Workmen's advocate., 1890-06-21
Miss CHEvAnLIER, New York.

Miss CHEvALLIER, New York
 l have yours of the 9th instant. For the sake of the intellectual recttude of Dr. Newton, l trust you have wholly misunderstood him. know there is a movement on foot to put up q "Citizens'" candidate for Mayor: but in the absence of more positive evidence, must refuse to believe Dr. Newton would ally him self with such, or would recommend the Nationalists to do so.
 Who are those who pompously call themselves "Citizens', and presume to start these so called 'Citizens' ," Move ments? You will find them, every time, to be people with no real interest in the wellbeing of our city; people, who, while they claim New York as their residence, are, in fact, absent most of the time: in the winter, for one reason, in the summer for another, away in Florida, Narragansett Pier, or Europe; people-verstrymen, many of them who batten on tenement house property; gamble in food, own interests in liquor industries, hold stock in factories where men barely earn $1 per day, women a good deal less, and where child-labor tiourishes; who control our municipal and state railroads through watered stock. and debauch our legislatures in order not to be molested; in short, you will find them to be the very class of people, together with their hangers on, who bring about the wretchedness of our city, and who thrive thereupon,
 Periodically this class drop their old names of County Democrats, Gull Serrice Reformers, Republicans, or what not, and turn up as "Citizens" to "cleanse the city, But such is the mixture of ignorance and dishonesty among them that they never think of removing any of the causes of the abuses at which they affect to be indignant. Watch them this fall, and you will not hear word in favor of proper school accommodations of compulsory education up to, at least, lG years; of factory and shop legislation against chlld-labor; of the city's owner ship of its railroads, gas works, tele- graph, etc.; of thoroughgoing sanitary regulations for the homes of the poor; of the enforcement of an eight-hour law on city works; or in favor of any of the many things that would make for indi- vidual wellbeing, and thus lessen the sources of civic corruption. Far rom 1t! These so-called Citizens" would have their cake and yet eat it. They are bent upon continuing to draw their profits without check from the sweat of the hrows of others, as well as by means of their corrupt practices, and yet will they object to the natural consequences, Tammany is bad enough, God knows; but Tammany is only the natural result of "Cltizens." How could the Nationa. lists, in decency, associate with such crew?
 There is no Delphic Oracle ambiguity about the Nationalist platform It is Ay, Ay; Nay, Nay. There is no purity ot government possible in republic un. der a social system that pauperizes the masses and, through the congestion of wealth in the hands of the few, demora. llzes even these, The party whose foun- dation we have helped to lay, the men with whom alone we can affiliate must stand outspokenly upon those bases. What exactly we shall do, cannot now tell. But this, hope is certain-at all events l shall strenuously work in that dlrection-that all independent party of genuine New York citizens be formed essentially upon the Nationalist or So- ciahst platform; d party not of phrase mongers, but of honest purposes. We can't waste time on Citizens; we must go to the people.
 Yours fraternaIly,
 June Il. D. DE LEON.
 Since the above letters were written. the Citizens have issued a call. the text of which will be found in our report of the proceedings of the Central Labor Union, to which it was addressed in with such distinguished bodies of organized laborers as the Stock Ex- change, the Produce Exchange, the Real