The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1902-05-05
ONE DANGER OF THE UNIFORM
PRIMARY.

While the democratic p q r y
throughout the state is demanding
the uniform primary system it is
not at all unwise to look little fur
ther and determine whether this
system would not be subject to
abuse just as intolerable as those OF
which we now complain. The pres
ent system is not the least satisfac-
tory 1t is open to all manner OF
abuses in the way of corruption.
Trading is openly done and money
is spent recklessly to carry certain
counties for the influence the vote
of that county will have in other
sections of the state. Candidates
are subjected to great expense, and
friends of candidates are hurried
from one county to the other to line
up the voters for some particular
davorite. Illegal voting is procured
and the courts seem powerless to
correct the abuse under existing
laws. An almost universal demand
has gone up for uniform primary
to be held on the same date through
out the state and under fixed party
regulations. No one has yet sug-
gested that there was any danger in
this method, but here comes Sena-
ator McLaurin, of South Carolina,
withdrawing from the senatorial
race, because, as he alleges, the pri-
mary machinery is in the hands of
a dictator, and the party oath has
ing man, not entirely in accord with
the dominant faction, cannot enter
the primary. If Senator McLaurin S
charges be true the uniform primary
can be so manipulated that changes
to party management would become
almost impossible, and the people
placed under the rule and reign of a
gang Of political bosses whose
domination would be even more in
tolerable than the evils we now have.
Here is what Senator McLaurin
says:
The primary system adopted in
our state through the farmers
movement has been pr0stituted and
perverted into the present machine
for the purpose of excluding all can
didates who are not in full accord
with the views and wishes of the
Dictator The vital question, there
fore, is, will the people of the state
submit to this present tyranny and
join in this unhOly and unpatriotIc
work of DISTINGUISHING the intelli-
gent people and excluding them
from our elections? With such a
system / have no sympathy, and i
warn the people against such tyran-
ny as it encourages and establishes.
1t must be understood that the
dictator referred to by the senator
is none other than Senator Tillman,
McLaurin's bitter political enemy
and much of the strong language
used in the above can be credited to
intense political hate for Tillman +;
yet nevertheless, one can easily
conceive that under the uniform pri-
mary just such conditions as those
of which he complains could exist.
With test fixed by a central state
committee, those in charge of the
party machinery, could exclude at
will all those who were not in sym
pathy with them and their policies
and thus close the mouth of the OPP,
position by making regulations
which good democrats could not and
would not accept. Reform in party
management would become irQpossi.
Bile under such conditions, aud only
such concessions be made the PEG
pie as would insure the perpetual.
ton in power of the machine. The
conditions IN South Carolina, adj
uniting them to be overdrawn, art
sufficient to show that the uniform
primary system il susceptible of al
least one gave danger.