Free trader-journal and Ottawa fair dealer. (Ottawa, Ill.) 1920-1927, 1922-12-13
OPPONENTS TO CHANGE
WIN By $4,000
MAJORITY
LOSES DOWN STATE
ALL SECTIONS VOTE HEAVILY
AGAINST PROPOSAL COOK
COUNTY GIVES NO AN OVER.
WHELMiNG MAJORITY ON is TO
I RATIO.


Illinois voters yesterday decided to
get along under the fifty-two year old
constitution which now serves the
state and rejected by an overwhelm-
ing majority tho proposed new basic
law, prepared by the convention elect
ed IN 1919. With $50 out OF 5,656 pre-.
cincts missing the majority has reach
ei 696,34l, and apparently the fpal
result will show the constitution de-
feated by more than $4,000 votes.
Chicago and Cook county. where
the attack on the conventions work
centered because OF provisions which
would have limited Cook county'5
legislative representation, rolled up
a 1862 vote majority to defeat the
change. according TO complete unot-
fetal figures. The figures for the
downstate and Cook county districts,
with 374 precincts in 43 dowustate
counties missing, give:
Downstate, 293S precincts-for,
145091; against, 33S826.
Cook county, complete-For 35,S2S;
against, 531,390.
Totals, $3.50 out of 1856 precincts
For. 180,919; against, S70,216.
Within half an hour after the polls
closed yesterday afternoon the result
was certain. Only the total Of tide
against the basic law remained to be
determined and within two hours al
ter the count began it was possible
to say that the majority would be
nearly 100000. Downstate counties
where friends OF draft expected to
overcome the adverse Cook county
vote, joined in the main in showing
it under. County after county re-
ported opponents of the law leading
by anywhere from two to one to
twenty to one. Here and there was
an exception, but it was notable that
the few districts which gave a ma
jority in favor of adoption were the
smaller and more isolated farming
communities. Calhoun county. the
only one in the state without a rail
road. was one of those favoring the
change.
Down in Egypt the coal mining
districts were against the proposal.
Williamson county, scene of the Her
rim riots, voted more than ten to one
to retain the present basic law. State
Senator William Sneed, president of
the Williamson miners and dele
gate to the constitutional convention,
fought for tho labor section which
failed Of adoption in the final draft.
Governor Len Small in statement
after he had scanned Associated
Press returns, declared the oppos-
ton to the proposal which he had
fought against was due to the income
tax section and the proposal to limit
Cook county representation. 1t was
encouraging to note, he said, that the
downstate voters had joined Cook
county in aiding Chicago in defeat.
ing certain designing politicians to
align one section against the other.
Out of the defeat of the measure
came a paradoxical tangle in which
two candidates for the supreme court
bench are defeated tho elected and
supreme court justice Is elected tho
not candidate.
Had the constitution been adopted
two new supreme court seats would
have been created from the seventh
district, including Cook county, while
Justice Orrin n. Carter member
OF the present court. would have been
forced to retire in 1924.
Defeat of the proposal keeps Car
ter on the bench altho he was not
concerned as a candidate while the
two successful candidates for the
proposed new places find themselves
elected to phantom positions, since
the seats will not be created. The
winners in the nonexistent seats are
Rosell B. Mason, democrat, and f.
De Young, republican. Judge Mazzini
Slnsher, of DuPage county, repub-
lican, running against Mason was
third. De Young was unopposed
The outcome of the election upset
the widest hopes of the most active
opponents of the new constitution.
They had predicted victory by from
100000 to 100000 and were as sur
prised as the proponents of the draft
when the magnitude of the landslide
became apparent
Illinois experiment with a new
state charter it was conservatively
estimated cost approximately $4,000
000 Figures for yesterdays election
in Cook county were placed at S402,-
9l6. It was estimated that the spe-
cial primary for delegates to the
convention held Sept 10, 1919, and
the special election of Nov. T. 1919,