People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1893 — NEW SUBJECT OF DEBATE. [ARTICLE]

NEW SUBJECT OF DEBATE.

Mr. Hoar Offers a Resolution Against Popular Election of Senators. Washington, April 3.—lt appears from a resolution introduced in the senate Monday as if the debate on the subject of the election of senators by a direct vote of the people wsa to be renewed at this extra session of the senate. Senator Hoar (Mass.) introduced a resolution of which the following is a summary: It asserts that it is inexpedient that the resolution sent to the senate by the house during the last congress should be adopted, for such a method of election would essentially change the character of the senate as conceived by the convention that framed the constitution and the people who adopted it. It requires the substitution of pluralities for majorities; transfers the political power in great states, now distributed evenly over their territory, to the great cities and masses of population; creates new temptation to fraud, and will give rise to numerous election contests. In conclusion the resolution says that such a method implies what the whol* current of our history shows to be untrue—that the senate has during the last century failed to meet the just expectations of the people and that the state legislatures have proved themselves unfit to be the depositories of the power of electing senators.