The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1902-04-12
is OPPOSED TO
STATE PRIMARY.
Livingston, April 9, 49,

Livingston, April y, 19O2.
To the Editor of The Age-Herald.
Your letter requesting an opinion from
me regarding state and county primaries
has just been received. 1 am opposed to
the state committee ordering a state
primary. The Democratic state commit
tee was created and elected by the DEM
ocrats of Alabama in convention assem-
bled, and l do not think 1t would be
right for them to destroy the power that
created them. Let them call a conven-
ton of the Democrats of Alabama, as
they have always done in the past, and
as they have a right and as 1t is their
duty to do for the nomination of state
officers and to transact all other bust
ness of the party. Then let that conven-
ton adopt primary or any other method
the Democrats of Alabama may desire.
/ know of no evidence showing that the
Democrats of Alabama desire to change
our present convention system into q
state primary. True, several great and
prominent men and newspapers have ex-
pressed themselves as favoring such a
change, but that Is not evidence, when
the Democrats of Alabama vote upon a
question, that Is evidence of their de-
sires, and they have never voted for a
state primary, and If they want 1t, they
will surely have it. II state primary is
a better way to get what the people
want, surely state convention COM
posed of delegates selected by the DEM
ocrats of the various counties, while this
very question was being agitated and
discussed would be a much better ex-
preston of what the party wants, than
the opinion of newspapers and men
without authority, or committee select
ed by a state convention two years be-
fore when no such question had been
raised
l am opposed to a state primary for
many reasons; one Is 1t would practical
ly disfranchise the people living in the
thinly settled parts of the state, and put
all of the political power and offices of
the state in the hands of the large cities
and the few rich men that would be able
to make thorough canvass of the state.
Most people will generally vote for their
home man, or the man they happen to
know, whether he is the most competent
man or not. The people in the various
thinly settled counties of the state will
scatter their votes on their various local
candidates, while the cities will do the
same thing, and will elect their men,
while very large majority of the people
of the state might much prefer any other
man in the race, but they would be so
scattered, and divided that the most
unpopular, and maybe the least compe-
tent man would succeed because some
particular section or faction would stand
solidly for him.
1t seems to me there Is great danger of
a bad form of sectionalism arising out of
the state primary plan and also a great
opportunity for shrewd, ambitious and
INSCRIPTIONS demagogues and agitators
to get control of the state / think coun-
ties ought to be allowed to make their
own nominations in the way they like
best, and the state ought never to inter-
fere unless absolutely necessary.
Tharo c a great diffarpnCa hatwppn
a county and state primary; the counties,
as a rule, are so small in this state, and
the people know each other so well 1t is
impossible for sectionalism to amount to
much. Knowing all the candidates. they
will generally vote for the men they like
best or consider the most competent. The
people of the counties see each other so
often and understand each other 30 well,
and have so many meetings Of other
kinds that 1t is not near so necessary for
them to meet in convention as 1t Is the
people from the various parts of the
state who rarely ever meet on any other
occasion. 1t Is the rarest thing that a
delegate to a Democratic state conven-
ton of Alabama ever violates his instruc-
lions: IL he does, the whole world knows
1t and the delegate is disgraced; while
great frauds can be perpetrated in the
primary and nothing known about it. 1t
seems to me that the people in the vari-
Gus counties of the state are just as COM
petent to select their own delegates from
among themselves, that they know well,
and know who to trust, as they are can
didates all about over the state, many of
whom they could not know and never
saw 1t has been my experience that the
people always send the delegates to con-
ventions that the majority want and l
do not see how it could be prevented en-
less they elected them by primary in
the beats or counties and were swindled
in the count and that certainly would
not be in favor of primaries.
In a convention every man has to show
his hand and vote open and above board,
while in primaries there might be great
frauds never detected. There can be just
as stringent laws enacted for conventions
as there can be for primaries ana 'he
nroof Of their violation much easier.
p-o R. L. Scale.