Spier

This is an action to determine the constitutionality of a primary election law, passed at the last session of the legislature, and approved March 13, 1897. It is contended upon the part of the various counsel assailing this law that its enforcement will be an expensive burden upon the people; that, under the guise of a great reform, a system of elections has been devised which, by its expensive and complicated procedure, greatly increases the tendency to place the political life of the state in the hands of those who make politics a profession; that the whole theory of the law is wrong in regulating the' political action of parties, associations, and individuals, and thereby destroying that freedom of political association which has hereto *372 fore always existed in this country, and under which it has become so great; that the act as a whole is incapable of practical operation by reason of complicated matters of detail, its inconsistencies and contradictory provisions; that it has no applicability to small counties and sparsely settled districts, and that no demand for such a law is found, aside from a few of the larger cities of the state. It is shown by the brief of Mr. F. J.…