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PAGE TWO
Public Opinion Throughout the Union
NEW YORK’S NEW COMMIS
SION.
The New York public utilities bill
calls for two commissions of five
men each, and Governor Hughes ran
sacked his state to find men of ca
pacity and integrity. The salary of
each commissioner is $15,000 a year,
and this has given the governor o
New York a pretty good opportunity
in his search for first-class men. His
appointments are as follows:
First District (Greater New York)
—William R. Wilcox, chairman;
William McCarroll, Edward M. Bas
sett, Milo Roy Maltbie, John E. Eus
tis.
Second District (all othei* coun*
ties) —Frank W. Stevens, James
town, chairman; Thomas Mott Os
borne, Auburn; Charles Hallam
Keep, Buffalo; James E. Sayne,
New Hamburg; Martin S. Decker.
Chairman Wilcox is the present
postmaster of New York city, and
Mr. Maltbie is secretary of the art
commission of that city. Messrs.
Bassett and Eustis are lawyers, and
Mr. McCarroll is president of the
leather trust. The up-state commis
sion is made up of men who are well
and favorably known in their re
spective localities. The New York
Times is inclined to like the two
commissions because they are made
up of il business men or lawyers
who, if not conspicuous, are at least
of good standing in their communi
ties.” There is but one practical
railroad man in the entire list o
ten commissioners—Mr. Sayne, and
he is not widely known. —The Age-
Herald.
THE LONGEST WAY.
The untongue-tied representatives
of Mr. Hearst will make the most of
the excuse for howling given by
Mayor McClellan’s suit to test the
validity of the recount act. “See!
He’s still afraid!” Yet to induce
the bringing of such a suit has been
(he chief objective of Hearst’s ma
noeuvring for six months. Delay
and a chance to lay the blame for
the delay on the other side —to this
double end the Gilsey House cabi
net has devoted its conjoined intel
lect.
Things’* have not been altogether
comfortable since the Court of Ap
peals threw open the door to quo
warranto proceedings. Attorney-
General Jackson was so anxious to
institute a suit that he could hard
ly wait until sworn in. But the
Court of Appeals granted his re
quest too speedily. It took away
the pretext of languor. In this
sea of embarrassment the recount
bill was a spar, and it was eagerly
clutched. “If we can only get it,”
reasoned the tacticians, “and begin
proceedings in another way, the may
or will, of course, fight them, and
then we can say it’s infamous the
recount doesn’t take place.”
There is no reason, in view of the
latest development, to revise the
opinion that if those who supported
the recount bill really wanted a re-
count they took the most effective
way to secure delay. If the mayor is
as all his enemies represent they
gave him another line of defense aft
er his first was exhausted. If Hearst
is as insincere as his enemies assert
he was given an opportunity to con
tinue jockeying tactics. Even now,
if there is any real desire for a re
count, the quo warranto method will
more quickly secure it than the oth
er. None are more fully advised of
this fact than the Hearst attorneys.
If they persist in taking the longest
way around but one inference is pos
sible. —New York Globe.
WHAT OUGHT A DEMOCRAT TO
BE?
May it not be that the apparently
unsatisfactory nature of Mr. Bry
an’s response to the inquiry, “What
is a Democrat?” is due to his hav
ing in mind not what a Democrat of
the present day is, but what he ought
to be? That is to say, Mr. Bryan
has undertaken to set up an ideal,
not to describe an actuality.
From this point of view Mr. Bry
an’s inability to gather all those who
call themselves Democrats under the
wing of a single definition is perfect
ly comprehensible. His party has
not yet unanimously arrived at his
way of thinking; that’s all. The
ideal is still far distant; to some,
perhaps, inapproachable; to others,
impossible. We shall not attempt to
define that ideal, but for all that it
is not so uncertain or indistinct
that it cannot be rejected by those
who don’t like it. That it has been
so rejected is the best of evidence
that it is not totally lacking in defi
niteness of outline.
The New York World, which is
terribly concerned about the true
definition of Democracy, has at last
submitted a conception of a true
Democrat with fifteen duly numbered
qualities. We have no doubt that
any person possessing all, or even
some, of these fifteen requisites
would be entitled to a certificate of
Democracy, but would all those ac
customed to call themselves Demo
crats subscribe to the entire fifteen
articles of Democratic faith as ex
pounded by the World ? That is the
crucial question.
The World, as we see it, is no
more successful than Mr. Bryan in
defining that which is true Democ
racy always, everywhere, and in all
circumstances. It has given, as Mr.
Bryan gave, its conception of what
a Democrat ought to be. And, like
Mr. Bryan, it proceeds to read out
of the party all those who fall short
of its ideal.
Meanwhile, we are still interested
in receiving answers to that other
question, “What is a Republican?”
—Washington Herald.
“The craze for money is sapping
the vital force of Americans.” de
clares a London contemporary. This
is a good thing to tell the bill col
lector when he gets insistent.—Nev-
York Mail.
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
THE INDEPENDENCE LEAGUE.
Mr. Hearst’s Independence League
is effecting a national organization,
doubtless with the purpose of enter
ing the presidential contest next
year. Independence is a good name
so far as the true significance of the
word goes, but this league belongs
wholly to one man and is being en
gineered in the exclusive interest of
a personal ambition. Its sole object
is to organize a compact political
machine that may be used in boost
ing Win. Randolph Hearst for Pres
ident. No other purpose or person
is possible within the scope of its
undertaking and the word independ
ence has been adopted to appeal to
the disaffected of other parties or to
the imagination of the public.
The Independence League was or
ganized to make Mr. Hearst Gover
nor of New York, but when its or
ganizer and owner had accomplished
the purchase of the corrupt Buffalo
convention and brought Murphy and
“Fingy” Connors to his support, he
allowed the league to assume a second
ary position and the men whom it
had nominated for minor offices were
sacrificed. Doubtless the purpose of
the national organization of the In
dependence League is to repeat in
in national politics the program car
ried out in New York. Mr. Hearst
expects to make such a noise through
means of his league and his numer
ous newspapers that he will frighten
the National Democratic Convention
into accepting him after the league has
made him its nominee. What he can
not acomplish by playing on Demo
cratic fears of a disrupted party he
hopes to make good by a liberal use
of money. That at least is the way
he worked the game in New York.
The league will be put forth pro
fessing to champion popular rights
and clean politics. It will really be
a machine controlled entirely by one
man and it will scruple at no meth
od by which its end may be accom
plished. It is absurd to expect
“clean politics” from a concern that
has made common" cause with Mu -
phy and Connors. It can be in no
sense a spontaneous popular move
ment, but is a close organization em
anating from one source and work d
by money and an attempted newspa
per trust.
Os course the promoters of the
league will flood the country with
flamboyant demagogy and specious
promises to the so-called common
people. They will magnify popular
grievances and picture wrongs that
do not exist in order to create the
belief that the league, which they
will allege can alone bring redress,
is a public necessity and the cham
pion of the oppressed, but the real
purpose will be to serve one man’s
ambition.
This Independence League creates
another perplexing complication in
the Democratic outlook for next
year. It expects to draw its support
chiefly from Democratic ranks and
also by adroit methods to force its
candidates on the Democratic con
vention. The South is the home and
stronghold of Democracy. No im
pression can be made on the National
Democratic party without the South’s
sanction. The Independence League
stands for none of the policies this
section holds as essential to South
ern interests. It will appeal to the
prejudices of the unlearned and the
passion of the injudicious, but it can
in no way benefit the South. —Nash-
ville Banner.
MORE RECRUITS TO THE INDE
PENDENCE LEAGUE.
The growth of the Independence
League continues to be the most no
table movement in present-day poli
tics.
Monday Grenville S. MacFarland,
chairman of the Democratic State
Executive Committee of Massachu
setts, resigned from his place and
withdrew from his party to give his
whole support hereafter to the
League.
His reasons were much the same
as those announced on taking a
similar step by Charles A. Walsh,
Democratic Committeeman from lowa
and former secretary of the Nation
al Committee.
Such men do not sever a life-long
political affiliation without cause. They
know the paity machinery and its
tendency, having been in a position
to observe both. They also know the
hopelessness of expecting reform
from such a source.
If a tree may be known by its
fruits, so may a party be known by
the men it places in charge. These
are surer indices of its policies than
are its platform declarations, since
the men are the heart of the organi
zation, while the resolutions consti
tute only its clothes.
What, then, can be expected of a
party that puts in places of com
mand the Taggarts, the Sheehans,
the McCarrens, the Whitneys, the
Guffeys, the Belmonts, and the Ry
ans?
Mr. MacFarland goes to the Inde
pendence League because the spirit
of Democracy has gone there. He
knows that the Democratic party has
been hopelessly divided for twelve
years; that when a progressive candi
date is nominated the conservatives
knife him, and that when a conserva
tive heads the ticket the radicals
desert him in droves. He knows fur
ther that a house divided against
itself can no more stand in this day
than it could in the days of Lin
coln.
He knows, as every studious man
must know, that there can be no
hope of reform through the Republi
can party. For whatever pretences
may be made by its leaders, the
agents of the interests in Congress
can always be depended on to see
that nothing is actually done.
Some measures are killed outright,
others nullified through “joker” leg
islation. In this way, despite the
beating of drums and the sounding
of cymbals, no real advance is made
and the people find themselves more
and more at the mercy of the trusts
from year to year.—N. Y. American.