Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1894 — TRUE BALLOT REFORM. [ARTICLE]

TRUE BALLOT REFORM.

Indiana Democracy’s Record in Respect. How the Legislation of 1889 Wm Brought About. ■iriwnnr,. . Sluun.l.u Abiuw of Sbo Bld System. Dorsey’s Two Dollar Notes and Dudley*. “Block.-of-Fir." Vote. Buying M • Fine Art—Republican Gems Bloelsod. Au.traliaa Ballot Kifoeks It Out—Bnduring Glory of the Democratte Partyt It is a remarkable fact in the history of the American commonwealths that, while progressing so rapidly in other respects, they have alwayh been singularly backward in matters relating to the * exercise of the suffrtjje. For a free people, who govern themselves by the ballot, the first and most essential requisite would seem to be laws regulating the principles and methods of voting. The ballot is the recorded opinion of the masses. In no other way can the will of the majority be ascertained and the government set in motion. The first step, therefore, in a republic controlled by suffrage would naturally be a law clearly ascertaining the right and providing the means for a fair and honest vote of the enfranchised citizen. Yet it is not too much to say that scarcely a state in the Union, during the first hundred years of the country's history, had a scientific or even decent ballot law. The codes prevailing in most of the states were crude, Imperfect, unsatisfactory in operation and often little short of barbarous. The socalled ballot laws led to endless confusion in practice and were fruitful breeders of corruption and oppression. They seemed especially adapted to invite that most insidious and dangerous crime against the life of a republic, the purchase of votes. While nominally secret, the ballot was really open, and the voter was subject io that espionage, intimidation and tampering which is fatal to a fair ascertainment of the popular will. The arrangements for counting and announcing the result were little better than the method of voting. Every facility was afforded the dishonest election officer to play his game of chicane, while the voter outside was left a prey to unprincipled party "workers” and tne schemes of designing politicians. How to remedy this crying abuse was long a subject of earnest thought on the part of many American legislators. Various schemes were devised, but none were satisfactory in operation. The socalled reforms proved inadequate to reach the seat of the evil; the relief was but temporary, and one by one they were abandoned as wholly inadequate to the emergency. At length, unable to invent for themselves, the ballot reformers were foroed to go across the world for a hint of the needed law. It was left for the people of the former penal colony of Australia to solve the vexed problem. They invented what has since been widely famed as the Australian ballot law. While not perfect, nor a complete remedy for all abuses, the Australian system is undoubtedly the beet yet devised for the purpose. While simple in operation, the results under honest administration are so fair as to satisfy the most exacting. Indiana was among the first of the states of the American Union to adopt this new system. When the Democratic party took charge of the legislature in 1889 one of the first measures introduced was a bill to reform the ballot, modeled on the Australian law. The Republican party opposed it bitterly. Under the old system that party had enjoyed a great advantage. The loose methods and imperfect details afforded facilities for the practice of those abuses in which the Republican party had become an adept and an artist. Under the old laws that shameless traffic in votes, which for years made the name of Indiana a byword and a reproach, had been brought by the Republican party to- such a degree of perfection that honest elections were an impossibility tinder these laws. Dorsey’s two-dollar-bill campaign of 1880 converted the whole state into -1 a market for the purchase and sale of votes. Under these laws in 1888 Dud- ‘ ley reduced the "blocks of five” system to a fine art. Our elections tor years were roaring farces, when not bloody tragedies, and free government was practically overthrown by the poisoning of its basic principle at the fountain From all these evils the state was rescued by the Democratic ballot law, which first went into operation at the fall election in 1890. Then, for the first time probably since the war, Indiana had an election that was absolutely honest and fair. The humblest citizen was able to vote in perfect secrecy, undeterred by the pestiferous "ticket handler” on the one hand or the partisan intimidator on the other. Crowds of hoodlums no longer assembled around the polls to abash or influence the honest voter. The trade of the vote buyer was abolished and the occupation of the whipper-in was gone. Under the new law it was found practically impossible to bring the power of money to bear to influenced votes. Nor can the wealthy employer* control his workingmen as formerly, as I under the Australian system it is impossible to ascertain how any man oasts his, ballot. These and other evils were removed, and it is not too much to say that Indiana now enjoys an electoral system that is substantially perfect. Elections being honest and the count fair, the people acquiesce peacefully and cheerfully in the will of the majority as asoettained at the polls. No longer is the bitter complaint heard that "the state was bought” or “the count was not honest,” which cries constituted the afterfnath of every general election held in the state from the 60’s to the 90’s. It is the enduring glory of the Democratic party that it placed this great law on the statute book and thereby rescued the state from the incalculable evils incident to a corrupted suffrage. Not only was it the greatest of reforms (tself, but it was the fruitful parent of Other great reforms which depend for realization upon an honest system of voting. Had the Democratic party done no more in all its later career, the passage of the Australian ballot law would alone entitle it to the lasting gratitude of the people of Indiana.