the railway and
the telegraph have changed all this. A
man may now easily travel from Port
land to San Francisco in less time than
Sam Adams needed to ride to the con-
tinental congress from Boston to Phila-
delphia. And when the traveller from
Maine arrives in San Francisco now he
finds the news he brings with him is al
ready six days old. The telegraph had
told San Francisco that he had started
before he was we'll out of the Portland
station.
1t is all the more curious, therefore,
that the prudent arrangement made for
an electoral board by the constitution
should be really better adapted to the
present condition Of affairs than it was
to the times of Franklin, Sherman and
Gerry, who made it. The system which
places electors between the people and
the president whom it chooses and
which makes them the deaf and dumb
slaves of the people has long been re-
garded as the most serious defect in the
working machinery of the constitution.
1t is so. And yet it is easy to imagine
conditions now in which it would work
much more happily than it did in the
conditions in which and for which it
was made.
The real electors of today are the
delegates to the rival conventions. On
the persons appointed to attend those
conventions depends the choice Of the
next president They know this, and
the people who choose them know it,
Unfortunately they are elected with
hardly any supervision of law or any
provision for the count Of votes which
elect them But, all the same, the dele
gates WELD in the conventions the moral
power Of the states which they represent.
1t is one Of the infelicitios Of such
system that state which has no power
in the national election appears in the
convention as the equal III rights of an
other state sure to give its vote for the
successful candidate. Thus in the Repub-
lican convention, Alabama will be rated
as having as good right to vote as
Vermont, though Vermont will certain
ly give Republican vote and Alabama
will not, and though every one knows
this. In the Democratic convention will
| be observed the same Difference to the
courtesy which makes one state the equal
Of Cnother,
To the Takers Of the constitution any
such convention, even, was fiat i'm
possibility. For half century after
1889 the choice OF candidates was prac-
tically left to congressional caucuses OF
the one party or the other Until Monroe
went out this was of the less impor-
lance, because Virginia'was SO good as
to take the whole contract Of governing
the country. Since that system was
abandoned the convention system has
gained more and more precision of
movement, with more and more power.
But suppose, today, IA deadlock in one
Of the conventions, or, better still, in
both. Suppose that we owed it to the
4 good Offices Of silver or gold, of protec-
tion or tariff, or all these together, that
each convention adjourned without q
nomination In that case each of the
great parties would be forced back on
the plan of the constitution. And il
would work exceedingly well.
Each party would name, in each state,
the strongest possible electoral ticket il
could name, of men commanding the
public confidence, for on such men ev
erything would depend. In Maine Reet
neil would be chosen by the Republic
ans, in Ohio Mckinley men. In New
York the Democrats would vote fol
Whitney men, in Tennessee and Ken
lucky for Carlisle men. Forty.eigh
hours after the November vote would
tell the country whether Republican
or Democratic majority had beef
, gained in the 45 state boards of electors
J No one would care much for whom
the minority party gave its votes. Blu
the electors of the successful party woul'
! meet at Washington or at some othe
central point and determine in conven
tion who should be their candidate
Here we should have a convention rep
resenting majority states, and thos
| states only. The members would hay
been chosen by all the people, not a
now by few eager partisans. The con
vention could sit for one, two or evel
three weeks before the members nee'
, return to their state capitals to give tn
, formal vote which is required under tn
( constitution.
/ This condition of things will not com
g about this year. nor, perhaps, at an
: election within the next decade. But j
/, is more and more probable with ever
!, election, and when it does come abou
. people will be extolling, as they should
/, the wisdom of the fathers who made
S preparation so elastic and SO admirabl
r in any contingency. We are led to con
slider the possibility of such contingent
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