Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1906-10-19
AN UNWORTHY CHARGE.

Governor Chamberlain has written
for the San Francisco Call an article
commencing the initiative and refer
endum and the primary election law
of Oregon, one of its first fruits. He
thinks the law is satisfactory in
general and finds but one objection,
which he thus explains with sug-
gested remedy:
''There is only one objection to it in
Oregon, and that is one which can be
easily corrected. 1t is expensive for
those seeking nomination for office,
and the candidate who has an un-
limited amount of money has better
opportunity of bringing his candidacy
to the attention of the voter through
the press and other bureaus of pub
licity, which, when properly organized,
cost large sums Of money. | would
suggest as a panacea for this evil that
expenditures in campaigns be limited
by law and candidates required to
furnish under oath itemized state
ments Of expenditures and pronounc-
ing severe penalties against those who
fail to comply with the law or in other
respects violate its terms"
Governor Chamberlain insinuation
against the newspapers Of his state is
not worthy Of him as man or as an
officer. The OBSERVER will venture
the assertion that in the last state
campaign the amount of money spent
in advertising in the newspapers was
one Of the least items of expense to
any candidate. No candidate for office
ever used more advertising space in
the Oregon newspapers than was
bought and paid for by Jonathan
Bourne in last springs campaign,
and yet, il his expenditures were made
public, it would doubtless be found
that Mr. Bourne's entire advertising
bill was not one-half as large as his
bill for postage stamps alone.
The cost Of printing and mailing
one circular letter to the voters of
Oregon ranged from $1,000 to $500,
and it is a well-known fact that many
candidates sent out from three to five
different circulars to each voter dur
ing the campaign. In addition to
this expense, each candidate Governor
Chamberlain included distributed
thousands Of cards throughout the
state, as we'll as Autographs, photo
graphs, posters, etc.
All this expense was perfectly |
legitimate, as, under the new primary
system, the candidates were obliged to
appeal directly to the voters for their
respective nominations, and as it was
utterly impossible to meet all the
voters personally it was necessary to
secure an introduction through the
medium Of circular letters, cards, etc.
To save much of this heavy expense,
the candidates naturally turned to the
newspapers for space in which to set
forth their respective qualifications
for the offices to which they aspired
and to announce the principles upon
which they based their claims for sup
port. A large number of newspapers,
the big Portland dailies included,
treated much of this matter as
legitimate news and printed it with
out cost to the candidates. Matter Of
strictly onal-advertising nature
was accepted by the newspapers as
advertising, and was run at regular
advertising rates. 1t can be said, to
the credit of the Oregon press, that no
NJ xuoo o1a hxy Vnhlichopc tp
extort money from candidates during
the entire campaign, save in one or
two isolated instances where the
papers attempting the extortion had
neither standing nor influence in the
communities in which they were pub
lished, 1t is a fact worthy of note
that, after the close Of the campaign,
every candidate expressed the highest
appreciation of the fair and liberal
treatment received at the hands Of the
newspaper men of the state.
The ''evil" that Governor Chamber
lain complains of in his letter to the
San Francisco paper exists only in
his own mind 1t is true that the
direct primary system is expensive;
but every voter in Oregon with grain
Of foresight knew before it's adoption
that such system would be more ex-
pensive to the state and to the in
dividual candidate than the old con-
vention plan. Governor Chamberlain
does i'll when, in seeking to perpetuate
this cumbersome and expensive law,
he attempts to make it appear that
the Objectionable feature of expense is
caused by newspaper advertising.
The Governor suggests that here