ee 34 WINNETKA TALK February 27, 1926 Winn. 1762 Phone CHAMBERS CAFE cio s: At this Cafe you will find persons who appreciate appe- tizing, nourishing Foods, attractively served at moderate prices. Noonday Lunch ....... oa oe 100 Lunch Counter Service Hours of Service: Steak Dinner ................75¢ Week Days--S5 a. m. to 7:30 p. m. Sundays--6 a. m. to 2:30 p. m. Steak and Chicken Dinner Sunday $1.00 Ironers and Washers 554 Center St. No Eden, Thor and Maytag home 1s com- plete without a good Washer and Ironer. Authorized dealers for Hoover and Eureka Vacuum Cleaners Terms if desired North Shore Electric Shop If Electrical and Good, We Have It Winnetka Phone 44 Full Quart Divi - HSpecial Butterscotch Adams' Pharmacy, 782 Elm St. G. Matteoni Bros, 742 Elm St. Hubbard Woods Fharmaey This Week Ice Cream FOR SALE AT North Shore Pharmacy Hubbard Woods SHOWS OUR LAXITY IN VOTING AT ELECTIONS Hoyt King Cites Pertinent Facts to Prove Decent Citizens Are Lazy Voters Editor's Note: The following ad- dress was made by Hoyt King of Wil- mette at a gathering of representa- tive citizens of the north shore, held at the Skokie Country club last Mon- day. The meeting was in the interests of a 100 per cent vote at the approach- ing Primary election. The title of the address is "Will Nine Per Cent of the Total Voting Strength of Cook Coun- ty Name the Ticket April 13?" By HOYT KING The cause of the People of the State of Illinois vs. Organized Crime is set for trial April 13. In this great trial will we have the usual alibis? FIRST : That the ballot is too large to be intelligently voted. That is true only when no time is given to intelligent consideration of the facts to be presented by the press and by committees and associations formed to submit facts. Who is responsible for this large ballot? Not the politicians. The peo- ple sought the direct primary. They added the burden of a direct vote for United States senator. They secured the privilege of voting on public policy questions. In Chicago they sub- stituted for appointed justices of the peace the right to vote direct for municipal judges. After assuming these duties, is it now a fit excuse that they have not the intelligence to se- lect? . Lack Confidence SECOND: The tickets are presented by men in whom we have no con- fidence. The tickets must be presented by organized groups. They only have the men to man the polls and watch for fraud in the count. No one group can be entirely satisfactory to anybody, not even to its own members. The groups themselves have fought bitterly over hundreds of names to present a total of 132 county candidates. Of these the voter in each party in the county district has to select 22 for the county offices. Where the groups considered fealty to faction, popularity and political strength, location, race and religion, the voter has to consider fitness only. It would be libel to say there were not some average and some highly qualified men on this ballot. Some are officials of proved integrity. THIRD: We have no assurance that fraud will not defeat our best interests. Fraud is effective only when the vote is light. The citizens surest pro- tection is a heavy vote where slight changes cannot affect the result. FOURTH: The promises of the plat- forms are merely threatening poses, these poses to be held until after the election. Why, then, need the citizen concern himself with promises, where fitness is the real issue? The failure to vote cannot be justified. A heavy vote nul- lifies all the alibis. No Justification A 75 per cent vote in Cook county would be approximately 1,200,000. Give half of it to the Democratic Primary and 600,000 for the Republican Prim- ary. This would be an increase of more than 100 per cent above the 1922 vote. That alone would take the power away from the professional voters who know what they want and will condemn to defeat those officials who do not do their bidding. Who are the professional voters who compose this powerful minority? At our county and state primary in 1922 there were cast in Cook county for both parties 417,291 votes, or 27 per cent of the total county vote; 17 per cent of the total county vote were Republicans; 9 per cent of the total county vote of Cook County elected our sheriff. So a combination of leaders, under those conditions, who can figure on delivering 9 per cent of our voting strength can name the ticket. Let's analyze this county vote: Here's an Analysis We have in Cook county a class of self-interested citizens who always vote. *Public employes, federal, state, county, sanitary district, city. 60,000 Members of their families, 1% votes each. ............ 90,000 Voters dependent on protection in unlawful pursuits ....... 60,000 TMOLAT oo isin ven sinwas iy sie' 210,000 *The outs who want to be in, not added. And this is the minority that knows what it wants and will con- demn to defeat the official who does not do its bidding. In this county, with a total of reg- istered and unregistered voters of 1,700,000, we elect tickets as follows: : Gov. Small, Cook county pri- mary vote, 1924 ......... 00 204,510 State's Attorney Crowe, Cook county primary vote, 1924 . .204,679 Sheriff Hoffman, Cook county primary vote, 1922 .......... 146,948 Judges of Superior ) t, elected June, 1922; highest..103,958 lowest 5,897 Weakness Is General This failure of the voter to function is not a Cook county weakness. Note this tabulation, which gives the place, issue, year, voting per cent, and num- ber not voting: Greater New York, Tammany vs. Re- publican party, 1925, 36 per cent, 1,- 950,000. United States, Presidential Election, 1924, 50 per cent, 27,870,000. Chicago, Improved Traction Question, 1924, 33 per cent, 1,100,000. Cook County, April Primary, 1922, 27 per cent, 1,285,000. Cook County, November Election, 1922, 50 per cent, 850,000. Ilinois, Vote on New Constitution, © 1922, 83 per cent, 2,215,944. Forty years ago our voting percent- age in this country was 80 per cent. Now we have the lowest voting per- centage of any country in the world, except China. Great Britain in its last election, cast an 82 per cent vote. France, Belgium, Germany, the Scan- dinavian countries, and Switzerland, all cast an average vote of over 70 per cent. Is law enforcement in Great Britain measured by its 82 per cent vote and ours in Cook county by its 27 per cent vote at the primary that selects? This is why the breakdown. Reason for Breakdown Is our form of government to be treated like a toy the child fights for only to discard? Is our form of gov- ernment at fault? I am quoting now: "As far as I can see, the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at one time, by the brain and purpose of man." This was uttered by an Englishman, Wil- liam BE. Gladstone. Here are others from a treatise on Popular Govern- ment: "The Constitution of the United States is much the most important political instrument of the times." "The success of the United States has sustained the credit of Republics." "The Federal Constitution has sur- vived the mockery of itself in France and in Spanish America." "Its success has been so great and striking that men have almost for- gotten that, if the whole of the known experiments of mankind in govern- ment be looked at together, there has been no form of government so suc- cessful as the Republican." This English writer is Sir Henry Sumner Main in "Popular Government, 1918." Guizot, a Frenchman, speaking of the Federalist (Arguments for the Constitution by Hamilton, Madison and Jay) said that, in the application of the elementary principles of govern- ment to practical administration, it was the greatest work known to him. An early number of the "Edinburgh Review" described the Federalist as "a work little known in Europe, but which exhibits a profundity of re- search and an acuteness of under- standing which would have done honor to the most illustrious statesman of modern times." Neglect Responsibility Yet none of these patriotic advo- vates of the Constitution in the days following the Revolutionary War, con- ceived that the day would ever come when the American people would neg- lect the ballot. Later it seems Jefferson saw its pos- sibility. At least the January num- ber of the Republic says so. "Jefferson," it says, "predicted that should the people of the United States become indifferent to the welfare of their government, because too much absorbed in mere money getting, gov- ernment would become increasingly corrupt." ' This statement seems almost too