Show A SENSIBLE CHANGE The absurd provision in the constitution consti-tution of Rhode Island which required that the successful candidate at an election should have a majority of all the votes cast has worked much mischief mis-chief and often defeated the will of the majority of the voters When more than two candidates for an office were in the field it often happened that while one received a majority over the next most popular candidate and would thus have been elected In most > parts of the country yet through his not receiving a majority majori-ty over all the election was wasted and its expense thrown away while the will of the bulk of the voters was made void The constitution has been amended by the force of popular opinion and henceforth Little Rhody like the rest of the sensible states will be able to elect by a plurality of votes At one place in that state Pawtucket there were ten successive elections and no I council chosen because of the old absurd ab-surd provision as to majorities The responsibility for the continuance of this costly nonsense is placed upon the Republicans as will be seen from the annexed paragraph clipped from Prov idnce Rhode Island correspondence to the St Louis Republic Citizens of states In which the man who receives the most votes Is elected to the office for which he is nominated will never be able to comprehend the vicious system by which the Republican Republic-an grasp upon Rhode Island has been maintained They cannot realize the parody upon popular suffrage vhich has existed here when an entire state government which has received a ma jority of the votes cast at the election has remained In power and defied the popular will Elections here have been a farce When desiring to perpetuate per-petuate themselves in office after hav lag been refused nominations office holders have induced their friends to vote the prohibition ticket and have thus secured the right to hold over because the man who polled the most votes did not poll twothirds of the votes cast All that is now at an end and the people of the state are to be congratulated congratu-lated at the change It is a matter of wonder that they did not arise in their might before estab1isi and establish a sensible system even if It covered up Republicanism for good and all |