The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1908-03-26
THURSDAY, MARCH 90. 1908.
LOCALIZED PRIMARIES.

LOCALIZED PRIMARIES.
The Norfolk Landmark docs not
render fun Justice by any means when
IT says that the Legislature at this
session failed to justify It's existence
because it did not enact general
primary law.
The Timcs-Dispatch has always ad-
vocated primaries as the surest way
of securing tho hest nominations, and
regrets as much as anybody that
the Legislature should be so tardy in
providing for them such safeguards as
upon a careful review of the work OF
the present General Assembly, In spite
of few deplorablo omissions, we are
bound to acknowledge that its mem
bers have accomplished great good for
the State, by patient and diiigent
labor, under many disadvantages. The
increased appropriations TO roads,
schools and pensions; the abolition of
local executions, the strengthening o.
the State Board of Health and of the
State Board of Agriculture, and th>
addition to the Sinking Fund are only
few of the many worthy acts of q
session crowded beyond the capacity
of any Legislature to deal fully with
ell of the subjects which pressed for
consideration.
Nevertheless. it is true that legal
lied primary law should have been
enacted at this session. Section Sc
% the Constitution provides that "the
General Assembly shall enact such
laws as are necessary and proper for
the purpose of securing the regularity
and purity of general local and pri-
mary elections, and preventing and
Furnishing any corrupt practices in
connection Herewith"
The only attempt of the Legislature
to carry out this constitutional man
date is TO be found at the end of sec
ton 1920 of the Code, which says:
All laws intended to secure the reg
ularity and purity of general and local
elections, and to prevent and punish
any corrupt practices in connection
Herewith, and the penalties and pun
ishments now or hereafter prescribed
by law for such offenses. shall, so far
as they may be applicable apply to
all primary elections, whether the
same be held under any statute law of
this State or under plan provided
by some political party" (Acts 1902
lso3-1so4, p. 933D
This looks well upon its face, but
in practice amounts to almost moth
ing. The trouble is. that very few of
the laws relating 30 general and local
elections are applicable to primaries.
Those which provide for fixed dates
and places for holding primary cleo
tons. for the printing OF ballots, for
casting and counting ballots, for can
wasting returns and for appeals are
wholly inapplicable. In such matters,
and in many others, the party COM
mittees are supreme, and may provide
s. system in which fraud is impossible
of detection and punishment.
Moreover. criminal statutes, to be
effective. must be specific. 1t is
slovenly and inadequate legislation. to
say the least, to provide that mum
Der of laws relating to one subject
should apply to another subject, so far
as applicable. What would be thought
of law which would undertake 10
make all of the statutes intended to
regulate steam railways apply, so far
as they may be applicable, 10 electric
railways, or that all laws relating 10
distil!eries should apply. so far as they
may be applicable TO breweries.
The plain and ugly truth is that all
primaries are more or less irregular.
and The danger is that they may be-
come notoriously corrupt, to the in
jury of the primary system and of
the party which employs it. The i'm
perative duty of the Legislature is to
safeguard primaries with the came
precise care. with which it has safe
guarded general and local elections.