Douglas Daily Dispatch

WASHINGTON—It's cheaper to buy a political convention than a whole state.

This indubitable fact may not be foremost in the minds of those who would abolish the popular primary, but the defenders of popular government do not hesitate to assert that it is the principal inspiration of the anti-primary movement.

Former Senator Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma, president of the National Popular Government League, who recently went after Vice President Dawes for his attack on the primary system, insists that the whole thing boils down to a matter of economical corruption and says he can prove it.

"We've seen them buy conventions, legislatures and primaries," Owen told your correspondent the other day. "It only cost about $100,000 to get a senate seat for Lorimer, but it cost Smith and Vare ten times as much."

Owen is among those who favor making it harder to buy high offices rather than easier. He believes, however, that Vice President Dawes is perfectly honest in his views and has only been misled by his friends.

"Reactionary elements are trying to take away power from the people," Owen said. "The best evidence of the way they work and what they are after was the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in a primary by the president of the manufacturers' association in Pennsylvania.

"In nearly a hundred cases of predatory monopoly whose evil practices were reported by the federal trade commission to the department of justice, prosecutions were smothered. Are these predatory interests governing the country or not?

"We are not likely to have a dictatorship in this country, as Dawes and others suggest. The good people still have control of the congress and if the big fellows impose on the people too much the people will kick them out and make them behave for a while."

It was recalled to Owen that the dictatorship bogey had been raised by a new organization which perceived an organized campaign of ridicule against congress, designed to lessen its influence and pave the way for a "man on horseback."

Owen thought it true that some of the abuse poured upon congress might be inspired.

"I've read with great interest," he said, "a book just brought out called 'Professional Patriots,' showing how special interests finance such organizations for private advantage. I think most of the contempt in which some men profess to hold congress is the language of the superficial ass who would exaggerate his own ego by looking down on the Washington monument. Egotism, as has been said, is the anaesthetic which nature provides to keep a man from dying of shame when he realizes what a fool he is."