On Washington State’s Primary Law 1900

Seattle, Wash. Dec 10 1900

To the Editor: Expression of opinion having been invited in your columns as to the merits or otherwise of the Minnesota primary law, which it is proposed by some to adopt in this state, I have the following to offer:

This law imposes an intolerable hardship upon numerically weak political movements in three distinct ways:

• First—By requiring each candidate to pay into the public treasury the sum of $10.
• Second—By requiring ten per cent of either vote or signatures to obtain official standing.
• Third—By providing a means whereby a numerically strong political movement could, by capturing the nominations of a weaker, thwart its purpose and smother its expression at the polls.

The essence of the law is to restrict the franchise. It is strictly in line with the disfranchising of the negro in certain Southern states: the introduction of property qualifications in various state constitutions and city charters, and the efforts being made in some states to lengthen the period between elections for legislative offices. The object of all this is to accomplish covertly and by stealth that which those responsible for it dare not attempt in the open, i. e., the disenfranchising of the working class. As our republic is cornerstoned upon the right of the citizen to freely and frequently express himself at the ballot box, any attempt to thwart such expression is a blow aimed at our liberties, and must be frowned down by every decent citizen. If these encroachments are to lie unchallenged, all liberty will be lost.

The arguments offered in favor of this precious law are worse than weak. It will not tend to do away with the corruption in politics, as some would claim, but on the contrary its passage would be but additional evidence (if that were needed) of that very corruption. The members of the legislature were not elected upon any such issue. If they proceed to enact such an infamous measure, it will be proof positive that they are being used by some unseen influence. This would savor of corruption, to say the least, if there be corruption in politics, and who can doubt it when so many aver the fault is in political parties, and that from which they spring. It is no fault of the election laws of the state of Washington. The election laws of this state in so far as they pertain to the nomination of candidates for public office are the best that obtain in any state in the Union of which the writer has any knowledge. They could scarcely be improved upon.

For the state to interfere with the nomination of candidates for public office is an unwarranted assumption of authority that should not be tolerated. It comes distinctly within the province of free citizens through their various political parties. A political party capable of formulating lines of party policy and incapable of nominating candidates for office without calling upon the state for assistance, must be a queer conglomeration of strength and weakness.

Those who are responsible for this primary law, and other schemes of its kind, ought to know that the standard of intelligence of today and the means of still further extending it are altogether too ample to admit of popular liberty being successfully smothered by petty schemes of still more petty legislatures.

Well for them and those who stand behind them and whose tools they are, if they refrain from attempting to stifle the free expression of the popular will in the settlement of the mighty economic problems which are forcing themselves upon us and demanding a solution.

E. T. Kingsley