The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-09-21
Our New York Letter.
The State Campaign-The Two Convex
ons-RepubIican Leaders of Demo.
cratic Hosts,
Nrw yopu SAINT 10

uaS 10 10 IL. In6 pOlltlClans per sc nave
great deal of hard work to do, and get very
little thanks for it, 1t is the genteel style to
recline on velvet lounges and find fault with
everything that is done and everything that is
left undone. And all the while this concert of
growing lis going on there are lot of patient
toilers immured in committee rooms, making
arrangements for meetings, preparing docu-
ments for distribution, providing for supplies
and relays Of ballots for every polling place,
furnishing for to-morrow's paper contradic-
tions of to-day's falsehoods and executing
myriad of other tasks requiring patience,
watchfulness and self-forgetfulness.
Even if such exacting business were fashion
able, the loss of time and money it involves
woul1 deter anybody having unreasonable con-
sideration for his own interests from volun-
tarily engaging in it. But when in addition to
all other drawbacks we take into account thu
supercilous and disparaging tone in which it
is customary to speak Of politicians-the dis
favor in which they are held in polite circles,
the wonder is that so many private citizens
display the requisite courage and patriotism to
bear the heat and burden of each recurring
musk favored exquisites who feel proud that
they are hopelessly ignorant of public affairs
and think it such deuced bore "you know" to
vote that they seldom take the trouble of do
ing it.
L don't suppose you have this species of
animal to any great extent in Maine, but it
aboupds here to such degeee that Darwin's
theory seems quite plausible. 1t is great
mistake to attribute the civic degradation of
New York entirely to the unsoaped and un-
combed rabble who swarm at the polls in pas
sive obedience to the Democratic masters The
heavy swells who wear an eyeglass and crush
hat help the cause of mIsrule by not voting
at all almost as much as their allies in cordu-
roy do by voting too often. In fact they pay
so little attention to anything so excessively
vulgar as politics that when they do work
themselves into sufficiently animated con-
ditiOu to visit the polling booths. the chances
are fully even that they will cast their ballots
on the wrong side by mistake.
J There are thOusands-many thousands-of
such men as these in New York--not all of
them youthful either. Many of them are sem
sible, intelligent and shrewd in most respects.
But in matter SO vital as government
especially municipal government, which pre-
sents such opportunities for peculation and
fraud-and in every miscarriage of which they
are personal sufferers-they manifest stolid
indifference which is as inexplicable as it is
objectionable They have been systemati-
caly, audaciously robbed for twenty contin-
uoIs years, without making any more vigorous
protest than feeble croak of complaint. The
very rascals who have plundered them have
presented themselves again and again for
their suffrages, and if they didn't actually re-
ceive them they at least met with no oppo-
sition. For ten years marble monument of
crime and perjury was in the course of cree
tion in the most conspicuous part of the city,
and 10000 tax payers passed by it every day
without so much as demonstrating at the hardi.
hood of the thieves who practiced their ra-
pacity with such barefaced effrontery. Re-
monstrated indeed! Not they! They left all
such business as that to the politicians
And while they were airing their gentiiity in
their dainty way the rogues were scoring up
debt which to day constitutes q mortgage of
123 per cent. on every piece of real estate with
in the boundaries of Manhattan Island. That
is part of the expense of belonging to the
mode!
OF course it is not to be wondered at that un-
der such circumstances party conventions fall
to a considerable extent under the control of
oficesholders. They are the only class inter
ested in keeping the machinery of the organ,
ization in order. And as long as disin.er.
ested men are deferred from this
kind of service through fear of being
sneered at by some, calumnated by others, and
pretty generally treated as if they were doing a
low thing, there is no other way in which par
ties can be kept together.
However the State Conventions held last week
and the week before contained verS few office
holders. Both parties seemed to realize the
desirableness of drafting the rank and file into
the service as far as possible.
The Republicans selected an excellent ticket.
If were to take exception to any name upon
it, it would be the name of Gen. Spinner. Not
but that he is capable enough and as for his
honesty that is known to everybody in the
United States to be inhexible. But the old
gentleman has imbibed some notions about
finance during his long residence in Washing
ton which are sadly in contrast with the grand
old Bentonian-hard money-Herkimer County
sentiments which he carried thither. And
when a man does get crazed on the currency
question his case seems hopelessly incurable.
The 65 convertible bond expedient is the bant-
ling of Spinner. Kelley has only plag-
iarized from him. The idea in which it was
conceived appears to have been to devise some
neat plan by which people could over trade
and plunge into all sorts of excesses without
incurrng any serious penalty tor their errors.
If such an elastic contrivance for suspcnding
natural laws were feasible, it could not posi-
bly, have any other effect than to do away
completely with all necessity for or practice
of prudence or foresight in the conduct of bust
ness affairs. 1 never could understand how
Gen. Spinner fell into such a deluson
But he did, and Secretary Bristow was obliged
to eliminate from his last annual report oyel
thirty pages of financial sophistry contributed
by the venerable treasurer, Circumstance
which greatly mortified the honest veteran an,
led to his retirement from post he had hel,
for fourteen years.
presume it never occurred to the delegate
who nominated the General that at tim
when the lines were being sharply drawn be
tween hard money and soft-contraction an
expansion-the Republicans standing solid fo
return to specie payments-the Democrat
divided but preponderating largely toward
imitation aud its inevitable sequenc
reputation it never struck them
L imagine, that it. was impol tic to put an
man on their ticket who was not an out an
out, through and through advocate of speci
payments. The thought will occur nevertbe
less to rejecting minds. whether vote cas-
for man who could not agree with Secretar
| Brstow ON the currency question, might nc
be construed as implying indifference to th
issue of the great struggle for the restoratio
of honest money and the conservation of IL
national honor.
The anti third term resolution was We
meant but pitifully weak concession to one