Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1902-05-31

district.
''In plain speech, the first requisite to
securing Il nomination under the bill
would be to provide for the cooperation
OF a sufficient number of men, managed
by central power, from which all or
ders would emanate,' who would present
the candidates claim in way to secure
signatures to his petitions and votes for
him at the primary election. This pro-
cedure supplies all the elements of a
machine as defined in the discussions,
before the Legislature.
According to the orators to whom we
listened, we have been working so long
under party regulations so very bad that
disintersted political service is an I'M
known quantity, if not an impossibility.
The men who would be found willing to
circulate these petitions as a matter of
public duty would be no more numerous
| just after than Just before the enactment
of this law. Until we could raise up q
new generation we should have to be
! content with our present resources in the
! way of political workers. Some sort Of
compensation would be a prerequisite to
! the performance of their services. Either
| the candidate would have to possess
! enough money, or be willing and able to
! make the promise of office sufficiently al
| Turing to enlist men who know how to
circulate petitions and advertise a can
| didate so as to get votes.
1.-THE orator from whom l quote a pre-
! vious letter said:
The friends Of the measure stand
! squarely upon this propostion-that
wherever we can obtain a direct express
sion of the peoples will, it should be
! DONE II
| Not Result of Direct Vote.
''The constant talk was about the plat
| form demand that the nomination should
| be the result Of a direct vote, but the
bill provided for the intervention of this
elaborate petition business, the interior
ence Of pctition-made nominations with
the voters right to express his own
! choice The elector was to go alone
into booth, with his printed ticket in
| his hands, but evidently he was not eX
{ pected TO exercise his sovereign right of
| choice by direct vote after all, for,
| quite likely, he had neither seen nor
signed one of the petitions circulated for
! any candidate whose name was printed
| on his ballot. To be sure, he need Sc
lect none of the printed names; he had
the sovereign right of inserting another
! name in the blank space provided there
! for upon the ballot, but, was it planned
| that he should; was it expected that he
| would? The petition scheme, notwith-
| standing the platform, was justified upon
; the ground that it was q proper measure
| in order to keep the number of names
| printed upon the ballot, that is, the num-
| Der Of nominees, within reasonable linn
| it's.
"The voter had long had the opportuni
! ty, at an election called general, and now
| he was to have an additional chance at
an election called primary, to express
| choice between candidates whose
| names We're printed on the ballot handed
| to him at the poll. In the old case the
names printed upon the ballot were of
| delegate-named candidates and inthe new
| of petition-named candidates. What diff
| ference in principle lies between candi-
! dates named one way or the other so
| far as the voters exercise of his sover-
! eign right Of choice bv direct vote in
| making nominations for office is con-
| cerned, l do not know. How any such
| plan can be looked upon as not of the
| machine order, as essential to the unity,
| symmetry and effectiveness of a bill
| which was claimed to be antimachine,
| to be fulfllment of q platform pledge,
! that the voter was entitled to the oppor-
tunity. to exercise his sovereign right of
| choice by direct vote without the inter
! vention or interference OF any political
| agency / am unable to decide.
"a great scheme this, assisting the
voter to exercise his sovereign right Of
choice by direct vote, shutting him up
| in q booth by himself, with a ballot con-
tanning the printed names Of candidates
! suggested by petitioners, in order that he
might select therefrom a candidate of
| his own, without the intervention of or
interference Of any political agencyP
Revolution without Warrant.
| '"The proposition was to fix arbitrarily
| the required percentage of voters who
| should sign the petition before it could
| be fled print ballots containing the
names of such nominees, and to conduct
an election at public expense, and all
that we might have, as their leading
| champion admitted in his opening SEN
| fences: "A revolution in this state in
! mGtlOQS OF nominating CduuludIeS lOr
public Offices without sufficient warrant
in experience for the revolution
GAS to the policy Of this provision,
from party standpoint, it seems to me
| wholly uniustiiable and destructive. In
stead of party action. this bill suggested
that we substitute the action of individ-
| uaIs, the political machinery to be en-
| ployed by them to be wholly under their
control, within their own knowledge, and
| managed exclusively FOR their own in
| terests; instead of party oversight, that
we enter upon a period of personal in
| trigue or personal schemes and personal
! self-seeking.
81 deem the whole plan out Of keeping
with the political system which has
grown up under the constitution. The
constitution provides, with reference to
state officers, that they shall be elected
by the qualified electors Of the state,
circuit judges by the qualified electors
of the circuit, members of the Senate
and Assembly by qualified electors of
the proper district, and so OH through
the list officers are elected by the voters
within the proper jurisdiction. That Of
fcers can be elected by a part of the
electors in a part of the state or district
was not adopted as our system. The
attempt should not be that nominations
for Office may be made by a percentage
of voters in a fraction of the voting dis