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Show 15he Political fiixzatton in JSTeix orK-Has A Rational J! fl Bearing Grotit and Tammany. "" H (Special Correspondence.) f ( B BB Father Knickerbocker is lying awake these nights trying to figure just what he is going to do on election day. He hasn't had just such a political politi-cal problem to solve in all of his many doys and it is giving him a lot of trouble. Leaving aside the fact that there are about fifty-seven varieties of Democrats in various parts of Greater New fork he has a multiplicity of issues that are enough to turn the head of even the sedate Quaker Quak-er who is supposed to represent Philadelphia. Things started to get mixed about a month ago, just at a time when it looked as though the Fusion Fu-sion forces would put up the men who have made up the administration for the List two years and point with pride to their records and Tammany '' would meet them with as good a ticket as would be consistent with the hunger of its office holding contingent and make a fight on a penitential basis and that would be all there was to the campaign. Then Tammany did one of those things it does every once in a while to pull out of a difficult situation picked up a man who had given it a lot of trouble, and made him its very own. To go back a bit and explain it is a maxim that the best way to get a good thing from Tammany is to curse it roundly. There are judges on the Supreme Su-preme Court bench who have been put there because be-cause they were so much in-the way of the Wigwam Wig-wam leaders that it was decided to place them where they could do no more harm. 5 5 In this instance Edward M. "rout loomed up as a dangerous man. He had fought the McLaughlin Mc-Laughlin machine in Brooklyn and the Fusion forces made him Controller of the city two years ago. In that place he had made a lot of trouble for Tammany men and had incidentally gained a strong following among the Independent Democrats Demo-crats so strong that he threatened to make serious seri-ous inroads into the Tammany ranks unless he were pacified. Thus it happened that when Charles F. Murphy, Mur-phy, the present Tammany leader, made his preliminary pre-liminary canvass, he discovered that there was a chance that Grout would pull enough Democrats away from the Tammany ticket to carry Mayor Low over to a second term. Thus it happened further that New Yorkers awoke one morning, alter the Fusion ticket had been put into -he t B field, to find an announcement In the newspapers ? B that Murphy had taken up sej'ously the propo- ' B sition to endorse Grout and Claries V. Fornes, P M the fusion candidate for President of the Board ' j M of Aldermen. H Bfl "A joke," said everybody. Not even the wild- B est regular Democrat could bel',ve that the Tarn- ' j" B many leader would ask the rank and file o vote - f fl for e man who had said "Tammany is a stench in j M the nostrils of every decent man." Besides, it fi M was argued, how could Tammany afford to give , ' M this slap in the face to the powerful McLaughlin , M machine of Brooklyn the machine that had held M its independence even against, the redoubtable t,i M Croker? T It wasn't a joke. Within a day Murphy gave ' it out that he had decided to nominate his per- L M sonal friend, George B. McClellan, son of Gen- !' M eral McClellan, for mayor and. that Grout and (' M Fornes were going on the ticket with him. A M howl went up from the McLaugl lin men in Brook- M lyn, Tammany leaders and sub-leaders went down ft M to the Wigwam and raised thir voices In pro- BJ test, but Murphy did not move an inch. When the convention was held there was a M fight on the floor for the first time in many years, H the, Brooklyn men hurled Grout's bitter denuncla- j H tion of Tammany into Murphy'n teeth and finally h H refused to make his nomination unanimous. But L H the power of the leader was exevted and the slate r H went through. -. B v Hi & e vh H Then the real trouble began. The leaders of m H the Citizens' union at first looked upon it as a jr, H good thing, and Mayor Low Jilmself said he f H thought that it was an endorsement by Tammany tj H of his own administration and could do nothing i H except win votes for him. But Governor Odell ! H came hurrying to the city and the Republican fl leaders got together and it dfGn't take that col- i H lection of wise politicians many minutes to see ' H that a body blow (had been delivered to the Re- H publican head of the Fusion-.ticket. "Traitors," fl they shouted, and the Citizens' Union woke up. Well, Grout and Fornes were thrown off the H Fusion ticket and two other Democrats were nom- f H inated, and then Tammany had to gulp hard and B K II swallow them whole, tulce them for Its very own, B ( 1 1 with none of the advantage on which It had count K j jt ed In malting a straight fight between a Demo m j crat and a Republican for the mayoralty. Nor Bld wa3 Tammany put in any better frame of mind Bj i by the fact that the McLaughlin machine Imme Kj diately set out to smash the Tammany candidate, m h ' endorsing McClellan but refusing to take Grout B and Fornes. m However, Tammany has beeu long in politics, m 1 and knows how to fight. Things have been mov- H j . ing fast ever since. First it rUsed the cry that B j I j tho whole fusion party had been swallowed by H j ' the Republicans and swore by all the gods that B i ( there was a conspiracy to turn tho city over to B jf Senator Piatt and "Governor Odell. Grout him H I; selfled in this and national issues came quickly H to the front, a thing that greatly relieved the H I feelings of Tammany, which did not care to face H some local facts. H A The next thing to do was to smash the Brook- K ! lyn machine. McLaughlin had been the boss over H ' ,'& the other side of the bridge for thirty years. Time H and again he had been a thorn in the side of the IK lip) - wigwam leaders and they had been anxious to H ' ' overthrow him. But they had never been able H t' I to do so. However, he made an error when he H i ' took his position against the regular nominees. B !i I "Regularity" is a fetich word In lew York poll- B tics and it was not long before State Senator Mc Bf Carren, formerly one of McLaughlin's lieutenants B was shouting it in Brooklyn. B l McLaughlin sat back and smiled. He had seen B' many men attempt the same sort of thing before. m ! j Within two days five districts fell into line with B i! McCarren. McLaughlin began to look serlou3. L i Within two days more McCarren had ten of the Bf twenty-one districts. McLaughlin began to fight B jl ' , with all his strength. Then leaders began tum- Bn bling over one another to be ths one that should Bfffl give McCarren the majority. The result is that HL j ' McCarren is now the real leader in Brooklyn and B 1 1 i McLaughlin is taking a back seat. H ? to W H So far so good. Now for ejection. When tho H ! votes are in, will it be found that the Democrats B j j have thought so much about tho piesidential cam- B , j paign of next year and been so certain that Tam- B I I I I many has been purified by the removal of Richard B la Croker across the ocean, that they have lined up BIN vi solidly for the ticket? Or wll the McLaughlin Blhil 1 ! mon across ue rver an ne fes t Murphy in BhII j Manhattan put the knife deep Jnto the personal B ( friend he has put up as a candidate. B J L 1 Tt is a condition that may veil make Father Bd IJii Knickerbocker lie awake nights. He has been hjNi'l ' consistently favorable to Tammany ever since B i w j there was a Tammany. Once in a while, when he Bf I thought that the boys of the Wigwam were getting I too strenuous he has given them a cuff and lot i 1 tho other boys run things for a while. But he j has not done this often and he has always put i the Wigwam boys back at the first opportunity. It 8 was so on the last occasion when the fusion mon I , won, for after two years of the Strong adminis- , 4 I tration, the puppet Van Wyck -was elected to tho Bl- 'I j mayoralty by a majority of over 80,000. It would Hyj j , be making history if Tammany should be out for Bir two terms in succession. It would take a lot of SfjO.jj , independence on the part of Democrats to make Bpif' that condition possible. BBH3h i i & & & H$$j ni Back and behind it all is something that Is of BiH P the greatest interest in the development of Am HkIJ uj erican politics. A body of men of high ideals BbP r !l hnve banded themselves together in New York, HPkf ' under pledges that none shall seek office and all if Li i i shall work to the end that politics shall be made BBSi 1 clean. BBJy JB They formed the Citizens' Union here and -Kili M Democrats and Republicans are together In its BHH m janks. Their platform summed up is honestly and B M decency in public affairs. The flame they hunt Is HSj tji the practical politician who seeks to plunder. BBBBb m Si ' flil They are sotting a now standard. They are directing di-recting men's minds to tho gre-t duty laid upon each citizen to watch the public service. Should they carry Low through again it will make of him the next Republican candidate for Governor and a Presidential possibility. But the effect will go far beyond that. It will be a blow to every machine ma-chine in every city, and oven Philadelphia, wallowing wallow-ing in the corruption of its polUics, may feel the influence of the new independence that will be shown in a 'city that gave a Democratic plurality of over 120,000 atthe last state election. B. J. Y. |