The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-11-11
The Important Job


Having registered a most emphatic YER
dict in regard to CoffinIsm, the people can be
pardoned if they do not show any exceptional
interest or excitement in the gossip, plans,
and petty conspiracies to obtain a new
chairman for the Republican organization in
this city.
What they voted down was not man,
but a system, and what they demand is not
only new leader but new viewpoint in
leadership.
If political organizations are dominated
by the single ambition of getting jobs for
those who have plenty Of time to play the
game of politics, of getting special favors for
privileged contributors to campaign funds,
Of dispensing public money with view of
favoring friends, changes in the chairman
ships mean nothing at all.
In fact it was because Coffin was so eff
fective end so constituencies in these matters
that he became discredited and obnoxious.
What is needed is leadership in both
parties with higher ideal than mere victory
at the polls.
What is demanded is a leadership that
will not only refrain from the practices which
are identified in the public mind as Cofinism,
but will be brave enough to denounce these
practices if they are attempted within his
own party.
Honesty in elections is the first demand.
That has been absent. 1t is still absent in one
particular section of the state and that sec
ton corrupts and corrodes the whole political
system of the state.
1t is true that during the past four years
the laws and supreme court decisions have
been written in manner that furnishes lit
tie protection against frauds, either in cleo
ton or within party organizations.
When it became possible, under the law,
for party chairmen to depose precinct men
at will and without cause, the first step was
taken toward corrupt political organization.
That was a denial of the voter of a voice
within his own party
When registration laws were abolished,
there went out the first invitation to commit
frauds That invitation was accepted in
Lake county and perhaps Others That was
responsible for the bringing of truck loads
Of voters from Chicago at the last election.
1t was responsible for the overthrow of the
popular will in elections in the state.
The abolition Of the primary was the next
step in the dethrOnement of the citizens and
the establishment of bossSm. What will
happen next year remains to be seen. 1t is
possible that the results in the recent cleo
tons in the state may suggest more caution
than has been exercised in the past.
But there should be a drive for two
things. The first is the restoration of the
primary system by the next legislature. The
other, more important, is the approval of
the calling of a constitutional convention to
rewrite, in palmer terms, the Constitution.
Too many inroads have been made on the
present document by supreme court deci-
sions, especially into those sections which
were designed to protect the civil liberties
of citizens. In other spots it is Anticipated
and untitled to the new day.
These are the big detectives. The reor-
ganization of party committees is only Incl
dental. The people have shown power and
an inclination to overthrow and forget party
systems that become corrupt.