The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1910-03-11
Our State
Contemporaries


sides in the Fifth Congressional Dis
trict. thinks that Parsons has no case
against Saunders. Our contemporary
says:
The contest of Mr. Parsons for the
seat in Congress to which the Hon. r.
w. Saunders, of Franklin county, was
elected In November. 1908, for term
or two years. beginning March 4, 1909,
appears to be based chiefly upon the
fact that the General Assembly had
prior to that election redistricted the
western portion OF the State, and in
doing so removed the county OF Floyd
FROM the Fifth to the Sixth District II
ls true Mr.. Parsons in his desperate
EFFORTS to secure congressional seat
also urges that the name of luna
tic was printed upon the ballots along
with those of the other candidates
Tor Congress. and that as result of
this trinity of names he lost a num-
Der of votes he would otherwise have
gotten. This objection to the validity
or the election Is too trivial to be
seriously considered.
1t further developed that in the re-
count OF the ballots cast In that cleo
ton recently completed by a Repub-
lican subcommittee of the House
Elections Committee, Mr.. Saunders
made net gain of something like n
votes over the number returned for
him by Democratic judges and can
vassers. This fact is hardly calculat-
ed to give color to MIR. Parsons
groundless charges of fraud.
After all, therefore, the entire con-
test rests upon the validity of the
contestants claims that the district
vas unlaWfully gerrYmandered BY The
General Assembly in the interest of
h S Democratic opponent. 1t Is in an
effort to sustain this contention that
the services of an Ex-Governor of
Virginia were retained by Mr.. Par
sons, and this former Democratic
Governor argued before the elections
committee that the redistricting o..
gerrymander. as 1t is called, was in
violation of the Constitution and in
valid. The State Constitution is very
general in its terms In comforting upon
the General Assembly authority TO re-
district or reapportion the various
counties and cities into congressional
districts. Section SIS of the Constitu-
ton governing the question reads
thus
THE General Assembly shall by
law apportion the State into d 'stricts,
corresponding with the number OF
representatives to which it may be
entitled in the House OF Representa-
tiYes of the Congress of the United
States: which districts shall be COM
posed of contiguous and compact ter
rltory containing as nearly as prac-
ttcable an equal number of inhabit-
ants"
The only objection that can be ra's-
ed to the reapportionment whereby
Floyd Is transferred from the Fifth tc
the Sixth District Is that the lines of
other districts are not changed. 1t is
not at all necessary, however, in re-
districting the State that the lines of
all or of any specific number of dis
tricts shalt be changed Besides, this
mandatory provision does not in
terms nor by implication limit the
General Assembly in its work of re-
apportionment or redistricting, and 1t
certainly does not deny the right to
equaliZe two or more contiguous dis
tT-icts, especially wf-rre compactness
and the contiguity of the component
counties Is the aim.
The folly OF the Parsons contention
and the Montague argument in sup
port of l. was very effectively shown
by an interruption by Chairman Mil
Ter, of the Elections Committee, q
member of 'he House from Nebraska.
When Mr., Montague was emphasiz,
the appalling disparity OF $4,000 be-
tween the population of the Fifth and
Sixth Virginia districts, Chairman
Miller, of Kansas, frankly admitted
that his district has a population of
81 900 less than that of the adjoining
district. This INTERCEPTED remark
knocked the eX-Governor's argument
into smithereens and incidentally in
dictated very clearly that Chairman
Miller was not at all in sympathy
with 1t.
The entire contest is farce. and if
by any chance Parsons should be
seated. 1t will be upon a purely par
tisan determination to displace a
Democrat In order to strengthen the
Republican majority.