The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1914-04-23

the law against me and received less
than one-fourth of the vote cast at the
primaries. | can scarsely believe that
this one-fourth of the primary vote
cast for him would have been so cast
had the voters believed that immed-
lately upon his rejection by the peo-
pie Mr.. Lee would have been found
championing a recall of the will of
the people.
"No sooner had the primary been
held than Mr.. Lee turned squarely
around and began shouting for the old
convention methods. He likes office
so well that apparently the governor
ship means more than principle and
he is willing to eat his words, stulify
himself, and reverse his entire posi-
ton in order that he may call himself
governor of Minnesota.
ga few days ago Mr.. Lee delivered
keynote speech to modest audience
at Owatonna. He took advantage of
the occasion to state his position as
follows
81 believe in the primary law. With
the experience of two years ago and
this year the legislature should be
able to cure any defects by amending
it.
Under our form of government a
minority should never be given the
power to nominate or elect officials.
The present governor is now minor
ity candidate. He received only 81, 4O2
votes as against vote for his oppon-
ents of 01,665.
/" 4 am satisfied, from recent deyel-
opments, that the people of Minnesota
will never permit such thing to hap
pen again
'This is a covert attack upon the
primary law, while seeming to APP
prove it.
"He can never justify his position
in the eyes of the people. If you give
the people the right to select their
own candidates at direct primary,
you can never have what is called a
majority nomination. What Mr.. Lee
apparently means by majority NOM
nation is to have hand-picked con-
yention of local political bosses make
selections for the people and desig-
nate to the people whom they might |
vote for.
Reduced to its logical analysis, Mr..
Lees theory is that the people of Min
nesota are not competent to eliminate
undesirable candidates, and that such
an elimination should be done by a
select number of political bosses and
sub-bosses.
"Let us see what Mr.. Lee means
when he says that I was minority
candidate two years ago, and that
only received $4,000 votes, as against
101, 900 cast for the other candidates.
With this heavy vote in my favor,
who does Mr.. Lee think ought to have
been nominated? presume he thinks
that Mr.. Lee ought to have been NOM
mated, with 10000 votes less than
were cast for me; or Mr.. Young, who
received 10000 votes less than l did.
"Let us carry it out to further
logical conclusion. Suppose we had
a convention. Following out his theory
the man who received the largest
number of votes in that convention
should have been eliminated at the
outset simply because he was the
choice of the greatest number of del
egates in that conventions
Stripped of all its verbiage, Mr..
Lees statement means that no nomin- 1
alton would be perfect nomination
unless Mr.. Lee were nominated, and
that having been rejected by the peo-
pie, he would revert to convention
methods to secure nomination which
was denied to him in a direct appeal
to the people.
"This fact undoubtedly explains the
conspiracy against the primary law.
The primary election law is on trial in
Minnesota.
"Mr. Lee has attempted to discredit
it, and is now apparently pledged to
repeal it. There is not more danger
Gus man to the commonwealth than a
man who sacrifices principle for exped-
iency and reyerts to fragrant political
manipulation of being reformer.
"Just as it was evident that no spe-
cial interests with an ak to grind
would have approved of the enact
ment of the direct primary at the spe-
cial session of the legislature, which
l called for that purpose, so it is ev-
.ident that the same special interests
would be anxious to go back to the
old convention system which the peo-
pie have voted against and put down.
ssIn further evidence of the hypoc-
risy of his possession, it is claimed by
n r -