Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1906-07-11
THE NEW LAW.

The Green Bay Gazette com
plains that the new primary law
makes it SO hard for a man to get
start in a candidacy for nomination,
that in that county at least there
promises to be a smaller number of
candidates this year than usual.
This is rather strange, for in most
counties the new law is working
Just the other way. OF course it
necessitates some little trouble and
expense to circulate the necessary
nomination papers, but after all the
percentage of voters required to
sign such papers is really small
and any man with sufficient &C
quaintance and popularity to war
rant him in making a try for a
nomination should have no great
amount of difficulty in arranging
this first step in the program. In
fact any man who really aspires to
run for office and can not show
enough hustling proclivit1es to get
out and secure the small proper
ton of signers to his nomination
papers, would give evidence right
at the start that he was not the
right kind of a man to become
party nominee. II he would let
this deter him from entering the
contest it would be an indication in
itself Of his lack of activity and
push, and would plainly suggest
that he could not possibly add any
strength to the ticket.
The most serious fault with the
primary law, in the minds of
many, is the apparent fact that the
man must seek the office instead of
the office seeking the man. In
many of the minor offices this is
possibly no detriment, nor for that
matter is it any different from the
system which has prevailed in the
past. Tt is almost invariably true
that in county and municipal offices
the men who secure the nomina-
tions and elections have been those
who have gone after the voters and
conducted a more or less vigorous
campaign previous to the making
OF the tickets. Under the primary
law this will still hold good, for
naturally the candidates who hustle
the most-other things being equal
will get the nominations, while
the ones who merely trust to luck
will get left.
The real trouble, however, will
come with the selection of nominees
for the more important offices, those
on the state ticket, for instance.
Especially after the novelty of the
new law wears off 1t will probably
be found that many times just such
men as ought to be nominated, on
account of their social and business
standing, prominence, etc., will be
inclined to hold aloOf and decline to
make the necessary contest for
nomination, both because they de-
sire to shun the trouble and an
uoyance and also because they dis
like to enter a contest Of this kind
with even remote possibility of
meeting defeat. Under the old
convention system it not infrequent-
ly occurred that men were placed
in nomination who really had no
particular desire to get into politics,
and it was often the case that these
men subsequently made the best
kind of public officials. This, how
ever, was when the office actually
sought the man, while under the
new primary law the man must
seek the office. And unless the
office happens to be Of 50 small con-
sequence that no one cares to take
it, the man who seeks it and gets
it will have to start rather early,
and chase it good and hard