New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-10-08
GOING OFT IN DARKNESS.


In the rather short-waisted but extremely
able-bodicd speech with which Roswell Flower
on Monday night sent thrill OF ehthuSi-
asm through the Democratic Club on flith-
ave. till the entire club .quivered with emo
ton. after informing his hearers that their
"brethren in the country were lighting
earnestly and manfully to bring every Demo-
cratic voter to the polls'-which, by the way
seems queer thing to be doing so long before
the polls open; and, on the whole, why bght
about it?-he added 81 know you will DO the
same: and | believe with your united efforts
when election night comes you VIII see the
lights of the enemy which they have been turn
ing on our record go out early in the evening
and leave them in darkness There is. some
thing very striking in this figure OF speech.
1t is one of those things that make every man
who hears it at a dinner-table want to rise up
and kick himself because he has never been able
TO saw it himself 1t is not pretended, OF
course that it was impromptu-that Is, entirely
mpromptu--but it was just as lmpromptu as any .
thing could be that had to be delivered TO inc
press before ituwaS delivered to the audience
Such things as that do not come on the spur OF
tho moment: they take time and cost mental
labor: they exhaust the tissues and put the en-
tire intellect to a strain. This speech was care
fully put together in the privacy OF Roswell
Flowers library 1t will live. The world Will
little care nor long remember what the Demo
cratic Club did then; it can never forget what
Roswell Flower said then. This was no Gettys-
burg. In many respects it was quite different.
II is not to be wondered at that Roswell
lo n
II was what might be called in the yrile phrase
of the tumbler-iinser, a regular sn0lter" lie
himself describes it as "a CALL" Your lead
err he says, "calls on you for united action"
II must not be confused with put" and u
is quite different from the silver plank in the
Saratoga platform, which was straudie'
The special metaphor now under consideration
by which the approaching Tammany triumph
is accurately and powerfully described as sort
of turning off the lights and turning on fun
head Of darkness might well be cherished Dy
its author No right-minded citizen will COM
nlain if he continues to use it as occasion oilers
during the campaign. When, accordingly, on
his way to Jefferson County which, in the words
of the MAYOR of Watertown, "still clings to
bimu-and doubtless will so long as he has
dollar in his pocket-he told the Democrats OF
Utica, who also chung to him and would not be
appeased till he had Gained them with his elo-
ouence-that he was confident that the light OF
the opposition would "go out in darkness" on
the night of the Sd of NOvember-he would be
an unusually base and narrow minded partisan
who should say or even think Chestnut"
Let us frankly admit that Mr.. Flower has
seized upon and described in striking and beautl-
full language the salient feature Of the campaign
Nor can we as Republicans complain. For 1t
must be observed that we have provoked 1t.
We began it. 1t was the Republicans who at
the opening of the campaign proposed to " turn
ON the lights.n And Roswell Flower with the
cool. unshrinking courage Of bOOk-agent meets
the issue, takes up the figure and hurts 1t
hack. "The lights of the enemy which they
have been turning on your record" he says
twill 90 out in darkness" There is every
reason to believe that he means what he says
He said it here to the Democratic Club III
Fifth-ave. on Monday he repeated it in Utica
on Tuesday; doubtless by this time he has done
it again in WatertOwn, and if we are not mis-
taken he has plunged into the interior with a
determined purpose to keep it up.
The result will be that everybody who feels
outraged at having the light turned on will vote
for Roswell Flower, and If there are enough Of
them to elect him the light twill 60 out in
darkness" And then-well, doubtless, Mr.. Rich
ard Croker and those associated with him in
governing this town and commonwealth have
some scheme OF unusual benefcence in contem-
plation for the benefit of taxpayers which can
only be worked to advantage in darkness.