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The Green Bag

of state rights. Disputes over the demarcation of state and federal au thority have been frequent and, as before the Civil War, serious. The other question has to do with the rights of Presidential electors. Has the United States Supreme Court jurisdiction in the matter of choosing Presidential electors? Has an elector, once he has been elected, the right to show his personal preferences? Associate Justices Mahlon Pitney and Willis Van Devanter granted a writ of error in the case on August 1, five days before the primary election in which the disputed electors were nominated. In their opinion, they said: It is conceded that the questions are impor tant and of large public concern, and we have concluded that those who present them are fairly entitled to the judgment of the court which by the Constitution is made the final arbiter of all controversies arising under that instrument. In this situation we think the writ of error should be allowed.

The application for the writ was made by the regular Republicans in a TaftRoosevelt fight over eight Kansas elec tors. These men were nominated by petition before the Republican National Convention met. After President Wil liam H. Taft and Vice-President James S. Sherman were re-nominated the eight electoral nominees said that they would run on the Taft-Sherman ticket but would cast their votes in the Elec toral College for Colonel Roosevelt and his associate. This was something new and astound ing. Never before had such a thing been heard of. Electors had always voted for the head of their ticket. The Electoral College had been considered merely a cog in the elaborate machin ery for electing a President. But here were eight men who said they would not

vote for the man in whose column their names were to be placed. Nothing like it had ever been en countered in politics before. The Taft forces were perplexed beyond measure. They nominated ten additional can didates by petition, making twenty in all. The state's allotment in the Elec toral College was ten, so that if the eight Roosevelt men were nominated at the primaries, the Taft column of the Presidential ballot in November would contain only two Taft suppor ters. On the other hand, it was too late under the laws of Kansas to organize the Bull Moose party there. The Roose velt men were determined to fight to keep their electors on the regular Re publican ticket. The legal fight was started when the Taft forces made charges of gross fraud against the eight men. R. A. Marks and eleven other citizens of Kansas, all of whom had signed the petitions of the eight electoral nominees, asked the Harvey County Court for an injunction restraining the county clerks of Kansas from placing the eight names on the primary ballots. In this action Samuel A. Davis, the seven other disputed nominees, and all the county clerks of the state were named as defendants. The plaintiffs wanted the petitions of the eight declared null and void on the ground that their twelve signatures had been obtained by fraud and under false pretenses and that, without their sig natures, the petitions of the defendants would not have the requisite number. A temporary injunction was granted and the case was fixed for argument on July 23, 1912. The primaries were to be held on August 6, making a speedy settlement imperative. Before the Harvey County case came