Evening star., 1936-05-17
Elections i'm America
and Other Countries
BY Frederic ]. Haskin.

Another presidential election year has
rolled around, and, in spite of the fact
that America often has been accused of
being apathetic in political contests, this
year promises to be an exception. The
American people are thinking about the
election and the manner of its conduct.
Election machinery by now is pretty we'll
known to most of the people. The prefer
entail primary elections are being held
now, the campaign follows and then the
actual polling.
General elections in some other coun-
tries are quite different from here. They
do not occur at regular intervals, bit,
under the parliamentary system, on IT,.
fall of the government-whlch means
the ruling party. In Great Britain. in
France in a number of c.he- countries,
an adverse vote Of the Parnatnept means
the fall of the government and the ns 49,
sity for an election. Were the same sys-
tenn In vogue here, when the President
vetoed the bonus bill, and then when
Congress passed the bill over his veto, the
President would have resigned and an
election would have been called to de-
termine whether the people supported
the President or the Congress which
disagreed with him.
Recently there have been a series Of
elections in various parts of the world.
One of the more interesting was the
Greek plebiscite in which the people
voted on their very form of government.
After having been republic, they voted
to bring king back into power. Last
A,,f, al ~
Britain Canada and New Zealand also
have taken the problems to the people.
The Spanish government fell in Febru-
ary and new Cortes was elected. Queer
est of all recent elections has been that
held in Germany, to permit the German
people to register their opinion on the
reoccupation of the Rhineland. The ball
lots were printed with the word ia"
which means yes. 1t was impossible to
vote any other way.
~ ~
Turning to the Orient it is interesting
to note how elections are conducted in
Japan. Democratic forms are relatively
new there. Parties do not exist there. by
name, at least, in the same way they
do here or in European countries. The
two major parties are called Supporters
of the Government and Democrats.
These terms apparently mean the ins
and outs. When change in admins
tration takes place and the Supporters
of the Government party lose, the mem
bers Of that party then become the Demo-
Gratis, while the Democrats become the
Supporters of the Government party.
There are other subsidiary parties.
The army, in sense, constitutes pollt-
ical party and seeks to influence general
elections. In the japanese election held
last February great gains were made by
the Left Wing elements. There are par
ties which correspond roughly to the
Socialist and Labor parties of the Occi-
dent. Should one of these parties pre-
vail at a general election, that party
would then become the Supporters of the
Government party.
There is no woman suffrage in Japan,
although women seem to take more
active interest in politics there than in
some parts of the United States. They
organize parades and put on demonstra-
tions. Women and children will appear
in procession carrying banners designed
to advance some cause or the interests
of some candidate.
Men do not vote until reaching the
age of Is, and, in addition. there are GER
tain property qualifications. The army
and navy and certain other public serv-
ices are not allowed to vote, although
this disfranchisement does not prevent
these persons from taking part in CAM
paigns so far as demonstrations are
concerned.
In Japanese election booths are -ound
little pots of ink with brushes and stack
of slips of paper. The voter takes the
brush and paints the character repre-
Senting the name Of the candidate he
wants to vote for, and drops the slip in
the ballot box Recently the government
has inaugurated an interesting system
in the printing of the Election Gazette.
This gazette is devoted to setting forth
the issues of contest anG the views and
platforms of the parties and candidates.
Although issued by the government all
candidates are supposed to be accorded
equal treatment in this publicity.
During campaign one finds the streets
of japanese cities lined with posters, usu-
ally about twice as tall as a man. Each
candidate is permitted a definite num-
ber of posters. He need not display that
many, but may not display more. With
the streets lined with these, usually about
as far apart as lamp posts in an Ameri-
can city. holiday air is given the cities.
The keenest interest is manifested by
Japanese subjects in their elections, and
on election day the newspapers in the
! large cities have huge billboards on which
| the returns are posted. Always there is
a huge crowd before such posters.
In Italy today there is no election in
the sense meant by Americans. The
Fascist party controls everything. There
is no opposition party which is given an
opportunity to name candidate. When
faScism first began in Italy there were
other parties, which put forward candi-
dates, but MusSolini did not find this
accorded with his plans, so in 1928
new electoral law was enacted which
made the entire kingdom single elec-
toral district, with only one party, the
Fascist party, recognized.
The Gran Consiglio, an organization
which might vaguely be compared to an
American Democratic or Republican
National Committee (save that there is
only the one consiglio), draws up lists
of candidates for the Chamber of Depu-
ties. and voters vote yes or no. They
have no say in suggesting candidates.
The representation is not territorial, as