The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1886-07-22
Our NEW YORK LETTER.
SOME VIEWS ON CITY POLITICS
FOR THE ~ MINER.
People Laugh al .'Hon. MI. t.nat'' At
kinson'> Funny TeIesram--An bppor-
tunftk Sensitive y. 4. Editors Missed.
Special Cor. STATE CHt.oN

NEW loRk. July 20 $50. Ia politics
they arr uot II half the hurry here TIA; you
are III North Carolina Nobody has ,et
/ thought OF Congressional nominations.
and, venture 10 say. that not halt ihe
men III New lork are aware that there :
! 10 hc congressional election this fail
/ The only hing that has caused any Con
+ sre>slonI talk at all Is the posi- biiIty ~
t~unset" CoXs coming home from Turkey
aud gong g Congress again He can 70,
4 I hc H al me home and consent to 20
+ lie has been not Ouil TIC life Of all tlr
! Congresses that you and | can remember
and more too, but he has been also a Very
faithful and honest mau
But there has begun TO be some tax
j about the municipal election in New 2rk
and 1t has come about III this way The
! Central Labor Union Is an organization
/ made up OF representatives of all the labor
! organizations IN town Il sort of executive
! and advisory council of all the working
mems organizations. The Central Labor
! ii mon has in serious contemplation the
! project of putting a labor ticket in the
! field. Labor movements III politics have
! been laughed at, because they deserved TO
be. And at first blush any talk about such
a project as this seems simply ridiculous
! But these are the facts:
| In New York city there IS Republican
| party; there is a Tammany Democratic
party. there sa County Democratic party
/ | use very mild language, which in no way
fills the bill, when say that every one
Of these three partieo is manned and man
aged by the most corrupt Scouudrels out
Of jail. The County Democracy has no
more III common with Tammany than With
the Republicans. There is no plan or
! principle III Ihe management of any of
| them, but they all trade trade office pre-
| ciSely as shoe merchants trades shoes.
| Every one of these organizations had It's
! prominent men III the corrupt Board of
\ldermen- Iammany, Of course, has Il
great name. The County Democracy, of
course, boa>ts that it is the Democratic
party; and the Republicans represent the
| party of grand moral ideas. Yet there
IS not an honest Democrat or Republican
III his whole city who knows on the morn
ing of election d., but the candidate who
has been set up as the representatives of his
principles was not on the previous night
traded of by a combination Of Tammany
With he Republicans, or some other com
bination. Now since these thieves have
the political machinery in their hands, the
WOrklngmen or any other body of men
who would stand together have Il chance
But the trouble is men do not stand to-
1ether. An honest Democrat, be he work
lngman or idler, will vote for a Democrat:
an honest Republican for a Republican;
and thus the thieves keep the honest men
divided, and do as they please in conse-
quence. so the first question to be settled
by the managers of this workingmen's
campaign is whether their crowd will
stand together. If they will, they may
win. But hitherto every such movement
here has been ''bOught out" They talk
of nominating Henry George for Mayor
Mr. George is the political economist, you
know, who favors the State ownership of
land. And he is, Judge it reasonable to
say, the most original thinker and one OF
the most remarkable men III this town
an honest man, of course. And to have
All honest man in office in New York city
IS worth good dead. 1t would be a sort
of new sensation.
And everything else Is as dull as politics.
| The streets where the rich live are the
dreariest and lOneliest parts of New York
now. Everybody is to say, every
body who is 'anybody''-is at Newport or
Long Branch, or somewhere else: and the
houses are boxed up-nailed and sealed,
for the season. The preachers have gone
to Europe or somewhere else, and the sun
comes down on the miles and miles of
stone and darts back in your face suggest
ing the possibility of sunstroke. The toll
ing crowd-for after all only a very small
proportion of people can go away from
home goes on short excursions, up the
rivers, down the bay, or out on Long
Island. There are trains and boats going
everywhere at all times; and for half a
dollar you can get stiff sea breeze, have
a sail for half the afternoon and till bed
time, and get, so far as temperature is
concerned, us far away from the city as
Canada or New Foundland is. And these
excursions save US.
Folks have laughed here not a little
about that Asheville business Two or three
of the newspapers here turned a pleasant
paragraph about the ''HOn. Mr.. Gnat"
Atkinson, who sent the President so very
funny a telegram, you know. 1t does
seem to me that the most sensitive part of
the North Carolina press missed its Oppor
tunity by not prOnOuncing Mr.. Atkinson
a traitor They might at least have
made the editorial remark that Mr.. At
kinson address is AShcville. BY George!
the whole business was the funniest thing
that has happened since the Mayor of
! little North Carolina town Of 200 people
sent a courier to meet old Tecumseh Sher
man in order to arrange a meeting for
! capitulatiOn But at this distance il i,
impossible to decide which is the funnier
Mr.. Atkinson emotional telegram or the
/ solemn meeting of solid citizens who dig
/ nifed his performance by noticing it. You
must allow me in all kindness as an inter
ested reader Of all the North Carolina pa
| pers | can afford to buy 10 protect against
! their Inadequate treatment of this incident
! | have seen only a paragraph or two about
! it. Yet it does seem to me that this was
| a chance for the brethren to defend the
good name of North Carolina, which they
sadly neglected Col. Jones, of the Char
! lotte Observer, could have done the sub
/ ject justice, or if brother London, of Pitts
boro, had girded up his loins to the point
of calling somebody IA crank, and his good
neighbor of the Home had said ''Oh, tie,
F, Nat" the honor of the State would have
been defended without public meeting.
And if on top of all these, Blount OF Will
son. had leveed his rhetoric and McOair-
mind had turned the RobeSOnlan on that
whole Blue Ridge country, the mountains
! would have been leveed,
The Star of Wilmington could easily have
proved that the memory OF Macon and
Graham and Badger and Ruffin had been
DETAINED, and the Fayetteville gentlemen
sung a psalm because Ashevllle had been
demolished. 1t is great thing to know how
to rise to great occasion; and sad thing
not to- Perhaps, however, 1t has not yet
been settled to which ecclesiastical sect
the lady who is the wife Of the new Pro
fessor of Greek at the University belongs.
p,- Io,,c g panJ tbaSa