Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1929-06-15

is to say, was in the performance OF
duty enjoined on them by statute
or was merely individual and per-
sonal and authorized by right in
herent in the political organization to
which they belong. Defendants say
that the latter is the correct view.
That utilization with a political party
is not a matter of right but of party
regulation and that the legislature
as such has no authority to fix stand
ards or qualifications of membership.
Grigsby v. Harris, 81 F (2d) 942.
They say in effect that there is no
legal ban on the formation Of po-
litical party based wholly on color or
on religious belief or on sex or any
other standard which the party
chooses to adopt, and that because OF
this, the General Assembly of Vir-
GINA in recognizing the right made
no delegation of power but only rec
ognized the existence of the power
where it has always resided.
The Way Out
There can be no doubt, at least so
far as the State of Virginia is con-
cerned, that political party may
refuse to avail itself of the privi-
leges of the direct primary and may
nominate candidates to be voted Tor
in a general or special election in any
of the ways in which such nomlna-
tions were made before the introduce
ton of the primary. Candidates for
public office may be made such by
petition, by action of caucus, or by
a convention. Indeed they may be
nominated in primary conducted by
the party under its own rules and at
its own expense. But if because OF
the greater safeguards which the law
throws around a legalized primary,
or because in such case the expense
is borne by the State, a party elects
to adopt this method of naming It's
candidates for public office, it may
do so and still preserve the absolute
right to determine who shall particl-
nate. is a much more delicate ques-
ton.
A Modern Proposition
The primary as means of naming
candidates for a place on the official
ballot is comparatively modern. us
spread in the last quarter OF cen
tury has been steady and it is today
in practically every State the exclu-
siye method adopted by the two great
political parties for the nomination
of candidates for office, State and
Federal. Its growth and adoption
as a vital part of the election system
arose because of the Importance to
the public to "give vitality. to the
constitutional guaranty Of free ana
untrammeled ballot"
Judge Keith's Language
This purpose may not be better
stated than repeating the language
of Judge Keith in Commonwealth V.
Wilcox, Ill Va, page S59, as fol-
lows:
eve know, as matter Of common
knowledge, that the purpose OF hold
ing a primary election is to select
candidate to'be voted for by party
organization at the ensuing general
or special election. We know that
the person selected at the primary
election to be voted for at the general
or special election will receive the
votes of the members of the party to
which he belongs and for which the
primary Is held, and if both political
organizations, or all political organl-
cations, into which community is
divided, held primary elections, 1t
necessarily follows that the person
chosen at the primary becomes the
nominee of his party to be voted Tor
at the general election, and that one
of the primary nominees will ulti-
mately be elected to the office.
"In other words, the primary when
adopted by political party becomes
an inseparable part of the election
machinery, and if a candidate to be
voted for at the general election is to.
be selected at a primary, it is impos--
sible to secure the regularity and
purity of the general election without
in the first place guarding against ir-
and fraud at the primary
election. The primary election con-
stitutes a necessary part, and fulfils
an essential function in the plan to
promote honesty in the conduct of
Administrations which shall faith
fully reflect and register the un-
bought will of the electors.
''If there be fraud in the primary
election, which is the very root from
which the whole system of regulation
springs, it is vain to regulate the
conduct of general elections, for the
fraud by which the nominee at the
primary election is chosen enters into
and is an ineradicable constituent in
the result. However fair the general
election may be, if at that election
men have no choice but to vote for
candidates who have been nominated
~ fraudulent practices at primaries
Or else to desert their party, which
would be in most instances but to
throw away their votes without
achieving any good result, the effect
If the election must be the consum--
nation of a fraud and the defeat of
he will of the people, for of thorns
men do not gather figs, nor Of bram-
Die bush gather they grapes
eve are of opinion that section
1920 is not only cognate and ger
name to, congruous with and IN tur-
therance of the object expressed in
the title of chapter 10 of the Code,
which fully satisfies the requirements
Of the Constitution, without resort to
any liberality of construction, but
that primary elections in their nature
have such a relation to and bearing
upon general elections, that the omls-
sion to bring them within the law
would have left the plan devised by
the legislature for securing the regu-
larity and purity of elections wholly
abortive and Intellectual" {
What the Supreme Court Said