The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-11-17
REPUBLICAN, PLOTS.
Old Assemblymen to Com
bine and Snatch All
the Offices.
CORPORATIONS TO Be HELPED
The Law Taxing Them Will Be
Repealed The Opposition
to Sewell.

the fever and excitement of the election
has. in a measure. subsided, and the
Republicans have taken a calm look
at the situation. they are beginning to
regret that they won such a sweeping
victory. Their position has been called
an embarrassment of riches, but just
now it is more of an embarrassment OF
poverty-that is, poverty of offices. The
number of places, good, bad and 1ndlf-
ferent, at the disposal of the Legisla-
ture, is at the best small and barely
sufficient to go around. When the ma
jority has been extra large and every
one wanted to get under the covers, 1t
has been the custom to piece out the
quilt by putting on extra patches. in
the way of pages, door keepers and
committee clerks.
But the Republicans will not be able
to get out of their dilemma by any such
patchwork process as that. In the first
place, door keepers, pages and com
mittee cleks draw comparatively small
salaries, and the average Republican
holds his services to the cause of pro-
lection to the American workingman at
a much higher figure. If he cannot get
something that pays at least $1,000 he
is going to know the reason why. and
then comes trouble and vexation of spirit
for some statesman whom misguided
constituency has sent to the Legislature.
REPUBLICAN DILEMMA.
Then again the Republicans can't con-
sistently increase the number of the
minor offices. In former years, as ma
iorities in the House grew, and every
one of its members insisted upon having
something, the number of door keepers
grew to such an extent that there was
more than enough to guard every en-
trance to the Chamber, including win
dows and ventilators, and the pages be-
came so thick that there was not room
enough for them in their usual places,
and they earned their salaries by pitch
ing pennies and quarreling among them
selves in the cloak room These sout-
rageous scandals" as these Republicans
took delight in calling them whenever
the Democrats controlled the majority,
furnished the disciples of Mckinley with
food for a righteous indignation of
their usual hypocritical order, and many
was the philippic hurled at the Demo-
Gratis by such political moralists as
storrs and Olcott.
But when all this was going on these
upright and honest statesmen never
dreamed that they would be confronted
with the problem of dividing handful
of offices among ffty-four hungry, starv-
ing Republicans. 1t is a condition and
not theory which confronts them,
and what to do they do not know. Their
great trouble is that every one of those
fifty-four men considers himself just as
big a man in the party as any one of
the other fifty-three. and seriously be-
lieves that he and his section achieved
the great victory, and is entitled to the
best thing in the way of spoils that the
party has Especially is this so with the
new members, and the modest manner
in which they demand the clerkships, one
or two assistants, with a half dozen
door keepers and pages by way of
s'trimmers,'' is most entertaining spec
tacle to every one except the other
ffty-three members who want the same.
TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.
1t is said that the old members, that
is those statesmen who were in the
House last year and learned the ways
that are dark and the tricks that are
by no means in vain of the Republican
method of doing things. have hit upon
a plan for getting out of the dilemma
with advantage to themselves. They pro-
pose to play a sort of bunco game upon
their colleagues, who have not as yet
made the acquaintance of divers gentle
men of the Third House, and to stand
solidly together and divide all the Offices
among themselves 1t Will take twenty
eight votes to control the Republican
caucus in the Assembly, and as the old
members who have been reelected num-
ber just twenty-one, they will have to
pesuade seven of the unsophisticated
to join them.
Even then their success is doubtful.
TO control twenty-one such noble patri-
OTIS of such high disinterested motives
as actuated the underdone statesmen
last winter, when Offices are to be given
out will be no easy task. Nevertheless
efforts are being made to form such
q combination, and it is causing the
new statesmen who have promised their
constituents everything, clerkship down
to page, no small amount of uneasiness.
Efforts are being made to break up the
combine.
GENERAL SEWELL ALSO REGRETS.
General seven lS SAOtlieA4 5oOu ISC-
publican who sincerely wishes that the
Republican majority In the Legislature
was not quite SO large 1t is causing
him no small degree of embarrassment
as the large number of votes for United
States Senator endangers his boom
by making 1t possible for others
to come in and snatch out of
his hands the prize for which he has
toiled 10. these many weary years, when
II is fust within his grasp. An opposi-
tion to him is rapidly taking shape and
assuming proportions which make it
worth Watching There has always been
objection to the General in the party
hut II has never taken any definite
shane. 1t lacked a leader capable of
coping with TIE astute and experienced
politician of Camden, and whenever 1T
came in conflict with the SeWel interests
it disappeared as rapidly. as new fallen
snow before spring sunshine,
All the fall there has been some rant ram,
nuttering of opposition to the Generals S
boom, but it was only Just before cleo
ton that it assumed tangible shape, and
then it 1naterialized in Franklin Murphy.
At first MIR. MBrphy'S entrance into the
fight was looked upon by some as d
Joke. and by others as move on nfs
part to force General SewelI to pledge
him his aid in securing the Guberna-
torial nomination next fall. But now it
is said tkat Mr.. Murphyts candidacy is
sincere, and means that the Chairman OF
: the State Committee will remain in the
field until after the vote Is taken. He deF
sIares that he has received assurances
,f support from various sections of the
Etate and the situa ton is encouraglng. e