Los Angeles herald., 1908-05-31
WoRLD- WIDE REVIEW OF ACHIEVEMENTS OF MEN AND WOW

years past, conceived the idea, or the
politicians have, that their predecessors
have not yet been able to complicate
the law enough. and they take new
try at 1t. A worse code of laws could
hardly be devised by human ingenuity.
A convention or primary election can
only be called by one skilled in the
business, and under the advice of a
lawyer who has made special study
of the law on the subject. The COM
plicated machinery of getting con-
vention in running order or nominat-
ing candidates for office and authenti-
eating the proceedings, Is enough to
discourage any one but a politician
who makes the business his trade. And
what has been accomplished by it?
If we are to believe half the reforTners
are telling us about the power of the
boss and the machine, and the fraud
coercion and corruption that enter into
and control our elections, nothing has
been done for the public good.
Professional politicians ply their
trade just as successfully as they did
under the more simple and sensible
laws on the subject. When machine
politicians, election reformers and fad
dsts get through with their disastrous
experiments, which are doing more to
circumvent and discourage the honest
voter than anything else, and every
man that wants to may run for any
office, and the voter is permitted 10 go
to the polls and orally and publicly
announce the names of the candidates
he votes for, we may have something
near honest elections, but never under
the present system, or anything re-
sembling it.
Voters Treated as Dishonest
Under our present election laws every
man is treated as one that Is dishon-
est or subject to unlawful influence.
He must sneak into private booth,
like a criminal in the dock and Sc
cretly, and as If he were ashamed of
it, prepare his ballot and deposit it
in such q way that no one may know
how or for whom he has voted. An
American citizen is thus advertised to
the world and led to feel that he has
not independence enough to vote his
own sentiments. This method of vot-
ing degrades the electors and is the
best possible method of aiding those
who seek to influence elections unlaw-
fully, for no one can find out how the
victims have voted. If the vote were
viva voce, fraud of this kind would be
easily detected and exposed. Or, but,
the advocate of the secret ballot cries
out, voters would be afraid to vote
openly and would lose their ballots.
One sufficient answer to this Is that an
elector had much better not vote at
all than to vote as some one else CO.
erces or buys him to vote: and an
other equally cogent reason is that one
who lacks the courage and indepen-
dence to vote his own sentiments is
unfit to be an elector and had better
be deprived of his vote.
But the fact that we have such cleo
tion laws as we have is evidence enough
that they are not what they purport
to be. They were not enacted to pre-
vent corruption and coercion at cleo
| tions. No election law has been passed
in this state for years that was not
| brought about or consented to, as in
| their interest by the very influences
that corrupt the ballot box and manip-
ulate elections to suit themselves. They
have been supported. of course, by
honest lawmakers. who believed they
were making laws that would tend to
purify elections, but they were laborine
| under a delusion.
Let us hope a legislature may some
| time be elected that will enact sim.
pie and sensible election law, and thai
| good citizens may be imbued with suf-
ficient patriotism to go to the polls and
vote