Editorial: A popular expression
The fact that more than 140,000 Pennsylvania Republicans voted for Governor Thomas E. Dewey as their presidential choice, in a primary marked by exceedingly light voting, is of real importance.
We say this without regard to the political implications in Republican pre-convention politics. The interesting and vital feature of this big vote was the fact that the voters had to write in the name of the New York Governor – that it was an expression of individual choice rather than of machine manipulation.
The political bosses of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania saw to it that no name of a presidential candidate appeared om the primary ballot – thus trying to defeat the purpose of the primary, which is to give voters a chance to express their desires as regards party nominees.
Therefore, the voters had to write in Mr. Dewey’s name. In the eastern part of the state, there was some organized movement to encourage such write-ins for Mr. Dewey and one Philadelphia newspaper gave it editorial support. But elsewhere neither politicians nor newspapers encouraged a write-in campaign, and what happened was therefore the individual and independent work of the voters.
Incidentally, there were about 25,000 write-ins in Allegheny County – where independent voters have long been a vital force in elections – while in Philadelphia there were only about 11,000 write-ins despite newspaper and political advocacy of them.
We are always strong for anything that encourages independence in politics. We like to see voters select candidates without regard to party labels; in fact, we’d like to see party labels eliminated from the ballot so that voters would have to make their choices on an individual basis instead of voting straight tickets.
The writing in of names in a primary is likewise an expression of independent judgment. It requires both intelligence and some trouble on the party of the voter; and in this case it served to upset the desires of party bigwigs who wanted to be left free to manipulate Pennsylvania’s 70 convention delegates without any instructions.
While the top-heavy vote for Governor Dewey is not binding on the delegates chosen last Tuesday, it was such a clear expression of rank-and-file wishes that probably few delegates will feel free to ignore it.
And the heavy write-in vote demonstrates that the people really can use primaries in a constructive manner, even though the party bosses try to keep them from doing so.
