ke arrests or to
perform other duties than to be in the immediate presence of the
officers holding the election and to witness all their proceedings,
including the counting of the votes and the making of a return
thereof." The part of the election law which will be repealed by the
approval of this bill includes those sections which give authority
to the supervisors of elections "to personally scrutinize, count, and
canvass each ballot," and all the sections which confer authority upon
the United States marshals and deputy marshals in connection with the
Congressional elections. The enactment of this bill will also repeal
section 5522 of the criminal statutes of the United States, which was
enacted for the protection of United States officers engaged in the
discharge of their duties at the Congressional elections. This section
protects supervisors and marshals in the performance of their duties
by making the obstruction or the assaulting of these officers, or
any interference with them, by bribery or solicitation or otherwise,
crimes against the United States.

The true meaning and effect of the proposed legislation are plain. The
supervisors, with the authority to observe and witness the proceedings
at the Congressional elections, will be left, but there will be no
power to protect them, or to prevent interference with their duties,
or to punish any violation of the law from which their powers are
derived. If this bill is approved, only the shadow of the authority of
the United States at the national elections will remain; the substance
will be gone. The supervision of the elections will be reduced to a
mere inspection, without authority on the part of the supervisors to
do any act whatever to make the election a fair one. All that will be
left to the supervisors is the permission to have such oversight of
the elections as political parties are in the habit of exercising
without any authority of law, in order to prevent their opponents from
obtaining unfair advantages. The object of the bill is to destroy
any control whatever by the United States over the Congressional
elections.

The passage of this bill has been urged upon the ground that the
election of members of Congress is a matter which concerns the States
alone; that these elections should be controlled exclusively by
the States; that there are and can be no such elections as national
elections, and that the existing law of the United States regulating
the Co