Henderson Daily Dispatch

Free Elections

The President's dissertation on guarantees against a dictatorship so long as there are free elections might backfire if political enemies are smart enough to take up the challenge. We have a liberty of balloting in this country, in a sense, but just how much freedom is there in it when the masses vote for the party that provides their handouts in one way or another?

The record of the past several years is strewn with tales of government relief and bounties in greater abundance in those sections where there was greatest doubt about the outcome of elections. The freedom the President talks about is not as free as his words would indicate when a man like John Lewis carries a million or two votes around in his vest pocket to be delivered to the ticket that best serves his purpose.

Nor would it appear that there is an overdose of such freedom where voters are herded to the polls and told how to vote as they are generally supposed to be handled under the influence of the big city political bosses and their machines.

Theoretically there is freedom of the ballot in this country. But who cannot cite instances where there have long been evidences that jobs of individuals in public employment are dependent on party regularity and subservience to the group that sits at the top, makes decisions and hands down instructions?

There are no dictators here who threaten the firing squad for those who fail or refuse to be told. But free elections are more of an ideal to be orated about than a fact that guides and governs the course of millions of citizens on election day.