The sun., 1895-02-08
Partisanship and Bi-Partisanship.

Whatever the objections to a bipartisan
Police Commission, Boss PARKHURsT and
his retainers are precluded from making
them, by their own acceptance and adoption
OF the principle in the last campaign.
The ticket made up and supported by
them was constructed on that principle dis
tinctly. 1t was bipartisan ticket, and not
non-partisan as they now have the assur-
ance to pretend. 1t was fusion ticket ar
ranged in accordance with political deals be-
tween the Republicans and the kicking DEM
ocrats; and the bargaining was over the
spoils, for which the campaign was waged.
The Republicans got the Mayoralty because
otherwise they refused plumply and openly
and persistently to make a deal and with
out them there was no chance Of electing
the ticket and getting any of the spoils; but
the kicking Democrats insisted on having
the rest of the offices, and they got them.
1t was a combination made by professional
politicians, in which each side got all it
could out of the bargain. Every candidate
put on the ticket was selected for
purely political and partisan reasons only
Mayor, Sheriff, President of the Board of
Aldermen, Coroners, and even the two
clans nominated for no other reason than
that they were such. All Of them were
chronic Office seekers, and none Of them was
possessed of any peculiar qualifications for
public Office, which would have induced his
nomination on the ground OF intrin-
sic fitness solely. Two of them, at
least, were SO totally unfit, morally and
intellectually. that their selection was the
most impudent and outrageous political
bargain ever made In New York. Worse
men for their places could not have been
picked out, and the effrontery of the Com
mittee Of Seventy in imposing on the conf
dence of the people by pretending that their
shameless nomination was made wholly in
the interests of reform, has never been
exceeded in our politics. They are both
adventurers and Office seekers, with no quail
tiles of mind or character emitting them to
any place in the public service.
1t was a bargain and sale ticket through
out and from top to bottom. Partisan sup
port was bought with the price of Offices
1t was bipartisan, with no trace of nom
partisanship in it. The Republicans put in
the most votes and they were paid with
the best Office. The kicking Democrats
were bought with the rest. The sale of the
spoils was conducted openly in the political
shop of the Committee of Seventy. yet
that same body of political traffickers
have now the impudence to go to Albany
to protest against the imitation of their
methods by the Legislature as grossly
wicked The Republicans at Albany are
simply insisting that they shall not be
cheated in the bargain made with the Com
mittee OF Seventy. 1t is no wonder that
they laughed after Boss PARKHURsr had
finished his ludicrous harangue about nom
partisanship having been the principle on
which the notorious bargain was based.
The principle of bi-partisanship is I'M
sound and mischievous wherever it enters.
Government should be partisan, so that
distinct party can be held accountable for
it. Political fusions like that OF the last
in this city are always injurious
in their consequences, always immoral.
They are impossible except by the sacrifice
of political principles essential to good gov
ernment. They are always made in pursu-
ance of bargains, in which the people are
cheated for the profit OF the political traf-
hcksrs making them. Non-partisan-ship
There is no such thing, It is sham and
humbuR