The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-04-07
THE CITIZEN AND THE cAU us.
Continued from Ninth Page.)

(Conunued from Ninth Page,)
 and vice-president. and until 182
 continued to usurp this right of tn,
 people almost exclusively. In 1924 tn insolent contempt of the congressiona
 caucus for popular rights reached 1t
 height when it attempted to force al
 unwelcome candidate, w. II. Crawford
 upon the country, the friends of Jack
 son, Clay and J. Q. Adams, numbering
 two-thirds of the membership of con
 gress, united in recommending tha
 the fiat of the caucus should be disre Igarded It was, and the machine can.
 didate badly defeated. The defeat for
 ever overthrow that particular method
 of enslaving the public franchise
 Nominations by caucuses of legisla-.
 lures, which had already begun, per.
 sisted few years longer, But the people saw that these too were usur- pations, refused to be cheated oe theil
 rights and erected the expedient o1
 national conventions, intended to req
 lize, as Thurlow Weed said, "the poll
 cy of nominations emanating directly | legislative caucus"
 l IlLfOILlN EINGIONO DH l.
 CAUCUS.
 Having overthrown the congression-
 al caucus and the legislative caucus as nominating institutions. did the peo-
 pie learn effectually to guard their
 prerogatives from the encroachments
 of scheming politicians? A glance at
 the methods by which caucuses are
 run, especially in the larger cities of
 our country, will answer this question. Bryce, has described them in dispas- sionate terms.
 I The committee when it summons the primary settles in secret conclave the names of the delegates to be pro- posed, of course selecting men 1t can trust, particularly office holders bound to the party which has put them in and workers whom the prospect of of- flee will keep faithful When the meeting assemblies, chairman is sug- gested by the committee and usually accepted. Then the list of delegates which the committee has brought down cnt and dry is brought forward If the meeting is entirely composed of professionals, office-holders and their friends, it is accepted without debate. If opponents are present they may pro- pose other names, but the official ma jority is almost always sufficient to carry the official list, and the chair man is prepared to exert in favor of his friends his power of ruling points of order. In extreme cases a disturb ance will be got up in the midst of which the chairman may plausibly de- clare the official list carried, or the meeting is adjourned in the hope that the opposition will not be at the trou- ble of coming next time, a hope likely to be realized if the opposition con sists of respectable citizens who dis like spending an evening in such company"
 But there are other devices for ma the caucus. One is to pack it by secretly drumming up the friends of particular candidate to attend and so it often thrusts a man upon the party whom the people do not want. Another device is the snap called unusually early and with insufficient notice, so that few besides the initiated henchmen are present. Sometimes this trick is l helped by calling the meeting in an ob- l scure place Instances are known | where opponents have been forcibly 1 barred out. Not infrequently notice of the caucus is posted in formal obe- dience to the law, and quickly torn down. In certain eases this piece of i, tactics is helped by misleading those | whose attendance is not desired as to the actual date of the meeting. Or the caucus is appointed for the even ng when the church prayer meetings are held, in the hope that the church folk will adhere to their pious duties and not bother the politicians. In certain large cities the majority of ,itizens are disfranchised so far as the primaries are concerned George Will jam Curtis wrote in 1880:
 "There are probably fifty-eight or six y thousand republican voters in this ,ity (New York;, and about fifty thou and, or nearly nine-tenths of them, are lot permitted to have any voice what yer in selecting the candidates whom hey are expected to support. Those vho are allowed to vote are the hench- nen of the machine"
 Actual and pronounced frauds are Tn one of the election dis ricts of New York only one vote was asst; after little while the candidate or delegate dropped twenty-two bal ots in the box and wrote on the tally heet twenty-two names The result ! tas that the candidate was elected de,- gate by twenty-three votes Mayer Sulzberger of Philadelphia, yriting in 1881, affirmed that flor years he list of nominees for office in this city z as been publicly known days, weeks ( nd sometimes months before the dele ( ates to choose them were named.' Let no one suppose that underhanded Y nd unfair manipulation of the caucus C confined to few large cities like New t ork and Philadelphia. Smaller cities ave their own story to tell history V lis line is making in Connecticut also c nd even country townships have their a osses and juntos. The government of t le country seems to be degenerating 'om a government by the people, for le people, to one by professional poli- clans for what there is in it.
 RESULTS OF CAUCUS ABUSES. off +s I-i, |