Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1905-11-22
THE WEAK POINT IN THE LOCALIZED
PRIMARY.

uauReT OF running TO the opposite eX-
treme and provoking reaction that
may be worse than the ills we have.
Certainly it is time to consider the
nature of a danger in the legalized
primary which may be none the less
formidable because it has so long
escaped attention.
The American people have before
them in the electoral college a piece
of elaborate election machinery that
has long been absolutely unmeaning.
Devised by as shrewd men as ever
framed statute, the electoral college
system worked according to the
expectations of its founders for time
but with the organization and de-
velopment of the party system it was
speedily reduced to the nature of old
lumber. 1t would have been utterly
swept away but for the fact that it
was embedded in the constitution and
in consequence had to be leaglly
nullited rather than destroyed. So
completely has it been stripped Of
real power and reduced to mere
form that multitudes of people are
not conscious that the actual election
of the president is effected every year
in colleges of electors that assemble
at the state capitals. But it is an
abuse of language to call that the real
election. The electors are puppets
or scribes without real power of their
own-mere machines to record the
previous Judgment of others.
That is the sort of wreck that
was made of the electoral college
when it came in conflict with the
modern party system. What is there
to prevent the legalized primary
meeting like fact?
The state may go to the extent OF
requiring party organizations to
hold their primaries ON the same
day and according to prescribed
form. 1t may possibly even go to the
extreme of permitting no person to
be voted for at the election who has
not been voted for at the primary
although, such a provision would be
of doubtful validity. Assuming,
however, that the primaries and the
ensuing elections could be SO pad
locked against any hut the regularly
ground out candidates, what would
there be to prevent q dozen republi-
cans or democrats as the case might
be, getting together before the COM
pulsory primary and holding caucus
of their own. all agreeing to plump
at the primary or the candidates get
ting majority at their own private
consultation? And if a dozen men
do this why not a hundred or a thou
sand? And if done in one township
or school district why not all over the
state? In other words what is there
to prevent planting sub-primaries in
behind the legalized and reducing the
latter to as utter nullities as the
electoral college is now?
This is matter that will bear think
ing about. Elections are vastly ex-
pensive affairs. Much complaint is
made already of the expense and time
they require. If anot her complete
system is to be established will it not
operate strongly in the Interest of
those who make business of politics
and correspondingly discourage those
who rccoil from giving the extra time
and trouble required? Double the
election machinery and you will cer-
tainly decrease the number of voters
who will turn out.
1t may be thought that the people
will be too glad to obtain "a legal
primary to longer take any part in
or encourage the extra legal sort.
Doubtless that will be true of all at
first and. with it may continue indie
finitely. But what of the thorough
going party men? Will they be
thoroughly and abidingly content to
have their parties individualized into
nothing? Is the spirit of voluntary
cooperation and organization to
disappear as soon as the Legislature
takes q vote?
Nine -tenths of the voters are party
men at bottom. When they throw off
the trammels, as they did SO generally
at the late elections, it is with the
purpose of doing their parties good
and with q certainty that next year
they will be as strictly regular as
ever.
If this spirit is to continue and work
as it has done heretofore the nat
ural out come of legalized primaries
NAV be the reverse of what has been
promised. Certainly it is time for
this phase of the subject to be taken
into consideration.
The southern primaries are highly
suggestive. So, too, in Wisconsin,
with the experiment hardly more than
stated, the forces that may wreck the
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