Voice of action. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1933-1936, 1934-09-07
Why Boycott The
Primaries!

The people who still think that social prob
lens can be solved within the capitalist sys-
TEN must have their faith strained when they
look over the sample ballots of the September
Primary Election
The direct primary has always been the
proudest boast of the capitalist reformists, yet
it is in the primary that the chances of an in
telgent vote are the smallest. Anybody with
a little extra change can enter his name on an
already voluminOus ballot in the hope that in
the resultant confusion of the voter, he has as
much chance of winning the nomination as
anybody else. After winning the nomination he
can then hope to ride through on party lines
without ever having to bother to think up any
platform or set of principles to give his cam
paign meaning or significance.
The primaries involve nothing but individ-
ual issues If anyone takes the trouble to go to
the polls on September II to vote, for example,
for one of the nine candidates for County Com
missioner, he must do so because he is person.
ally interested in one of them as his friend or
patron As far as the average informed voter
is concerned only two of these men have public
records-Evans and Nash-and these records
contain nothing but reasons for not voting for
them.
If the voter in question happens to know by
accident that one of the remaining seven is
good man he ought to consider whether or
not his goodness" has any chance of being eff
fectiye.
For political effectiveness depends entirely
upon the support of a well organized party
with clear cut principles and detectives, and
such party will not be using the direct primary
as the means for selecting its candidates. Any
break within party which is based upon inn
portant differences in principle will result in
the formation of a new party. a
Thus you can know without further investi-
CATION that If your good man is anything more
than an empty, Intellectual dreamer, his name
won't appear in the primaries. Such a man will
be considering his principles before his personal
ambitions and this will lead him to join and
work unselfishly within an already existing
party which represents his principles, or, if no
such exists to organize such one.
This is the crucial argument against the
commonwealth people. Why would any group
OF people who are willing to work unselfishly
for some definite and clear political objective
try to steal the Democratic party? Because
they hope to get the votes of a lot of people who
haven't the faintest ideas of what that objective
is, and wouldn't support it if they did But no
such vote constitutes real support, and no
candidate that gets into office on them can do
anything when he gets there, however honest
or efficient he may be.
No. the intelligent Seattle voter will boy
colt the primary election because he isn't in
terested in individuals or their goodness. He
will work within political party the goodness"
of whose candidates will be of secondary i'm
portance to the internal strength and clarity
of aim of the party.
Such party is the Communist Party. Ig-
more the demagogical bowls emitted by the cap
italist political gangsters. Attend the Commun-
ist Party Nominating Convention set for D. m,
September II primary Day. at the IoGT Hall.
VOTE COMMUNIST