Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-11-14
EVENING Chat

A sight of a ballot used at Long
Beach, Cal, last week and just given
to me by Major e. w. Pearce, of the
Auditor Generals Department, is
enough to make the most ardent advo-
cate of the initiative and referendum
stop and take stock account of him.
self. In this State we have been so
busy listening to the arguments of
people who insist that the referendum
and its accompanying means of ascer-
tanning the will of the people are the
cures for all ills that we do not realize
that Pennsylvanians have exercised
the referendum half a dozen times or
so in the last fifteen years. We have
a most excellent means of obtaining
the sentiment of the people or vox
populi, as Judge McCarrell puts 1t, in
the present constitution. 1t is true
that the constitution does not furnish
way for problem to be submitted
to the people in three weeks, but 1t
PROVIDES means of ecording the free
mans VIII in an eminently safe and
sane manner, as was demonstrated q
year or so ago. AS to the size of the
ballot the specimen from the Golden
Gate State is about as wide as ours is
long in heavy year.
This year the Harrisburg voter had
chance to vote any one of ten
straight tickets and there were ten
blocks of offices to be voted for, the
number of candidates in the list for
Congress- -at-large being forty, but
there were some on three tickets, so
that the list is not so appalling as
would fTNl Tn1t 10 IL n
governor, eutenant-governor, secre-
tary Of state, controller, treasurer, at
torney general, surveyor general and
member of tax equalization board, the
Socialist nominees heading the lists.
incidentally Ethel Lynn was the So
cialist candidate for secretary of state.
The Progressives split their honors
among Republicans and Democrats eX-
cept for governor and Hiram w. John
son won. There were congressional,
legislative, judicial and local tickets.
There were three elections for su-
preme court, two for court of appeals
and two for the superior court, one of
the latter having twenty candidates,
ten to be voted for so that the man
who had to pick out four from forty
nominees for congress- at-large in the
Keystone State had it easy.
Now as to the referendum. Last
year we had five constitutional amend
mentS to vote for at a referendum, a
referendum, mind you, in Pennsyl-
vania. And now the people protested
at the size of the ballot and the labor
attending the recording of a vote on
each of the propositions, while the
official returns at the Capitol show
that mighty few people, comparatively
speaking, took the trouble to vote on
all the amendments and there was
reason for doubling whether they read
them. In 1909 there were ten amend
ments and q schedule and more
trouble. At Long Beach the people
were called upon to vote on forty
eight separate and distinct questions,
more than nine times as many prob
lens as the people of this State had in
1913 and almost fiye times as many as
the people of Pennsylvania struggled
with in 1909. The California ballot
probably took a man five minutes to
vote intelligently and it would be in
teresting to see the difference between
the total of the votes cast for COVER
nor or United States Senator and for
the questions referred, to say nothing
son that could be made between the
vote on the first question and the for
ty-eighth. Just imagine the voters of
one of those First. Fourth, Eighth or
Twelfth ward precincts where they
have 800 or 400 votes to poll voting
on such q list. The complaints of the
people about time spent in booths for
marking such a ballot would ascend
to high heaven.
The California questions incIuded of