St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1911-07-08
G 0 0 D GOVERNMENT
LEAGUE AND THE
PRIMARY LAW.
NatchitOches Enterprise, In
cIined to insurgency. Takes
the League to Task.

IL Woo q A0A4 NSAtUASA r
and simple, or the Devils a
Darby RAM"
Thus the Natchitoches Enter
prise characterizes tn e recent
Conference held in New Or
leans.
The Enterprise has been in
clined to insurgency-tot the Good
Government League-but it evil
IDENTIFY gagged at the methods
employed by that body in nom
mating a ticket.
The States says:
The newspaper barkers, big
and little, of the Good Govern
ment League are now working
overtime in an effort to prove
that the recent convention was
not an evasion Of the primary
law. The task, however, is be-
yond them.
From the beginning the League
has applied, in their most often
sive form, the methods de-
nounced and repudiated when the
direct primary was adopted and
the convention was a fitting eli
max to a movement that has
sought to put the individual voter
in an attitude Of complete ser
Witty to a self-constituted politi-
cal dictatorship.
Wherein and to what extent
the League, processing to be a
force for the conservation of the
law, has violated the letter and
outraged the spirit of the statute,
is discussed with judicial clarity
in an article in this weeks issue
of the Natchitoches Enterprise,
which in part, we give herewith:
THE convention plan Of Sc
lecting candidates was, until re-
Gently, universally adopted by the
States. It was the representa-
tive principle of government ap-
piled to party government. The
theory upon which It was found
ed was that representatives, or
delegates as they were termed,
selected by the members Of the
party, were more competent to
select the party candidates than
were the members of the party
acting upon their own initiative.
but some twelve or fifteen
years ago a strong public senti-
ment began to develop against
this plan, which had for so many
years been resorted to by the
people.
THE reason was a conviction
in the minds of the people that
under manipulation by shreWd
politicians, the convention had
been perverted from it's original
Il
purpose, and had becomes means
whereby the office-holding and
office-seeking classes were ex-
plotting both the parties and the
government to further their
selfish interests, and the conven,
ton method of making nomina.
lions was everywhere condemned
by public sentiment.
The compulsory primar
came to take its place, and II
this State it was, by amendment,
made a part of the Constitution.
Its purpose was to secure the
rights and to make it the duty
of every member of the party t.
express his choice of candidates
directly and, in most instances,
by a secret ballot.
THE theory of the law is thai
the Individual voter should be
left morally and legally free te
express his Individual choice di.
rectly upon the matter, and af.
ter full opportunity to inform
himself Of the merits of the can.
didates. It is designed to &C.
complish a two-fold purpose.
freeing the party from the domi
nation of bosses, and c%ultivatine
a spirit Of independence and in.
dividuality in the voter.
Whether the change was
Justified or not, and whether tht
primary has or will accomplish
it's purposes, are questions en-
tirely apart from our presen.
purpose.
Tt is enough to say that it il
here as the expression Of a set
lied nnrnnse on the part of thl