The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-03-01
DIRECT PRIMARY is
NOTORIOUS HUMBUG
This Is the View of II. S. Wardner of
Windsor, in Letter to st. Al
bans Messenger.


Your issue of February % with the |
letter of Mr. Frank Z. Howe on the
subject of the direct primary referen-
dunn is before me. 1t is nearly three |
months since letter of my own, pub
lished in your columns, paid extended |
attention to Mr.. Howe and his attempts |
to make the voters of Vermont believe |
that this notorious humbug of a direct |
primary was thing to be desired in |
Vermont. OF course my letter escaped |
his notice, for otherwise he would |
hardly expose himself to the appear |
ance of being unable to escape the |
gauge of debate | then threw down to
him. | take it that Mr. Howe, like
some of the other Vermont newspaper
| editors, had so definitely committed
himself to the direct primary idea in
the days before it was shown up as a
worthless nostrum that he cannot now
lextricate himself from his position and
thinks it easier, if less manly, to per
sist in his original course. | am not
sorry for him, although l can feel that
1T cannot be comfortable to be q
hawker of q bogus patent medicine
which practically everybody but the
veriest hayseed knows is a fake As
the New York Times well says: ''The
irony of the whole pretentious and
misleading humbug is that in the name
of progress and reform it is a relapse
and reaction, and Mr.. Howe is un-
willing to admit that he is one of the
many who were taken in by spurious
remedy.
Time is short to answer Mr. Howe g
! unsupported barking in favor of the
| direct primary, but I will attempt to
e do so briefly. He saws that the direct
e lprimary is not more expensive than
4 the caucus and convention. An answer
@ to that is that the state and the sepa-
) rate towns would be required under
the proposed direct primary law to pay
r the cost of holding the primary See
e rotary of State Bailey says that this
h cost will equal the cost of an election.
n Certainly this is minimum estimate
f for If the candidates at the primary
# are numerous the cost must be cor
o respOndingly greater. The cost of the
d election remaining the same, the pri
e mary would therefore at least double
o the cost to the state and each town il
', the way of election expenses. As the
is law now stands the state and town.
If do not pay anything for the caucus
" and convention.
He says it is absolutely untrue tina
G. the direct primary gives an advantag,
Of to the larger towns over the smaller
le written me by President Schurman o
~ Cornell university and published som
j. time ago in the Rutland Herald. Tn
of people may believe Mr.. Howe on thi
ne point if they choose to, but they won
L., believe him if they take the trouble [
rs read President Sehurman 5 letter
ct Mr.. Howe makes his usual appeal t
r. prejudice against Corporation lawyer.
politicians who work for hire, etc
t.As L
IS. ing up of the direct primary that ha
been going on in the columns of tn
of New York Times, the New York Su
and the New York Evening Post.
quote from the last: 1.-The xxx ordC
he of the day which Barnes and Penros
ms are to pass along the line is that I'll
let time has come, and the chance is e.
lie lcellent, to restore the Republican pa
,tb " as it was before the great upheav;
of and disaster of 1912. They look bae
III, upon all that as simply an ugly stor
re- which they have now weathered. An
in their own states, it is true, the
re can point to the fact that the o.
lu- mastery has been restored. All IL
it'll new-fangled devices of direct primari
In and direct elections of senator's the
,ed veteran practitioners of the polite
the game have shown that they can e
ted along with perfectly we'll Penrose
ed, now senator from Pennsylvania wit
the halo of popular endorsement abol
- his brows. Barnes is easily in contr
Of the reformed Republican party
New York. What more natural tn,
that he and Penrose should have
childlike faith that Republican boss
may readily come back to their ov
all over the country
!, Nor does Mr.. Howe refer in any W:
=. to what has been said of the dire
ks primary by President Schurman
ard Cornell, President Lowell of Harvar
rp- President Butler of Columbia, Jam
Bryce in his American Commonwealth
former president William II. Taft, e
xes Senator Elihu Root, the late Govern
ain John y. Long of Massachusetts, Go
Nv. ernor Whitman, ex-Chief Judge Gull
OIL Of the New York court of appeals. fl
mer Attorney General Wickersham
y! Theodore Douglas Robinson, the fl
It. mer state chairman of the New Yo
Progressives.
e Mr.. Howe letter is an appeal
prejudice and ignorance. If the dire