Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1912 — IN DEFENSE OF REGISTRATION. [ARTICLE]

IN DEFENSE OF REGISTRATION.

There Were “Kickers” On Australian Ballot Law Also. Rensselaer, May 20. Editor Democrat: Reading in your paper about A. W. Bitters .silly twaddle* penned on his registration blank, calls to mind a few reminiscences of other days. Editor Bitters is only one of a very numerous class who have always opposed a pure ballot and a fair count. Does he and his like wish to return to the old and corrupt methods of years ago? It was just suoh as Bitters that so violently assailed the Australian ballot. Many republicans in this county at the first election, under the present system, refused to vote. What honest man would now want ’to go back to the old plan? This registration is no new thing, no party matter. Republican states as well as democratic state have it—Ohio and Illinois for example. ? '■' ■■. - ■ ■ Under the law just changed, every two years a score or more voted here Who had ao interest .whatever in he management of the county. Tht-y would vote and no more would We she .or hear of them till T he next two years roiled around, taen here they were again, not to pay their taxes, but to vote and thereby save the country.” 1 ?.”Ob .7 _ ■’;ayi..j-.imi.e.-.? ■'This registration law may be needed in the big wicked cities, but in rural districts' -and,, among- the law-abiding people like rhe voters of Jasper county there is no need for any such regulations.” . j What have seen in Jasper county /election.-we? have. seen, and what ?we know ’“of 1 Jasper ■ county. election we know. j As> an example of the poliical purity and innocence of rural pat- ‘ riots we give 1 hi- little bit of his-; tory; Newton county once sen:

over here a negro to serve out jail sentence; his term of imprisonment expired a day or two before the election. Late in the evening 1 of the election, just before the clos-i ing of the. polls after the lamps were lit. up steps Newton’s negro.! accompanied by the Methodist minister. who came to identify his colored brother. The preacher solemnly raised his hand, thinking he, must swear the voter in, but Captain Chilcote, standing by, knowing 1 better, gently touched the uplifted arm and said, ‘you do not have to swear,” So, unchallenged, the negro voted. A registration law Would have prevented this crime and disgrace. The writer once saw in one ol our put townships a man and his family and household goods all aboard a wagon behind which were led “ two cows, moving along thaighway. He drove up in front of th ■ voting place and stopped. TL? vote-seekers immediately =et upon him and induced him to make an attempt ,to vote. He was on his way from an adjoining county, moving into this. He was challenged and questioned. He said he had not voted 1 before on that day and that everything he possessed on earth was hitched to and on the Wgon standing there. He was moving into a hut just a quarter mile down, the road (a fact that aid the members pi the board knew and to which fact the owner of the hut te.-tified.r There was no law to prevent his voting. The township ticket he voted carried by one majority. There we needed a registration law. Voting is too easy: is made too ’tight and trivial a matter. There not sufficient solemnity and consideration shown it. A VOTER