Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1903-10-30
Friday. October 80. 1908.
THE PRIMARY FARCE.

While disliking very much to &C.
knowledge it many of the friends of
the primary system are forced to the
Z conclusion that its workings so far
have been farcical in the majority of
cases. Where some of its friends
are forced to admit this they take
refuge in the claim that it is the viva
voce feature of the scheme which
makes the whole failure. This
might suffice to shield the primary
had not the operation of it at Nor
folk recently broken down the bar
riers of defence of the whole as set
mp. To our view the Norfolk primary
was a travesty upon the name of
s'people's primary" and upon any
justice that might be found still left
in latter day politics. We take this
from the Viryinian- Pilot, which is
opposed to the so-called "ring" and
the representative of the "good gov
eminent" faction which won in the
Norfolk primary:
"a blunder was committed when the
ring people were denied representation
in the primary, and another blunder
when they Were refused taily-keepers
within the polling places
The supreme lesson of this primary it
adds, lis that there should be no more
viva voce voting. 1t is either necessary
to make trayesty of it, as was done in
this case, or to permit the moral and
physical intimidation of voters at the
polls. For example, it is claimed by the
leaders OF the victorious wing of the local
Democracy that scores of men voted for
the good government candidates under
the rules established who would either
have voted the other way or remained
away from the polls had they been com
PEELED to declare their votes publicly. In
other words, that in order to ascertain
the real will of the majority of Demo-
cratic voters it was necessary TO trans
form the viva voce method into n secret
ballot by putting the voter beyond the
earshot of 'spotters'"
The Iiryinian-Pilot concludes
with a plea for the secret ballot,
whereby the citizen can vote his con.
victions without running the risk of
losing his job" The fact is that this
very tmidity that refuses to vote OBJ
emily has caused the opposition to the
viva voce feature, and the 'sgood gov
eminent" crowd that had control of
things and seems to have manipu-
lated them to suit their own ends
played the game for all it was worth.
1t took the newspapers at their word
and did away with the open mouth
plan, while at the same time it pre-
tended to conform to party law by
calling.ft viva voce operation. Had
the true viva voce method obtained
there would have been no complaint,
presumably, by the opposition,
and no confessions by the partizan
press that the primary system is a
failure. With the viva voce feature
made secret the primary became
nothing more than a secret ballot,
and with judges all of one stripe the |
election became open to fraud, and it |
Is being so charged. The Pilot is |
hardly consistent when it condemns
the primary because of the viva voce
feature, when the absence of that
feature in its trueness seems to have
been the cause of the trouble. Rather
condemn the whole primary system,
or at least confess that the true spirit
of its viva voce feature was not dis
played.
This matter is becoming very Sc
rious throughout our State. The
VIRGINIA CITIZEN has always been
independent of the political powers
that be and espoused the peoples
cause when the two came into con-
nlct, never for a moment however de-
one jot or title from recog-
nized party laws. We espoused the
cause of the primary in it's early
stages and have never failed to urge .
adoption of it in Its purest form and
for pure purposes. When antagoniz-
ing it We have only opposed its APP
plication, when designing poll
ticisns have sought to make it SUBJ
'ervient to their own selfish ends. We
nave championed it for party nomi-
nations here when the whole organi-
'ation in the Northern Neck, known i
Is the Montague organization, refused '
% apply it as recommended by the !
State committee. Our position on /
his point is unassailable, as it is t
veil known, but repetition here was !.
probably necessary to make plain =
What we are going to say. We are v
thoroughly convinced that the masses =
t Democrats throughout the State y .
. not want the primary system as in 81