The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1904-05-05
ASroRIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY.
THE DIRECT PRIMARY Law.

We are in receipt of letter from W. s. U'Ren o
Oregon City, secretary of the Direct Primary Nomi
nations League asking us to lend support to th
direct primary law which viii be voted upon by tn,
people of Oregon at the coming state election. Will
the letter comes circular from Michigan which at
tacks the present method of making nominations and
urges revolt against machine methods in politics
We are unable to find any redeeming feature in
the direct primary law and must, therefore advise
voters to cast their ballots against it. Its principal
feature is contrary to American principles This law
requires that man shall state his politics and be
known as republican democrat socialist, prohibition
ist whatever political faith he may select There
are, unfortunately, great many persons who can
not afford to declare themselves politically These
men have families to support and partisan politics
even active political interest may interfere with
the supply of bread and butter essential to the main
tenance of the home
The direct primary laws terms are substantially
to the effect that wo elections shall be held-one for
the purpose of making nominations and the other
for the purpose of voting for candidates nominated
at the first election. This means that a poor man
can not make political campaign. The law also
excludes from the alleged benefits of its provisions
those political parties which have not cast at least
25 per cent of the vote for congressman at the next
preceding election-another un-American provision
calculated to shut out the smaller parties.
We see no objection in the present method of max
ing nominations and eecting candidates 1t is true
the party committees select delegates to the conven
ton but the will of the voters can not be thwarted
by these committees Men are bilked politically only
when they permit themselves to be bilked The ord-
nary political committee will select the very best
man available for office, else the ticket will not win
The voters may express their preference for delegates
to the convention after the lists are made up by the
committees there can be no reasonable objection to
this feature Of our present method of conducting
political matters i
The primary reformers set up great cry about
the machine in politics and appeal to voters to sup
port their fanciful scheme because Of the general
dishonesty Of politicians They forget, however, or
try to make the voters forget that the people are be-
hind all political movements which are successful
The voters have the situation well in hand at all
stages of the proceedings Nominations are not neces
sary, and men have been elected whose names did
not even appear the official ballot. We had a case
of this kind in Astoria only few years ago, when
the citizen" candidate for police commissioner was
elected, notwithstanding his name did not appear on
the ballot Voters went to the polls and wrote his
name on the ballots which were handed to them. The
vote for the candidates for police commissioner was
quite up to that cast for other candidates, demon
strating the practcabity of the provision of the law
under which the election of the citizen candidate was
brought about
The present system is good enough. If the reform
had something better to offer we would support
the measure, but advice to all democrats
republicans socialists prohibitonists and all the
rests to vote against the direct primary law. IT.
ought to be deefated by very large majority.