The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-08-03
CHAIRMAN DAYS DECISION.
FLORIDA POLITICIANS WORRIED
AT TURN OF AFFAIRS.

Thought MIR. Day Had Given Up and
That Hon. Jefferson b. Browne Had
N Sure Thing for the Railroad
COmmissiOn-Second Primary VIII
BE Warm, Owing to Mr.. Days
Card-Expense of Second Primary
Are no Funds-Choice May Be Left
to People at General Election.
Tallahassee, Fla, Aug. 1.-THE de-
cision of Chairman H. E. Day of the
ond primary, has proven disagreeable
surprise to the faction to which the
Hon. jefferson B. Browne of Key
West, has attached himself: and the
contest in the Twelfth now promises
TO be an exciting one, with conse-
quences that may eventually prove far
reaching.
1t will be remembered that Messrs.
Browne and Day both ran in the first
primary for the two vacancies in the
commissions and that the Key West
man polled 50 more votes than his OPP
ponents. AS two other candidates
Ward and Whitner-were in the race
neither of the two leading
contestants secured the major
ity vote necessary to insure his
faction with which Mr.. Browne acts,
has all along assumed that Mr.. Day
would be frightened off by ,the expense
attached n a a fNriT m ~ fnV hl
sole benefit of two star performers,
there has never from the first, been
8ny doubt in the minds of his friends
that Chairman Day would make the
race, and make it hot for the Monroe
county politician.
MIR. Brownies platform contains one
plank that will turn all West and Mid
die Florida against him. He advocates
the removal of the railroad commits
sion from Tallahassee to Jacksonville
"a proposition in which the people
OF this section see the enter
ing wedge of the capital removal
agitators, who were so decisively de-
feated in the last general election. Dur
ing that agitation an attempt was at
one time made by the Duval county
manipulators to compromise the mat
ter by securing the removal of the Su-
preme Court from the capital to Jack
sonville-which proposition, however,
was promptly turned down by the Leon
county leaders, who contended that if
the process of transference was once
begun, it would never be checked I'M
til the removal of the capital from
Tallahassee had been fully accomplish
ed.
1t has not yet been decided, however,
where the money to cover the cost of
this second primary is to come from,
1t is estimated that from $1,000 to SO, 900
Will be necessary to operate the COM
plicated primary machine in the forty
ive counties of the state, and though
1t is generally supposed that this large
sum may be raised by the assessment
of the two candidates, the law justifies
no such course. Under the primary
act no candidate can be assessed over
per cent, of the salary of the office
for which he is running That assess
ment has already been paid by both
candidates, and should they volunteer
to pay il over again it would amount
to only $3.50, leaving, at least, $1,000 or
$4,000 TO be provided otherwise.
Where is the money coming from.
and how is the primary to be held
without it? The simplest solution of
the difficulty seems to be that carried
by the suggestion TO relegate the mat
ter to the general election next fall,
and II is not impossible that this may
be done.
In any case the effect of this con-
test upon Mr.. Brownies political for