Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-07-26
YESTERDAYS CONFERENCE.

YESTERDAYS CONFERENCES.
 That conference of democrats was held yesterday at Hartford, but it is difficult, in the meagreness of details concerning its doings, to determine how much of good or evil it has wrought to the party in the state. We are of the opinion, however, that the former will not tax the capacity of q quart measure to disclose, while the bushel basket has not yet been manufac- tured large enough to carry the latter. The way in which yesterdays conference was conceived, arranged and executed is neither creditable to the men who are re- sponsible for it nor suggestive of benefit to the general party interests.
 The undemocratic manner ill which the choice of conferees was made, the auto cratic assumption of authority to determine just who were worthy of being made the custodians of party secrets and party in terests, the carefulness with which re- porters, and through them the democratic public, were excluded from the chamber of consultation, can be prolific of nothing but distrust and suspicion of the motives and designs of those who made up the gathering. By what right we might ask did MT Hobart L. Hotchkiss pretend to represent in his single person ality the 10,O 900 democratic voters of New Haven By what right we might ask, or by whose right of appointing, did MT Frederick J. Brown assume to represent | the 3,200 democratic voters of Waterbury Not that either of these men, representing l the largest democratic constituencies of l this democratic state, are democrats whose | sterling integrity and staunch democracy can be questioned. Both are known in their communities as sturdy, straight forward, strapping opponents of true Jack sonian democracy, and no men stand high CT in our esteem, but it is not certain that either of them would have been chosen by their democratic fellow citizens as repre- sentatives at a conference whose purpose it was to lay plans for the Connecticut democracy to ''get together" And demo- crats have right to object that they them selves, or others for them, should assume the authority of going into secret confer ence to lay plans for the democracy to mutely and meekly follow. Such action is not democracy it smacks of Sam Fessenden's and Lynde Harrison's methods and belongs to republican, not democratic politics. It is bound to be unpopular witt democrats.
 Perhaps NJ, Davis or those with whom he advised regarding yesterdays confer ence, may learn something, if they art capable of studying the logic of democratic protests, from the absence yesterday O. representative democrats-war horses the, are sometimes called-from the strong terbury. Perhaps he and his advisers may learn that democracy is not strength ened nor democratic faith made surer b, secret conclaves whose objects ant motives, as that sterling and time -honoret advocate of true democracy the New Ha ven Register asserts, are not above sus picion. Perhaps they may learn that self-respecting state committee will no take kindly to the snub of being super seded in their vested rights, nor the ranl and file, the men in the gap, to the m piled insult that they have no right t, know what men who assume to act fo them are doing.
 We could have wished that yesterday conference, since it was to be held at all had been called and organized after trul, democratic fashion. We could hay, wished that no suspicious of factional pur pose should finger around it's locked doors or disquieting rumors take wings from it secrecy to still further disturb the har mony of the party in Connecticut. Bu since those who assume to direct the des tlnies of the party in the state have wille6 otherwise we can only express the hop. that the seemingly inevitable result oI yesterdays conference may not be to in duce the democracy, instead of "gettine together, to get still wider apart.