Valdez daily prospector., 1916-12-06

states, thus decreasing the danger of a sectional choice; and (2l. It les sens the temptation 2. to perpetrate election frauds in states which have large pluralities in favor of one of the political parties. Thus if the president had been chosen by direct popular vote in the year 1908 there would have been a tempation to in- crease by fraudulent manipulation the republican plurality of 123,537 in Pennsylvania, or the democratic plurality of 151,135 in Texas; but no amount of manipulation could give the republicans more than 34 electoral votes in Pennsylvania, or the democrats more than Is electo- ral votes in Texas.
 Another powerful argument to be directed against the election of pres ident by popular vote is to be found is lack of uniformity of the suffrage and election laws of the various states. In order that all states might be placed on a parity it would be necessary for the government to as- sume control of laws defining the qualifications of electors.
 "For instance, it is clear that Washington, which has granted the ballot to women, would wield as much influence in a popular election as an eastern or southern state with double its population which limits the privilege of voting to men. Simi- larly, in some of the states educa- tional qualifications of drastic na- ture are required, while in others the requirements are less stringent. Of course, the federal government might eliminate this objection by granting equal suffrage throughout the United States and then defining the qualifications of a voter, but that would involve some trouble as the suffragists in the East and particu larly in the South, can testify. More over, this brings us to one of the big gest stumbling blocks of the whole reform of the electoral system-the supposedly Solid South."
 It should be kept in mind that the South is ruled by the whites and tho negroes, in spite of the Fifteenth amendment, have no voice in the gov ernment in most of the Southern states; but it is also not knows whether these negroes, if they had voice, would vote the Republican ticket. If the government granted equal suffrage it would mean that negro women as we'll as the men, would be given the ballot; and if it fixed the qualification of electors it would mean that the negro man and the negro woman would be granted every privilege enjoyed by the whites in other states-and it might be talk en for granted that the North would demand that those negroes should be- come voters in fact as well as in the ory, which would be no more than just. It is certain that the whites of the South, with their racial preju- dices, would not view such situa- tion as this with any degree of equan- unity. The Southern educational re- quirements are also so stringent that the North would never consent to adopt them, and if the Northern states were content to work under these drastic laws, the Western states would undoubtedly refuse to adopt them.
 However, it is hardly to be ex- pected that the Republican North, which holds the balance of power under the present electoral system. would relinquish control without bitter fight, for the reason that it ap- preciates the fact that with direct