Page:A History of the Australian Ballot System in the United States.djvu/55

42 adopted by any party in the state, nor can it choose the coat-of-arms or seal of any state or the United States, or the national flag, or the likeness of any person, or any religious emblem or symbol of any fraternal organization, or a representation of the coin or currency of the United States. West Virginia represents another type of laws in which the only restriction is that a party cannot adopt a design already used by any other party.

There is a veritable picture gallery of designs in the different states. The eagle is the common emblem of the Republican party, and is used in nine states; but the party is represented in Kentucky by a log cabin, in Alabama by a picture of Vulcan, and in Michigan by a picture of Lincoln on the United States flag. The Democratic vignette in eight states is a game cock or rooster in the act of crowing; but it is represented in New York, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire by a star, in Delaware by a plow, and in Michigan by an arm holding the national flag. The picture of a bull moose is the Progressive emblem in Indiana, Delaware, Rhode Island, Alabama, Louisiana, and Oklahoma; a bull-moose head in New York, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Utah; but it is represented by a picture of Roosevelt in West Virginia, Michigan, and Kentucky. The Prohibitionists have a great variety of devices. In Indiana they have a representation of a sun rising over a body of water; in Delaware and West Virginia, a picture of a house and yard; in Rhode Island and New York, a fountain; in Oklahoma, a flying dove; and in Kentucky, a phoenix. The common Socialist vignette is a picture of two clasped hands in front of a globe. This is their vignette in Indiana, Delaware, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Utah, Alabama, Louisiana, and Kentucky; but in Rhode Island they have a pair of scales; in New York, Ohio, and Michigan, an arm holding a torch; and in Oklahoma, an extended hand. The Social Labor party is the only political party which has a single emblem. It is an arm and hammer in the position of striking. Alabama is the only state to permit political parties to print on the ballot a motto or party shibboleth. The Democratic party has selected “White Supremacy” and “For the Right”; the Progressives, “Pass Prosperity Around”; and the Republicans, “Progress and Prosperity.”

There is really little excuse for the party emblem. It is a concession to the illiterate and ignorant, an appeal to the party passions,