The Saint Paul globe., 1905-01-13
INTELLIGENCE IN THE SEVENTH
WARD

WARD
Those statistical persons who have
been for many years presenting us with
tabulated proofs that the percentage of
illiteracy was lower in the Seventh
ward than elsewhere in the city will
made by the recount Of the ballots in
the judgeship contest. We observe
with surprised dismay that the recount
officials have upset traditions based
upon census returns; that they have
with ruthless disregard to the feelings
Of this community and in cold, calcu-
lating figures shown to us that the
vaunted intelligence Of the Seventh
ward is myth. The anguish caused
by these disclosures will not soon yield
to the soothing assurance that the
Seventh is the banner Republican ward.
The pain is too acute to be alleviated
by a political plaster. And it is not the
less painful in that it found us Alto
gether unprepared.
If, in recount of the vote of the
Twelfth of Fourth it had been shown
that 81 and 76 made 372 we would not
have been So rudely jolted. If an in
yestigation of the ballot boxes in some
Of the precincts inhabited by rude and
untutored voters had brought out the
fact that some illiterate one had writ
ter the name of the wrong man after
the largest total of votes we might be
in some measure prepared for and rec
onciled to the event. And we have
been taught to look with some equa-
nimity on the possibility Of voting 1o4
men from a lodging house with ca
pacity Of seven lodgers These things
simply inspire us with pity for the
misguided and loathing for the cul-
pable.
But that the Seventh ward, the home
of culture, whose Inhabitants climb
down from the lap of luxury ON cleo
tion day to go, perforce, to the polls
and do the best they can to atone for
being compelled to the vulgar duty of
voting by voting the Republican ticket
straight-that this Seventh ward we
repeat, should be shown up as falling
far short of the Fourth or the Eighth
in the matter Of intelligent handling of
the ballots, that is the shocking thing.
The Seventh appears to have been
caught with the goods on and it will
take more than Republican majority
of 1.700 to rehabilitate the ward in the
public esteem.
For the image breakers of the re-
count board have left us nothing to
ward standard, 105 and SS make 2s3
what would be the sum Of those num-
bers in a ward where the natives have
got no farther than addition in arith-
metic? Are we to believe that the
Seventh, which we had conceived to be
revelling in the higher mathematics, is
educated over and beyond the limita-
tions of the schools and that, accord
ing to the mathematics of the ad-
yanced, los and SS really make 2s3, or
is it to be assumed that the Seventh
cannot add and that it defaces ballots
through malicious ignorance? An un-
swerping and hopeful faith in human
nature compels us to cling to the latter
alternative.
In view of the disclosures made we
are bound to commend the school board
for locating another school in the Sew
enth. Indeed. there seems to be war
rant for taking such action as will
multiply the schools in the hill district
And let the school teach the need for
counting straight as well as voting
straight. What. the Seventh needs is
more arithmetic and less of the higher
criticism. For Seventh ward philoso-
ply is no more sound than Seventh
ward arithmetic since it is apt to be
tinctured with politics and lead the
philosopher into making the perspica-
cious discovery that a Democratic plot
was at the bottom of the bad arithme-
tic of the Republican election officials
of the Seventh ward-as it did in the
case of Republican morning contem-
porary.