The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1909-09-09
District Primaries A Failure.

The following letter from Mr.. B.
A. Richmond was published in
the New York Sun August 27th.
His views throw light on the stu
ations here and gladly given space
in our columns:
In the discussion of the direct
primary it may not be uninterest-
ed to your readers to be informed
Of our experience in a Maryland
county under a direct primary law
in action. In this State all pri-
maries by a recent law are now
regulated by long, minute and
intricate statute, entailing enor-
nous labor upon the election Of
tlcials and great cost and expense
to the county and candidates. Tn
der this law any citizen who shall
make application by certain day,
pay his share Of the expense and
is otherwise eligible can compel
the supervisors to place his name
upon the official ballot.
III practical operation the pri-
mary OF each party, four weeks
before the date of voting assumes
all the Objectionable charac-
teristics of a regular election.
Combinations and bargains, in
trigue and trading, elimination
and reCrimination, newspaper
charges and counter charges, and
a regular flood of the usual hand
bills, mark the closing days Of the
contest, with all the consequent
bad feeling, interruption of bust
ness and disturbance of the peace
Of the community.
AT a primary held here last
week for the nomination of county
officers ffty-seven persons offered
themselves as candidates, and the
result to large majority cf the
members of that party, not profess
slonally interested as politicians,
was distinctly disappointing. Per
haps no scheme born of such allur-
ing promises ofreform ever proved
so lllusory. Some of the particu-
lars in which the law in actual
practice signally failed are as fol-
lows:
1. 1t was claimed that by di-
rect vote of the people a better
class of men would be selected for
the various Offices than by the con-
vention system. Just the contrary
turned out to be the fact. AS
any man under the new system
could force his name on the ballot
by a mere compliance with the law
large number without regard to
fitness crowded forward as candi-
detes. This, Of course, deferred
better men who would have accept
ed nomination from convention
from entering the unseemly sCram-
bic. The voter, being confined to
a selection from among the names
on the ballot (since independent
voting is practically useless was
reduced to mere choice between
exils. The quality of the ticket
nominated was thus entirely regu
lated by the selfish ambition the
vanity or the effrontery of the
candidates themselves, and not by
their fitness at all. Net result,
the selection, with a few excep-
tons Of an inferior ticket, with
better men left out of the running.
?. 1t as claimed for the new
primary that it would at least en-
able the majority of the voters to
express their will, whether the
candidates selected should be the
best who could be had or not.
This proved to be a delusion. So
many candidates crowded upon the
ballot that some of those securing
even a small minority were nomi-
mated. Thus in this county can
didates receiving less than one
fourth of the total votes cast were
actually nominated, although more
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