The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-01-27
roR puRE ELEcTroNs.

I eteCtillB any SeHdtOfS, uuh ' Sou oDoetNe
 
 FOR PURE ELECTIONS. There is now before the Legislature oi
 Virginia e Pure Election bill" and in
 the course of some comments on the
 measure The Richmond Dispatch says:
 Virginia should and will have a law to prevent corrupt practices in elections. and 1t ought to be law that means something and is possible of enforcement. | And what is more, 1t should apply to primary elections as well as to regular elections.
 There have been bills introduced in our
 Legislature to provide a new election law
 which shall be simpler and better than the present one, and which shall be in
 harmony with the new conditions incl
 dent to our present Constitution. These
 bills may need change, amendment or
 modification to make them what Is re- auired and what is expected, and we have \ confidence in the wisdom of our law makers that they will give us such a law as is certainly needed.
 | There are two absolute requirements in T any citCtl0H law lVt <AEdbdlhAd dAi0 A'CtthCh of them can be ignored. First, we want a law that will insure honest elections. ! and then we want one which will be | simple and which can be understood and enforced by the people. As The Adver- | tiser has frequently said of late, if there was ever a time when unfairness in hold ing and declaring elections was allowa- ble, that time has gone by, never to return. we fervently hope. We are prac- | tically all white voters In Alabama now | and no possible excuse can be given for unfairness which would not excuse any other form of rascality.
 And we want a law which will be so simple and plain in all it's provisions and | requirements that any man with lntelli- gence enough to cast his vote csn under stand the law under which he exercises | the privelege. Men who are lot yet very | old have distinct recollection If the man. ner of holding elections previous to the reconstruction era. Each man handed | his ballot to one of the inspectors, who numbered 1t and dropped 1t into a box. | The voters name, with the corresponding numbery was entered on a tally sheet. So little drought was there of unfair ness that we have often seen, in country precincts, a mans hat .sed as a ballot box and no objection was made. And when the election was over the ballots | were counted and tabuiatsd just as cast. and the certificates made cut ac- cordingly, and everybody was satisfied that absolute fairness had teen preserv- I ed. And If any question came up within sixty days the ballots, lists Sfid tally sheets had been preserved. so that 1t was not only easy to ascertain the exact but was equally easy to tell !ust how each man voted. This was the method of holding elections in the good old days, and John Pierpont, almost a century ago, spoke of the ballot in. way that described 1t as we vividly remember it. He referred to 1t as tes A weapon that comes down as still As snowfiakes fall upon the sod; But executes a freeman's will,
 As lightning does the will of God And from its force nor doors nor locks Can shield you-'tis the ballot box.
 This is a vivid and graphic way of de- | scribing the ballot, but 1t corresponds | fully with our recollections of forty years ago and more. We cannot see or imagine any tenable reason why the same sim plicity and fairness should n not govern our elections now. We cannot see or magine any demand or reason for cumbrous or complicated machinery which the lawyers and the courts themselves are unable to understand. Tn short, we want an election law which all can understand and in which all will have contidece.n And there is one other point connected with this subject that should be con- sidered of vital importance. aLd that is that there shall be ample, definite and effective provisions for punishing dis honesty in either primary or general cleo tons. The Advertiser Is honest, earnest and sincere in its desire that there shall of any man declared elected; we want his title to be as perfect and clean as is possible under mere human enactments, and to this end we want the provisions for punishing ballot box frauds 10 be so plain that the wayfaring man, though fool, need not err therein" We can see no reason why dishonesty at :he polls should not be punished as easily and as certainly as dishonesty in any other de- partment of our civil life can be pun | ished. We are heartily sick of hearing ' of election contests, of frauds and sus- picion of fraud. Let us have a plain l election law which will both encourage and enforce honesty at the polls. 
 The President let the Bostonese off as lightly as he could by appointing a colored man who Is almost white. Boston could hardly have stood a real negro. 
 If this thing of laying hands on the sacred tariff is not stopped Senator Ald- rich will proceed to throw some fits.
 Not Seriously Inconvenienced.
 Chattanooga Times.
 There appears to be no doubt in the minds of South Capolinians, concerning the bailing of Assassin Tillman. He will be as lightly and readily turned at large and more readily far than he would be If he'd stolen a mule This reminds nna oF