Reform The Primaries

REFORM THE PRIMARIES.

The professional politicians are just as strongly opposed to a primary election law as they formerly were to the Australian ballot scheme. When the people first demanded voting by the Australian plan, and the demand could no longer be resisted, the politicians gave them a law which was just as far from the spirit of the genuine Australian ballot as it was possible to get and still give it that name. As public sentiment grew and became more and more insistent, the politicians retreated grudgingly and step by step from one position to another until a fairly good law was enacted. But they continued to the last to keep as many of the machine ideas as possible in the law. Machine methods are not yet entirely eliminated from the Michigan statutes.

That the bosses will do the same thing with the primary election idea there is no room for doubt. When the people finally force such a law upon the statute books, if it is enacted by a republican legislature, it will bear little resemblance probably to a genuine primary law. The republican leaders and the machine politicians do not want any such law and they will not permit one to be enacted that is effective so long as it is possible to resist the demand therefor. Whatever law they enact will be full of holes and so defective as to make it practically a dead letter. This will be done to bring the idea into disrepute and defer the turn down of the bosses just as long as possible. The surest way for the people to secure a genuine primary election law is to elect a democratic majority in the legislature. It was a democratic legislature that gave the state the Australian ballot law. It was a republican legislature which put upon that law the obnoxious machine plan of not permitting the name of a candidate to appear but once upon the official ballot. This was done not to facilitate the expression of the public will, but to make that expression more difficult.

But in spite of all these efforts to retard this great reform, we now have a fairly effective Australian ballot law and we are bound ultimately to have an effective primary election law, the republican opposition to the contrary notwithstanding. Of course there are very many republican citizens just as earnestly committed to this reform as are democrats, but they are not shaping the policy of the party on this issue. The leaders of the party, the Blisses, the Tom Navins, the Judsons, are not for it. Reform of the present corrupt primary system is sure to come, however. A democratic victory this fall will speed the day.

It is stated that Alfred Lucking has consented to the use of his name for the democratic nomination for congress in the first district. This is good news to the whole state and the first district democracy is to be congratulated. Mr. Lucking is an able man and as upright and honorable as he is able. He has never held office, but this does not indicate any unfitness for the duties of a congressman. He is a man of wide experience in the legal profession, a student of political questions, thoroughly familiar with first district affairs, and well versed in the history and working of our government and institutions. Washtenaw takes pride in him, for he spent the earlier years of his life in Ypsilanti and graduated from the University. There ought to be no question of his election and probably will be none. If he is elected, he will make a representative than whom the first district has had none better equipped to serve her every interest.

It was a democratic administration that gave Michigan the franchise fee tax by which every Corporation has to pay the state for doing business within its borders, which is a steady source of revenue to the state. A democratic administration also gave the state the Australian ballot by which old and corrupt methods of voting were done away with. Both of these acts were passed by the democratic legislature of 1891, after the preceding republican legislature refused to enact such legislation. A democratic legislature this fall would insure a thorough and effective primary election law which the last republican legislature refused to enact at the earnest demand of the people. The pronouncement of the republican platform this year relative to primary elections is so worded as to plainly indicate that that party does not intend to carry out this mandate of the people in the next legislature, if there be any way to dodge it. The surest way to get such a law is to elect a democratic legislature.