The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1916-11-23
WILSON'S REELECTION.

WILSON'S RECOLLECTION.
Woodrow Wilson is reelected
president of the United States by the
votes of the American people.
But again the republicans are max
ing preparations to defeat in the cleo
toral college a president whom the
American people have elected at the
polls.
Again the American people have
received an impressive warning that
the electoral college is a menace to
the political stability of the United
States.
Even more important at this time
than the meaning and the lesson OF
President Wilson's reelection is the
danger to American peace and safe
ty which is involved in the conflict
that is again created by the existence
of an electoral college.
Twice has this crude and clumsy
piece of mechanism thrown the cleo
ton of a president into the house of
representatives. Once it brought the
country to the verge of another civil
war. This year it has produced a
situation in which the election of
president could be turned by hand
full of voters in handful of states.
The returns from forty-eight
states show that President Wilson is
reelected. A majority of the quail
fled voters of the country at the polls
have so determined. But ,trifling
error of tabulation might change the
legal results The disqualification Of
a presidential elector here or there
might change the result. A trifling
technicalty of the election law in one
state or another might change the
result. What is worse, contest of
this kind, narrowing down to a ques-
ton of few votes in three or four
states that are almost evenly balanc-
ed, is temptation to fraud and cor
ruption which should never be toler-
ated.
A situation now exists in which it
is possible for the republican nation
al committee backed by the colossal
power of Wall street money to keep
the presidency in legal doubt until
March by challenging the correct
ness of the returns in all the close
states. The issue can be held open
for months, the country torn by
doubts and party passions and the
government of the United States
crippled in the midst of world
crisis while the contest proceeds-all
because the legal power of election is
vested not in the people but in presi-
dentials electors who are not even
names to the voters who chose them.
The electoral college is an I'M
democratic institution. 1t was Gre
ated in distrust of the ability Of the
american people to elect a president.
The men responsible for it conceived
a theory that the selection of a presi-
dent should be delegated to a few
superlatively wise and superlatively
virtuous trustees who would retire
into santUaries in the various states
and give the country the kind OF a
chief magistrate that they thought
the country ought to have.
That theory did not long survive.
American democracy rejected it con-
temptuously and with much ingenu-
ity proceeded to evolve an effective
method for multiplying the electoral
t'or more than a century the presi-
Dental electors Have been only clerks
for the majority in each of the sever
oil otdlCS, lcCOIu tliG' Ill VI luC
majority; but recording it under a
system which makes it possible for a
minority of the American people to
choose the president, and which also
makes it possible for the result to
hinge upon accidents and stratagems
that actually defeat the expressed
will of the people at the polls.
The president of the United States
ought to be elected like a governor
or senator by the voters themselves.
The majority should determine re-
gardless of state lines and regardless
of artificial devices. The electoral
college has been an anachronism for
a hundred years so far as any indie
pendent political power is concerned.
1t should be eliminated completely
from the political system of the coun-
try as public evil and a public dan
ger.
One of the first duties of congress
when it reassembles is to take the
necessary first steps toward an
amendment of the constitution to
substitute direct vote of the people
for the electoral college in the cleo
ton of a president of the United
Estates. Never again should it be
possible for a desperate partiSanship
to override in the electoral college
the viii of the people at the polls
New York World.