Morris tribune., 1905-08-19

Under the caption OF "oOfne Frenz1ed rig
ures" the Minneapolis Journal prints the fol
towing extract from last weeks Tribune, and
snakes the following comment thereon:
That the practice of apportioning
sarge right that if change is made it should be
increasing the number we believe
demonstration. +
Let us take for county.
resent system tn
Heuneph there 30 voters to every delegate The
sty apparently of the Stevens county voter
Bnt this is more by that Hennepin
county delegates convention Stevens
county Hennepn is voting
of the convention the Stevens county
voter of than onehundredth When
attention other series in compound
sixth grader see that Hennepn county voters will
the best part of the deal to 1-Morris Tribune
How's that for frenzed mathematics? Of
course, it makes difference whether you live
in Stevens county and have one vote out of
t25Oin selecting the delegations or whether YOU
are one of the 81 900 republicans in Hennepin.
Half voter" is pretty badly lost in the Hen
nepin ocean. The plain fact is that 125 voters of
Stevens county have equal voice in the State
convention with $50 from Hennepin according
TO the delegate at large plan.
The Morris Tribune editor asks The Journ-
al a question in this connection. He wants to
know, eff the practice of five delegates-at-large
is wrong will The Journal please explain why
there should be any delegates-at-large?'
That's easy. There shouldn't.
The Journal still misses the point of our
gument. His statement that 1925 voters in
Stevens county have an equal voice in the state
convention with $50 from Hennepn is spe-
eious but pernciously misleading. A truer
statement would be "125 voters from Stevens
county have one-tenth as much voice in the
state convention as $50 from Hennepin.'
But in order to more clearly bring out our
hoori oil Int La
nast paragraph above, the Journal says there
should be no delegates at-large, and takes a
stand for an absolutely pro rata representation,
Stevens for instance to have four delegates and
Hennepin 1O8. By thus decreasing the conven-
ton by 400 delegates, the Importance to any
candidate of carrying Hennepin land Ramsey
would be greatly increased, and we would have
the same condition in the state convention that
we have in the national electoral college where
all energies are bent to carrying New York"
1t IS said that Gas goes New York, so goes the
nation, and in this state it would be "as goes
minneapolis, goes Minnesota.
Perhaps since the returns on the popular
vote art the state caucuses are not available, we
may gain some light on this question by direc-
timg our attention to the electoral college, The
tleCFOrS except thOSe t1at stand IN place or the
senators) are elected on strict proportionate
representation plan, ust what the Journal ad-
vocates, and yet the inequalities of the electoral
college have long been matter of comment.
The Minnesota voter has voice in selecting 2
per cent of the electors, and the New York vot-
er per cent. Minnesota may be nearly unani-
NOUS, but New York is never allowed to be-
Taking the popular vote expressing the
the following anamolies.
In 1900, Mckinley received So per cent of
the popular VOTE and 65 per cent of the electoral
vote If each state had been allowed thous-
and electors at-large the electoral vote would
hare been nearer the popular VOTE Mckinley
receiving 81 per cent.
In 1895 Mckinley received 50 per cent of
the popular vote and 60 per cent of the electoral
vote If each state had been allowed hundred
electors large, the electoral vote and the pop
ular vote would have exactly agreed in percent
age.
Going back to 1888 (the year Cleveland re-
ceived popular plurality but failed Of election),
Cleveland received little over so per cent of the
popular vote but only ~ per cent OF the electo-
raj vote We have not the electoral vote for that
year for all the states available, but we have no
doubt that by giving thousand electors at
large to each state, we could elect the sage of
that popular plurality effective.