AMBUSH BALLOTS
Childs, Richard S.
Ambush Ballots By RICHARD S. CHILDS IN 1911 Ohio will hold a Constitutional Convention. Privilege and the People will go to the Convention together. Now the only thing that Privilege can do in a...
...If this average man did go into politics and work night and day to make politics better, everybody would soon be sneering, "If that fellow would give his business the attention he gives to uplifting the State, his children wouldn't be wearing such old clothes...
...It ought to make a rule that not more than five or six offices should ever be filled by election in one day...
...What chance would there be then for a railroad to sneak a nomination through...
...To compel them to struggle with anything else is to bunco them...
...With forty other Republicans or Democrats he gets elected by just about the same plurality that the State Treasurer and the Secretary of State receive...
...Shouldn't he work just as hard as he can for his family, even if politics does go to the dogs...
...The duty of selecting a coroner is only a needless nuisance...
...Train and all that he stands for is safely concealed in the crowd—lost in the shuffle...
...There is light to see by in the case of these offices, but all the little offices they leave to the party by voting a straight ticket blindly...
...Forty elections in one day...
...The condition simply invites crime...
...It is not a right or a privilege...
...The people now are swamped and Privilege is in glee...
...You think they do...
...Wouldn't you despise the intelligence of a railroad management that couldn't "get past the people" in such a confused election...
...There on the ballot is a group of names of candidates for secretary of state, for instance...
...No one but Privilege wants citizenship to be one of the learned professions...
...Suppose things were so arranged that only four offices were filled by election at any one time instead of forty...
...The people are on the job with a search-light...
...The less publicity, the better the chance that Privilege has to slip its candidates past the people...
...But when the candidates are only small fry that are hardly worth the labor of inspection or when there are so many offices to watch that the people can't possibly inspect all the candidates,—then there is peril...
...The best chance for Privilege is with candidates for minor offices who are getting very little scrutiny by the voters...
...Not the People's Fault PERHAPS you say the people don't know now, but they ought to bestir themselves and find out...
...The little places are the perquisites of the political experts who make a profession of citizenship...
...Government entirely in the limelight is bound to be better than government half in the dark...
...Therefore Privilege wants to befuddle the people, to mix them up, to make intelligent voting difficult, to make politics complex and confusing...
...It is like a treasure without a guard...
...Later on he is duly nominated...
...the bad men would join it, and as it means money to them, they would work very hard until they dominated that party and crowded out the good men...
...With a short ballot we can get responsive government and freeze out Privilege...
...No one but Privilege has use for complex politics...
...The newspapers haven't the space for all the information...
...Train (a friend of railroads) is spoken of in favorable terms as a prospective candidate for attorney general...
...Well, how about the candidates for clerk of the supreme court...
...Suppose for small cities we adopt the Des Moines commission plan of government— just five to elect and no more...
...Isn't he right about it...
...Will it...
...The railroad makes connection with a few bosses or sends some agents to the caucuses...
...And the best popular control is obtained by having the issues simple and plain and clear...
...Such a short ballot seems pretty radical at first glance...
...The longer the ballot, the easier to flimflam the people...
...And if he did, could he remember his forty separate opinions long enough to get his ballot marked...
...There's no way by which a party can resist this inevitable contamination...
...Democracy Can't Work in the Dark DEMOCRACY, like photography, won't work without light...
...In villages, indeed, the ballot can be quite long because the people know the candidates personally...
...Danger in Government by Politicians THE PARTY MACHINE is absolutely necessary while we have blind voting...
...It ought to forbid ambush ballots forevermore...
...For the party, knowing that its minor candidates won't be scrutinized, knowing that it will get little credit for a good nomination and little discredit for a bad one, is sure, sooner or later, to fall into the hands of leaders who will utilize these opportunities for profitable mischief...
...But suppose the people at that Ohio Convention demand the right to have their ballots comprehensible...
...Now the only thing that Privilege can do in a democracy is to try to get the people to elect candidates they do not really want—candidates whom the people would not be willing to elect if they really knew them...
...The ballot on election day is a yard square and contains the names of about 200 candidates...
...Buy no more political goods than you can inspect...
...Suppose we make the state government as simple as the national government, electing just the governor and the legislature and letting the governor appoint the other state officers...
...They demand good governors and mayors and usually get them...
...Without a machine, politics would be worse chaos than it is...
...Elect no more than you can take a' good look at...
...It is the only kind they can handle...
...They attend to politics as much as they can...
...The short ballot is a ballot that the people can handle...
...If all the good men in a town got together and formed a strong party...
...A party is therefore unfit to hold appointive power...
...Well, let's see if they ought...
...How Privilege would shriek if a Short Ballot came to Ohio...
...If he had time and energy enough for politics, shouldn't he rather devote it to profitable work so that he can afford to five his wife a nicer home or his son a better education...
...How the Flimflam Works NOW ENTER PRIVILEGE...
...But in big communities it takes the people a long time to find out all about the candidates, and so to make sure that nobody gets elected without being well scrutinized and discussed, the ballots must be shorter...
...What chance is there for Privilege to work its flim-flam game then...
...It seems somehow undemocratic—taking power way from the people—oligarchy...
...Not one-man power, not an elective despotism...
...What happens...
...The people hear practically nothing about him...
...Perhaps you say, "the people ought to go into politics and learn that way...
...But what is a party machine...
...So, at that Constitutional Convention, Privilege will want the new Ohio Constitution to be like the old one, which makes the duties of citizenship so elaborate that the average man in Ohio who works for a living, simply cannot master the job and is practically obliged to leave politics to a few thousand political experts, or politicians, who give their lives to the subject...
...See what the Ohio citizen is up against on election day...
...No doubt each candidate would like to have the papers publish a lot about him every day...
...But the average man will say he hasn't the time and the strength to go to the caucuses and primaries and conferences and district battles and all that...
...A short ballot is the only kind that is democratic...
...Do the people have a clear idea of what Smith and Jones and Robinson look like, what their records are and what their abilities are...
...It means controlling everybody...
...An organization which anybody can join—any good man or any bad man...
...But it isn't...
...The people must be able to see what they are doing...
...Without the old confusion, how could Privilege flimflam the people...
...Let it recommend candidates, but the people must inspect all offerings with suspicion and thoroughness...
...What will Ohio do in 1911...
...It is not the kind of liberty the Pilgrims crossed the sea for.' Democracy does not mean electing everybody directly...
...The Short Ballot Applied LET'S BE DEFINITE ABOUT IT...
...How are they to do it...
...No one but Privilege wants to see the average citizen scared out of politics by the hard work involved...
...And the rest of the 200 candidates...
...If for lack of information they are obliged to accept the party label as the only reason for voting for a man, oligarchy is the result— not democracy...
...It is the only kind they should have...
...And those candidates for attorney general...
...Suppose for large cities we gave the council complete charge so that even if the council be large, the ballot, in each ward, would be short...
...The long ballot provides all the paraphernalia of a flimflam game...
...Suppose they insist that politics must cease to be a complicated game for experts only and must be hereafter simple, open, well-lighted, so that everybody can understand it all at a glance...
...When there is so much light on all the elective offices where can Privilege find a shadow to conceal its tricks...
...What the Long Ballot Means THE LONGER THE BALLOT the harder for the people to see what they are doing and the easier for agents of Privilege to get in...
...Public examination" is the key to it...
...If the papers did try to do it, could the average man ever endure reading all that stuff...
...How that would clear the underbrush out of the jungle and wipe out the whole ambush...
...A railroad that couldn't get "safe" men elected if it really wanted to, would be a pretty feeble road...
...In this State the people elect the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, attorney general, auditor, clerk of the supreme court, superintendent of public instruction, dairy and food commissioner and a lot of judges and county officials, a total list of forty odd...
...Do the people know them...
...Putting the County Clerk on the elective list isn't giving power to the people—it's giving it to the politicians...
...They are doing just what they ought to be doing under the conditions...
...In due time Mr...
...Simple, isn't it...
...The people go to the polls on election day and get the big official ballot...
...To thrust upon the people more duties than they have time to perform is undemocratic...
...The people are all right...
...The longer the ballot, the less the people rule and the more the politician and his friend, Privilege, rule...
...But not too short...
...The short ballot would be the people's ballot...
...The people are supposed to know all of them, but do they in actual fact...
...When there is lots of publicity and the candidates stand up clearly and conspicuously in the limelight, the exposure of a conspiracy is easy— and that is bad for privilege...
...Smith and Jones and Robinson have been nominated for the office, and the people are to say which of them is to get it...
...Short enough for the people to master but no shorter...
...The longer the ballot, the less real democracy you have...
...They vote for the good of the State as far as they have light to see which candidate is good and which is bad...
...Suppose the People compel the Convention to make all that tangle of petty unimportant obscure offices appointive instead of elective...
...Let us say that a railroad happens to need a friendly attorney general...
...That's why Privilege at the Ohio Convention, will want things to be made complex and like a jungle...
...And wouldn't they be justified...
...The short ballot ought to include just the offices the people are interested in— and no more...
...There's no way of barring the bad man out...
...There is no obscurity, no public bewilderment, no confusion to shelter the tricks of politicians or Privilege...
Vol. 3 • May 1911 • No. 19
