The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1897-06-04
Evades Its Own Pretended Provisions for the
Protection of the Minority Party During the
First Two Years Of Its Operation.
Connected by Shrewd Republican Partisans, It
Is Measure Of Partisan Iniquity Little Short
Of the Odious Force Bill.
Published by Authority of the Maryland
Democratic Editors Association.

Published by Authority of the Maryland
Democratic Editors Association.
The essential principle of the Australian bal
lot system, which has sustained public senti-
ment in many States of the Union in incorpor-
ating its cumbrous and expensive provisions
into their election laws is that it affords to the
individual voter the privilege of voting secret
ballot This privilege. thus SO dearly supposed
to be attained, has been understood to etfec-
tually rid the voter from the domination and
power of those who may have controlling in
1uence, by reason of other relations in life,
over his individual political action. Upon this
ground, solely, of securing liberty of action IN
the exercise of his elective franchise on the
part of the individual voter, freed from the
control of those who are in a position to ex-
ercise a coercive or intimidating influence
upon him, has the Australian ballot system ap-
pealed to the favor of the advocates of election
-eform, and this single and distinctive feature,
as has been already stated. is the essential prin-
cipe of the system 1t must follow, therefore,
that any law purporting to embody the Aus
tralian system, which, instead OF freeing the de-
pendent class of voters from the espionage, su-
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 SUI
pervision, exercises very sautary influence IN
securing free and untrammeled expression
of the popular will. The domination in politi-
cal matters of corporations and other large EN-
ployers of human labor had grown to be po-
tent and dangerous influence in elections, and
the Australian system as an elective reform
has grown in favor remedy to this great
and growing mischief.
But the illiterate voter, who cannot read or
mark his own ballot, has always constituted
troublesome factor in the problem of giving
practical application 70 the Australian theory
He, instead of being screened from observation
by the new machinery, is subjected to more
close and complete scrutiny in the marking of
his ballot for him by the officers designated for
that purpose, who always the partisans of
the leading political parties. Therefore, when
the proposition first made to introduce the
Australian idea into the Maryland election law
in I8oo-many of the more thoughtful Demo-
cratic leaders were apprehensve that the large
per centage of illiterates in Maryland, belong
ing almost exclusively to the Republican party,
would give improper advantage to that party
in the operation of the system, in that it would
subject the illiterate colored voters more COM
pletey than ever to the espionage and domi-
nation Of those who had become the political
leaders in the communities where they pre-
dominate.
These complaints came more especially from
thoughtful Democrats in the Negrodominated
counties, which had at that time, under the old
ballot system, just fairly begun to emerge from
more than decade of ruinous Negro domi-
nation. A condition of affairs has existed for
years in those counties, 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 won
derful cohesion of the Negro vote was secured
ties and Negro domination thereby fastened
upon them, will no doubt be surprise to
many good citizens of the city and of sister
counties, who view the matter complacently
from distance, and sometimes upon not great
provocation show a disposition to cooperate
with those bad forces. sentiment has been
cunningly inculcated into the minds of the ig-
norant and superstitious Negro voters, and
more especially of the women and children
who constitute their families, that for colored
man to vote anything but the straight Repub-
hcan ticket is to be traitor to his race and a
sinner of objectionable offense This senti-
ment. shrewdly disseminated through well lu-
bricated colored preachers and other ineen-
iously chosen agencies. made a deep impress.
sion on the rank and file of the colored popu-
lation, which still exists to a very general ex-
tent, especially among the women
But gradually, through the ameliorating in
huence OF daily and neighborly intercourse with
the whites. this condition of compact race an
tagonism began to show evidences of relaxa-
ton among the more kindly disposed of the
Negroes, and after a years experience under
the first National Democratic administration
demonstrated that they would not be put back
into slavery by the Democrats" as direfuIlv
predicted to them at midnight GATHERINGS
many OF them quietly and unknown to their
political masters voted the Democratic ticket.
with the result that in the election of 1895 all
the counties OF the Southern Maryland PENN
suia at a single stroke threw off the incubus
OF Negro domination. This secret ballot the
wen disposed colored voter was enabled to
cast under the old system, when the respective
tickets OF the opposing political parties were
printed on separate ballots and so delivered to
him. he would conceal the Democratic ticket
which had previously been delivered to him
and which he desired to vote, carefully in his
pocket, and then joining the vociferous colored
procession would march up to their partisan
boss. the Republican ticket holder, and re-
ceiving 4 ticket from him, march along ND to
the window quite enthusiastic as any of the
rest. But he would easily manage in the en-
thusiasm Of the occasion to make the Republ;
can and Democratic tickets which he carried
exchange places. and the latter would go into
the ballot box from the hands of an apparentlv
enthusiastic colored Republican In this wav
the well meaning colored citizen was enabled
cleverly to avoid the disfavor of his white
bosses, the ostracism of his coored brethren.
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 a controlling force IN
their communities, and the deceptiye methods
under the old system by which thew had been
evaded, the Democratic leaders and press in
the Southern Maryland counties when the
Australian system Of voting was being consid,