The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-01-25
REFORM OF PRIMARIES.

! A national conference on practical re-
form of primary elections was held in
New York the other day. Among other
things, the call said:
Our caucus or primary election Gus
toms and laws lie al the very root and
source of our entire elective franchise
| system, and if the springs be defect
I i've, imperfect or impure, it follows that
/ the main stream and current which
flow therefrom must, 10 a greater or
/ less extent, be polluted. The misrule
of our larger cities is directly traceable
and due in a large measure to the
practices Of the caucus or primary
election system. To purify this sys-
tenn is, therefore, to take a long and
unqualified step in the direction of
aggressive honesty, pronounced econ
omy and recognizable efficiency in
every branch of the public service.
Therefore the enactment of laws to rid
the commonwealth of corrupt caucus
or primary election practices, and to
establish the rights of the voter to
take part in such caucus or primary
by throwing all the safeguards of
regular election around the polls and
ballot boxes of the same, it is believed,
will at once encourage all good citi-
Zens to take part therein. The con-
0hCl VI GleCilOHS anu cduCuSeS
for the choice of delegates to nominat-
ing conventions has given rise to grave
criticism, and is justly regarded as
serious menace to good government,
and may be justly called the danger
point in our present system of practical
politics. The proposed methods Of meet
ing the difficulties of the system have
so far seemed insufficient when put to
the test of practical application IN our
largest cities, and the situation pre-
sents increasing difficulties and dan
gers.
Students of politics will recognize the
business of these comments. Like evils
and defects in everything else, they
are much easier to recognize than to
remedy, yet it is only by recognizing
them that a remedy can ever be eound.
4 usually suggested remedy is that
all voters attend the primaries of their
parties and participate in the selection
of delegates to conventions. This sug-
gestion is very good. but how is it
possible to get voters to primaries
when it is found so difficult TO get them
to the polls? 1t seems that it is al
ways the good citizens" who stay
away from the primaries: in fact it has
got TO be the case that when a citi-
zen does perform his political duty and
goes 10 the primaries he is denounced
as a heller and ward worker by
the good citizens" who do not attend
the primaries; at least it has got TO he
the case in this city The trouble with
these good citizens" who Go not go to
the primaries is that they are entirely
too good.
There are defects in the primaries,
but how are they to be cured? Parties
persist, but the units composing them
are constantly changing. Here is a
first difficulty. A man may ATTEND
primary and vote for delegates 10 a
convention and when that convention
has done its work he may so disap-
prove of it as TO reject 1t by voting
for a totally different ticket So his
right to participate in primary could
hardly be determined by what his fu-
ture intentions are; in fact, he may
at the time he participates in the cen
vention, honestly and sincerely intend
to stand by his party and yet may not
eventually do so. A mans right to
participate III d primary lilSil. VIII 81
ways depend mostly upon how he has
voted in the past.
The Importance of the work Of the
primary. lies in the fact that most
people are really very partisan and
stand by their parties no matter how
much they may disapprove of their
for Office. So long as voters
stand by their party whether righJ or
wrong, the work of the primary be-
comes of first Importance. because it is
there that the conventions are made |
UP. Whenever voters become indepen- !
dent and break loose from their par
ties, then the primary loses much of its !
for it ceases to be the alb
solute master. A remedy, then, and |
one that is most easily and readily ap-
piled, for the evils of the primary, is
the independence of the voter when his
party has come under the control of |
elements. And voters viii |
apply this remedy whenever they re-
alize, and act upon the realization, that |
parties are means to an end.