The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1895-09-20
MR.. HURsT's SPEECH.



character he may have secured for EN-
ergy, self-rellance and independence
how ever clearly lie may have earned a
reputation for qualities in which servil-
ity and subservience have no place.
He may yet be properly branded as a
figure-head-hls public assurances of
his entire freedom from pledges and
committals OF every kind be ridiculed
as untrue and his election opposed be-
cause of the insOlent and gratuitous as
sumption thai, if elected he will prove
plant, superserviceable tool i'll the
hands of others.
Against such assaults upon me or
my candidacy. | enter my solemn pro-
test and if in face of these political as
surances, that in the event of my cleo
ton | shall be wholly free 10 act with
out obligation or SENSE of obligation To
any man or set of men, such assaults
shall be continued, | shall leave them
to the contempt they deserve.
MERELY A PRETEXT.
Of course no Democrat can honestly
stand Oh such an untenable ground of
objection as this. But pursuing this
attack upon us little more closely, it
Is urged that my right TO demand the
| support OF the party could not well be
I questioned if | had been nominated
upon the second or third or fourth bal
/ lot instead upon the first. This pre-
text for boiling the ticket, for it is
nothing but a preteXt, means that not
withstanding all the talk among the
delegates that had been ileld after they
arrived in the city had led to the def
mite conclusion that large majority of
them were III favor of my nomination,
yet the farce of several complimentary
and Intellectual ballots was to he gone
through with in order that the appear.
ance of an animated and doubtful strug-
gle should be presented.
Nobody was III reality 10 be deceived
by such show of contest, but still, to
satisfy the scruples OF those who insist
that conventions should always 90
through the harmless form of seeming
to deliberate, several ballots shOulu
have been had and then the delegates
having sufficiently amused themselves
and the public toy casting votes for
gentlemen, none of whom, 1t was well
understood, were to lie nominated,
should proceed to its real work and
cast their votes for the man whom ii
was perfectly well understood before 1t
met three-fourths of the convention
had decided they would nominate.
While | am free to confess that in
this contest should like to receive the
votes of all sincere Democrats, who
| wish their party to refrain its control in
Maryland, am tempted To say that
we eau well afford To do without the
at ..f Ill
for form and deliberation as 10 see their
way clear to abandon their party sim
ply because its lawfully, fairly and hon
orably nominated candidate received
his nomination on the first ballot bV
the unsolicited votes OF elghty-siX OF
the one hundred and seventeen dele
gates who came to the convention un-
instructed and unpledged, instead of
getting 1t after pretended competition
extending through several ballots gone
through for the simple purpose of prac-
tlciDg deceit that would have not have
deceived, and was not intended to de-
ceive anybody.
Receiving my nomination in this
way, upon the first ballot, from un-
could contemplate without misgiVing.
F., Finally, however, | yielded to the
/ solicitations of my friends, and agreed
/ to become candidate. did not Ell
/ ter into the struggle at all, and can con-
scientiously say that if ever there was
"A case when the office sought the man
and not the man the office, this is that
case. Not unnaturally, | supposed that
such candidacy and nomination
! made in that way would find favor
| with the great body Of the people, for
they would see in it an absence of those
personal opportunities and methods
which SO frequently degrade our polit-
ical contests.
Heretofore the cry has been that
nominations should not be The result of
scramble and struggle aud self-seeking,
but that the candidates should be Sc
lected without those incidents, which
are always more or less disa9reeable
and oftentimes positively disgusting.
The objection now made is based
upon the opposite idea, and Democrats
are asked to vote for the Republican
ticket because | did not announce N.Y.
self as candidate months or at least
weeks before the assembling of the
convention and go down actively to
work III the primaries. Indeed, the
point, so far as can gather it from the
discussion in the two newspapers
which, alone of the Democratic press
IN the State, are opposing our ticket, is
that the convention could not nominate
any man who did not make such a
contest in the primaries without there
by losing its right to claim that its ac-
ton is binding up the party
If such an extraordinary pretension
be conceded to have any force what
ever, where would Judge Fishers NOM
lnation have come in had he been Sc
lected instead of myself? He did not
go into a single primary, so far as | am
ADVISED, or run tickets publicly in his
interest in single election district or
precinct in the state; and if the point
to which | am now referring be well
taken, he would have been shut out
rom Legitimate consideration by the
convention as well as /.