The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1896-02-08
REFORM LEAGUE ACTS.
1t Wants Campaign Promises OBJ
served Charles j. Bonaparte
81 Speaks,

ts@A
Alta special meeting Of the Ciyil-Seryice
Reform Association, held Tuesday night at
the Y. NJ. C. 4. Central Building, Baltimore,
resolutions we're passed demanding reform
legislation, pledging the support of the organ
izaton to officers of the State and city who
are striving to do their duty in administer
ing public business. and commencing Mayor
Hooper for his stand against the partisan re-
publicans in the City Council. The resolu-
lions were offered by Mr.. Joseph Packard, Jr.
Mr.. William Reynolds, chairman, read the
report of the executive committee, after
which President Bonaparte made a rafting
address,
MR.. BONAPARTE SPEAKS PLAINLY.
Gentlemen of the association, said Mr..
Bonaparte ''the time has come to speak
plainly
~ say tonight to the leaders of the republi-
can party that it will be driven from power
before it has ruled as many months as its rival
did years unless they promptly rebuke the
insolence and rapaeity of its parasites, aban-
don at once and finally practices decisively
condemned by public opinion, and satisfy far
better than they have yet shown either ability
or desire to satisfy the reasonable expectations
of those through whose votes, labors and
sacrifices power was given them-
| say to Governor Lowndes that if he were
candidate for his present Office at an election
% be held tomorrow thousands Of votes which
he received in November would be cast for
his late or almost any other competitor, and
thousands more would not be cast at ALL He
would be in grave danger of defeat. and do
not believe that in this city his vote would
equal that of his party in 1894.
Ii is fair 10 say that the gathering storm OF
public Indignation, whose mutterings may be
drowned in the clamor of ofiice-seekers and
the wranglng of greedy factions for the Gov
ernor and his advisers. but which grows daily
louder and more threatening, is due to nothing
which Governor Lowndes has himself said or
done, and it is due much less to what the
General Assembly has done ar its members
have said, at least in debate, than to what'it
has left undone and to the impudent boasts of
notorious political observation-disclosures APP
parently but too well warranted regarding its
probable action and the motives aud influences
which will determine this.
''The typical republican club is we'll
known in Baltimore politics. 1t is one of the
many unhappy fruits Of our proximity to
Washington and of the long control of federal
patronage by the party here in an evident
minority. Its genesis is familiar to us all. y
politician, booming himself for some office,
rounds up III a room he has hired over Il
grog shop, IA herd of shabby loafers, buys for
them ON the nstalment plan, second
hand table and chairs, guarantees them a
reasonable credit at the bar downstairs, picks
out one relatively sober as president and one
not wholly illiterate as secretary, aud, behold
the Elijah Pogram Republican Club of the
Twenty-third Ward. born on its brief life and
ready TO 'resolute, and delegate in its
owner interest.
'.Wheu these gentry tell lis that they detest
civil-seryice reform they give us no news.
We are as ready 10 believe this as that they
abhor cleanliness and sobriety and homes; in
dustry, and well nigh everything which makes
man estimable, or life in civilized society a
source OF happiness.
Zone of the greatest blessings conferred by
civil-seryice reform upon Il community which
thoroughly and honestly adopts it is that it
forces hundreds, even thousands, of men TO
work for their living who would otherwise
grove in penury, ideness and sordid vice,
doing all sorts Of political odd jobs IN the
hope that they may somehow, by hook or by
crook, and usually the latter, pick up tran
silent and precarious living at the taxpayers
cost. No one who knows anything of degraded
human nature will wonder that II is as odious
to those it would thus transform as are soap
and water to tramp, and their clumsy eX
preston of the hatred they feel for it would
not be worth mention were this not serious
and mcnacing as a Symptom-a symptom be-
cause it shows the course which responsible
politicians of the party. ON which these men
sponge, will take if they dare; the clubs are
allowed, even encouraged TO ask them to defy
public opinion, that they may Judge whether
such defiance will be safe.
Gentlemen of the association, you have
been called together to aid in answering this
question. When | say, as | do, without a
moments doubt or hesitancy. that to put or
keep in power such a party as theirs would
then become ! would not move finger, spend
a dollar, write or speak word, would not
even east my vote or lend my name, it is, to
them and 10 the public matter of small
momentif | speak for myself alone. believe
that in saying this | voice the thoughts of
thousands of my fellow-citizens, Just as be-
lieved year since that, as | then felt, SO had
u majority of the voters of Maryland come to
feel. ask you, gentlemen of the associa-
ton, to say as plainly as | have spoken.
whether you think | am right.
Speeches were made by Joseph Packard,
.Ir., and Capt. j. Frank Supplee, on the same
lines.