Evening star., 1922-11-05
BY WILL p. KENNEDY.


TN the present congressional CAM
paign which closes Tuesday there
is more of what might be called
''individualistic voting" than In
many a day Party lines are like ropes
of sand" The candidates are for the
most part each for himself. The out
standing feature is that the tariff Is
sue. which the republicans dreaded.
and which the democrats have done
their best to emphasize. has been de-
cidedly less of an issue than at any
time in recent years when a fresh
tariff law had been written in the
statute books.
Local issues have predominated,
such as the Ku Klux Klan in Texas.
the wet fight in New Jersey and Mis-
souri, and the labor row in Ohio. So
many features have entered into the
situation to distract and confuse the
voters, One cannot but note the lack
of an outstanding element. There Is
an absolute lack of any well defined
issue between the two big parties as
such.
Have Individual Platforms.
Regardless of the causes, this is the
effect. A very powerful cause is the
primaries, where the individual can
didates were permitted to work out
their own platforms. which have been
of local coloring. regardless of party
platform. Nowadays the only party
of
all comes out of the national con-
vention in presidential years. The
party platform Is regarded as more or
less obsolete at congressional elections
in off years.
The biennial congressional election
has resolved itself into numerous
fights among individual candidates,
each putting up his own kind of argu-
ment for his own return or election.
as the case may be, with little regard
for party fealty or party principles as
enunciated in the two-year-old plat
form.
But In former days, Before the pri-
mary system was inaugurated, the is
sues were we'll defined, and 1t was
label put himself outside the party
liable put himself outside the party
breastworks. If and when he did. 1t
was at his own risk. Then it was a
battle of parties and not of indi-
viduals. Each congressional district
in its convention would adopt the
party platform for candidates to stand
on. and the state conventions would
do likewise. There was very little
difference on national issues between
these party platforms. and this was
true of both major political parties.
So the lines were definite and closely
drawn.
When Tariff Was an Issue.
Take the fight to elect the Fifty
first Congress. known as the Reed
Congress" in 1888. That was tho
time Harrison was elected President.
Tho line of cleavage was on one
hand we'll defined advocacy of low
tariff by the Cleveland democrats.
Cleveland had made that the para
mount issue when he was President
and it was the outstanding issue on
which he asked reelection and the
reelection of a democratic Congress.
The republicans, on the other hand,
with Senator Harrison, who was
compromise candidate. stood squarely
on a platform for protection Of
American industries and labor-and
on those lines the campaign was
fought out.
Tho republicans made their appeal
chiefly to the wage Garner and
stressed tho pay envelope. Tho
democrats said that tho tariff was
"mother Of trusts" and that was
about the first campaign in which the
expression was used. Big business
and the so-called Interests" the
democrats said. were fostered by high