| Show ALLEGED PLEDGE BREAKING there la Is a good deal of talk on tike the street particularly among men who endorse the party machine about pledge breaking and this charge is being made against mayor dark clark with a reckless disregard of truth and of the history of the campaign that is surprising since john dark clark assumed the duties of mayor he has neither violated nor in the slightest degree infringed upon any pledge made by him prior to taking the oath of office it has been impossible for him to do 80 he could not do it were he to tr try during his entire term of office whatever may be his official acts they can never by any possibility afford the slight slightest eilt ground for the accusation that he fias nas violated any ante election pledges he never made any A distinguishing feature of john darks clarks candidacy was his stern pep sistena and unvarying refusal to make any pledges time and again d durion uri the canvass he was approached dad and asked to pledge himself for or against a given candidate or Iro proposition position but lie be never yielded hit his invariable reply was that he would go into office or not at all when he took the oath of office he stood am among ong the conflicting elements element 8 and competing candidates that surrounded him as chief magistrate of the city absolutely free untrammeled and uncommitted so far as the details of his policy and the selection of appointees poin tees were concerned he was in a ft a position to exercise without fear favor or const constraint mint the legal and moral right to select from among all the amerlean american citizens in this city the men whom he might desire as his associates and subordinates in the management of municipal affairs he had never either expressly or 17 by implication promised that he would or which is equally important to 16 be conr soldered just now that he would not appoint any particular man he VMS wa at perfect liberty to select appointee appoint sea from among the prominent men of no B publican democratic ornon partial political belief and as a matter of fad fact has made selections from all three persuasions sua even the fact that a man man vp w a member of the nonpartisan non partisan committee has never been a reason why the mayor could not select himfar him for office without violating a pledge but a pledge was made hadeln in connection with the nonpartisan non partisan movement efto made that pledge and what was waa iafet the non parelean committee made it by resolution the candidates selected by the committee and especially th mayor were never parties to it in alu 1 remotest sense nor degree the k V was to the effect that no member mom 0 o t the committee would seek to influence the mayor in his selections selection a of canci dates for office but would leave him entirely free and untrammeled to choose for himself without pressure from them to say that the members of the nonpartisan committee by the adoption of this pledge dis franchised themselves made themselves ineligible for office or deprived themselves of any of their rights as american citizens Is utterly absurd the pledge was intended to leave the mayor free from the pressure of influence exerted by the committee tout but it was never intended to prevent him from choosing as one of his official associates a member of that committee should he see fit to do so the mayor 0 or has nominated a of the hon partisan committee as head of a city department but he did so without being asked to do it either by the nominee himself or any of the lat colleagues of the committee it was the mayors own spontaneous act hence no pledge has been broken in the making of this appointment this will clearly and sufficiently appear as soon as the pledge that was actually given Is examined ind and applied in accordance cor dance with its letter spirit and intent the attempts that are persist antly being made to wrest and expand this pledge so as to give it a meaning and make it cover ground never designed by those who made it are dishonest contemptible and doomed to failure in saying this much we do but repeat that they are strictly in line with the usual methods of machine polities politics which has unfortunately for the city been introduced into its government |
