The age-herald., 1898-01-25
CURRENT TOPICS.

CURRENT TOPICS.
 Tho legislatures of several states are wrestling with primary election bills, with
 the view of getting at some solution of the
 vexed question as to corrupt primaries. It
 is now generally understood that the thing
 that makes the political boss possible is the
 power a few persons have of making party nominations which becomes possible
 by the manipulation of primary elections.
 The boss cannot control the votes, but he
 can, and does. control and own the small gatherings that select delegates to nomi- mating conventions. Once destroy this power and the boss Is gone.
 But how is this to be done? It cannot be
 done by tinkering up the present primary system. The fact is patent that this sys- tenn has failed because the voters will not attend such elections, and they cannot be made so they will attend them. Less than 10 per cent of the voters attend the pri-
 mary and it is because of such neglect to attend to their civic duties that the pri-
 mary has become dscreditable. Some
 method of making nominations must be devised other than the one now in use. One of the most simple plans proposed is that of MT. Brooks of New York, and consists in what he calls the use of nominating ballot. The working of the system is simple and effective. Primarily, ''any number of citizens subscribing them selves under oath as belonging to a particu- lar party and who in sympathy with the principles of that party and who voted it's ticket at one or both of the last pre- cedng general elections may petition the board of elections to place upon nominat- ing ballot the name of any citizen whom they wish to be a candidate for their party for a specified office. If this petition be signed by the requisite number, as may be provided by law, the board of elections must place the name of the candidate pro- posed under the name of the office desig- nated."
 The casting of these votes is' done on registration days which precede the elec- ton. When person appears to be regis tered he is given one of these ballots and retires to a booth to mark the candidate of his choice. just as he now does when he
 prepares his Australian ballot at an elec- tion. AS all must present themselves for registration no hardship is worked upon citizen by compelling him to take half a day from his business to attend a primary. He attends to the double duty of registra- tion and selecting candidates at the same time. Further. more persons register than vote, no part of the citizens would be deprived of their rights to express their
 preferences at a nominating convention.
 The people have the same right to nomi- nate their candidates that they have to vote for and elect them, and by this simple device the labor of selecting, or nominat- ing, candidates is so simplified as to take none of the citizens time.
 The plan gives every person who cares enough about politics to go and register the right to have his say as to his partys
 nominee without interference from a local boss or a ward-heeler. Such a plan would ring the death knell of the political chine. Leaders would remain and party ganizations would be preserved intact, but the loss of the power to nominate would make end of bossism and would result in the nomination of acceptable candidates, independent of trades, bargains and po,iti- cal intrgues.
 By a majority of one vote the senate committee on privileges and elections has
 decided that MT. Corbett, ho ap-
 pointed by the governor of Oregon to fill
 the vacancy in the senate from that state, is not entitled to occupy his seat.
 Senator MitchelPs term as senator ex-
 pired March 3, 1897. and it devolved upon
 the legislator of Oregon to elect a suc-
 cessor. The legislature met but was una- ble to organize, and so could not choose a senator. After the members of the leg islature went home the governor appoint
 ed MT. Corbett to fill the vacancy which the legislature had failed to fill. The question which the senate had to pass upon in the case of Mir. Corbett was whether such vacancy existed the governor could fill by an appointment. It had been the rule with the United
 
 under such circumstances until the case of MT. Mantle, of Montana, came up two
 or three years ago. In that case the leg islature did not elect, and after it adjourn ed the governor appointed MT. Mantle. But the senate then established the rule
 that when a state legislature, from any caus, failed to elect a member of the sen ate it did not create such vacancy the governor could fill under the constitu- tion.
 The senate followed its ruling in the Mantle case and accepted the new rather than the old precedent MT. Corbett is a republican of the gold standard stripe. and his vote was much needed by his party in the senate.
 The state of Massachusetts proposes to
 construct canal across Cape Cod to shorten the distance, by water, between Boston and New York. Gov. Wolcott sug- gested that the work be done by convicts in the state penitentiaries, but this raised the objection from the trades unions that convicts ought not to be employed while
 honest laborers are hunting work.
 But the discussion has gone on until the
 trades unions themselves are at logeer-
 heads upon the subject, faction con- tending that the governors plan would
 take a large number of convicts from work in the skilled trades and put them
 to shoveling Cape Cod sand. In this they
 see a good deal of benefit for skilled la borers. The prison and jail officials faTor the governors plan, as it would give them a chance to put to work men convicted of vagrancy and petty offenses. and whose terms of confinement are short. Any of such prisoners would know enough to shovel sand, and they might be made to earn their keeping at work on the canal
 when they could not be made to do so while locked up in jail for the short terms for which they are committed
 KENTUCKY CPOP REPORT.
 Tourst-Is there much corn raised in