Caucus Reform A Myth

Editor Argus:

With singular unanimity people who are not suited with the labors of political conventions, or have fault to find with the result of elections, turn to a reform of the processes by which candidates are named (or the rules by which elections are conducted) as the only solution of the real or fancied evils of which they complain. It does not seem to occur to these would be reformers that the trouble lies, not with the machinery with which political parties are conducted, but with the individual members of those parties. The stream cannot rise higher than its source and the nominations of political parties usually reflect the sentiment of the majority of those who participate actively in party management. Those who do not take an active interest in party affairs are usually less competent to manage public business than those who do, and in all events legislation intended to take the management of political parties out of the hands of the active majority and place it in the hands of the minority will fall short of its mark if better government is the object intended. The independent voter holds in his hands at all times the most salutary and the only effective cure for partizan corruption - the ballot.

The Gates primary election law which, it is said, will be introduced into the next session of the Michigan legislature is of this class. Designed ostensibly to purify party management its effect would be to subject the will of the majority, at all times, to that of a small minority and at an enormous and unnecessary expense to the public. As a reform measure it is about on a par with the suggestion of the correspondent of a Detroit paper who proposed to round up with the police - those electors who neglect to vote and take them to the polls in a patrol wagon, evidently unmindful of the fact that he who does not take interest enough in public affairs to vote without being compelled to do so by force would not make very intelligent use of the franchise when brought to the polls by the police.

Real election reforms must be directed at the elector and not the election laws. Until the indifferent voter is made to realize the responsibility which he owes to himself and his fellow citizens it is idle to talk of reforming the methods of political parties.

VOTER.