The San Francisco call., 1898-12-02
THE PRIMARY LAW QUESTION.

r HE joint non-political committee appointed by | the different organizations of this city with in-
 structions to frame general primary election law for submission to the coming Legislature ap- pears to be far away from agreement the party leaders were who appointed it. According to published accounts of its deliberations, the commit tee will present majority and minority recommenda- tions, and in this way tangle up matters efectualy ] Senator Stratton, the primary law prophet who framed the declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court declares that he is going to try his hand again. regardless of the work of the committed Thus we shall have, not one measure ndorsed by all the political parties and ebodyng general plan but several embodying the ideas of number of po- ticians who think they understand exactly how poi
 tics can be reformed so as to make 1t certain that they vii, get the offices.
 This subject is one that merits attention than 1t is getting. The committee ought to hold meetings and discuss it. The public may very properly be taken into its confidence, since general primary cleo ton law affects all parties, all governments and the aspirations of the of all parties If there disagreement among the members of the committee
 the details should be given the press in order that the bugs that are gnawing the vtals o the several committeeman may be put under the microscope and subjected to the electric light of public intelligence
 What the people want to know particularly is how the primary law manufacturers going to get the decision of the Supreme Court in the Stratton act It will be remembered that that tribunal discovered the test for voting in this State to have been incorporated in the constitution, which docu ment was overlooked by Senator Stratton when he wrote his act Under the constitution any man may at all elections who is years of age citizen of the United States, resident of his precinct thirty days his county three months, and the State one year. The court said the Legislature could neither add to take from these qualifications, and that, consequently 1t could not prevent Democrats voting Republican primaries vice versa, by prescribing different qualifications.
 How is this difficulty. to be remedied without constitutional amendment? That is what the public wants to know. Our own opinion is that general primary law such as this committee has in its head is hu1nbug. Even if it could be made to- work it would tend to destroy independent voting by strengthening the convention powers of the political bosses. What ought to be done in this State is to let the election laws alone for awhile It is our GUS tom soon as we adopt reform" statute to inn mediately begin an agitation to repeal it. . This is exactly what happened to the Story counting system. That system completely baffed the ballot-box suffers and they let it alone for just election. The reform" Ausraiar system displaced it, notwith- standing it was perfection itself in producing an honest count of the votes.
 In New York general primary law has proved:a qualified success. There Platt and Croker are using to strengthen their respective machines Why does not the committee study results in the Empire State and give its reasoning powers sway? general pri- mary law is not necessarily good thing because it is advocated by the late band of knocked out "re- form Democrats" the authors of all our political troubles: