The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1920-03-19
Wednesday, March II, 1920.
THE CLEMSON TROUBLE
PRIMARY ELECTIONS

The announcement by Governor
Dorsey, of Georgia, that he will not
make the race for the United States
Senator because he is financially un-
able to do so should cause the people
to take stock of the advantages and
disadvantages of primary elections.
In these latter years the people
have looked to the primary as a
cure-all for political diseases. There
are some Offices which, of necessity,
must be filled in this way, but the
net results of the primary system has
been to fill the offices of the state
and nation with all kinds of men of
mediocre ability, not to say blatant
dmogogues, while men who might
have served the state and nation
with profit and great distinction have
been eliminated from politics, in
some cases because the people did
not want to hear the truth, and IN
others because these men would not
consent to undergo the annoyance
and Humiliation, not to say the eX-
pense, Of running for office. The phi
mary has made it impossible for the
people to select man and elect him
to office without this man putting
himself in the position Of an Office
seeker, and actually becoming such.
But the worst effect of the pri-
mary, as we see, it is that more and
more it is becoming a matter CT
ability to reach voters by means of
money. The money in some cases i
spent for legitimate purposes, ro
doubt. There is no objection 20 spend
ing money for advertising purposes,
nor for other purposes of informa-
ton to the public. But few candidates
who run for office confine the eX-
penditures to these purposes. Work
ers are hired whose business it is to
60 about the state and spread propa
ganda of one kind and another In
the industrial centers large amounts
of money are spent in this way,
breeding horde of so-called-helpers
many of whom accept money from
both sides to a controversy, and none
of whom in the end, we suspect, do
much good for anybody. They do a
great deal of harm in all cases in pro-
ducing a political seething entirely
incompatible with the best interests
of the community. One of the princi-
pal things to be accomplished by
them to create in the community
distrust towards the people whom
thew sn,r. ond on whose employment
they subsist.
Ard the poor nian about whom we
have heard so much in this way of
doing things, is like Governor Dorsey
lost in the shuttle. He is financially
unable to run for Office, and must
step aside for those with money. The
primary which was supposed to make
it possible for every man, in what
ever condition, to become an Office
seeker on equal terms with everybody
else, in the end accomplishes the
opposite result, and makes the poor
man only an on-looker.
We take it to be true that the old
convention system was dominated by
rings and combinations. But we do
not believe there was ever one half
the corruption in politics under this
system that we nave had in this state
in the last twenty years. And there
was never more rings and combina-
tions in those days than there is now
Certain it is that in the old days we
sent at least some men to Congress
and to the United States who were
representative of South Carolina,
and who did their own thinking, and
were neither rubber stamps"
nor rubber necks" in political life.
If some men were kept out of office
by the convention plan they were
fortunate, that is all.
1t takes time for revolutions to
subside, but the states and the coun-
try must 20 back to a representative