Vote-buying

The ballnts for the local option election will be provided for at the public expense, as ought to be done in every election. This reform, with the additional features of the Australian system of voting, would make machine work and wholesale vote-buying almost impossible. This is more important than protection orfree trade. A change of little more than 500 votes in New York city from Cleveland would have given the presidency to Blaine. All the worry, and lumult, and agony, and expense of the campaign inay be saved if only votes are boughtin New York city. Under the tramp boarding-house system there, thousands of votes are bought. In 1887, 15,000 names were registered from tramp lodging housesin New York city. It has been reduced to a fine iness. The lodging-house keepers make the contracts. On election day, the tramps are marshalled in the various lodging-houses and marched in a body to the polling-places, accompanied by the ballot-distributor. They hold up in plain sight in one hand the ballot which he has given thetn, so that he may eee that they are not changed. When the ballots are deposited, the tramps proceed to some appointed rendezvous and, uponhis testimony as totheir performance of the contract, they recei ve the $2 or $5, or whatever may be the consideration, for the vote. This is given almost in the language of a New York gentleman who ought to know. His name in Elihu Root, and he is a New York lawyer. These facts are given in a letter which he wrote for publication at the request of the Brooklyn citizen's league.