The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-09-05
Three Factions Will Do Prac-
teal Politics in Sans
Convention.
WILL BE a MESS OF BOSSES.
The Buckley Platform Will Play the
Bieyclists, the Dollar Limit
and Religion.

Sam Ra1ney, with one nnger on the SIDE
of his nose, says nothing of the demon
stration of his mastery of the Junta organ
ization and of its nearby convention,
afforded by the outcome of the long and
hot meeting of the campaign com mittee
night before last.
That meeting was a highly interesting
little event in municipal politics. 1t
showed how completely Gavin McNab has
been repudiated by a controlling element
in the anti Buckley local Democracy, and
how insignificant there is the strength of
the very few who have been trying to keep
things out of Rainey's hands and be
bosses themselves.
The Junta organization has reached the
stage where actual convention business
must be done, and it is shown, more
plainly than before, that Rainey and
Lanigan will run the convention, though
they will have to trade with some smaller
bosses instead of having autocratic swing
as Buckley has in the other faction.
That meeting of the cam paign com mittee
was a great surprise to Gavin McNa5,
Chairman Sullivan and Sam Braunhart
Chairman Sullivan first introduced reso-
luton carrying out the McNab programme
of appointing 200 delegates at large to be
added to the 450 me M bers of the General
Committee to form the municipal con-
vention.
His scheme also provided that the sew
enty members of the General Commit
tee who are ineligible to sit in tho
convention because they hold political
jobs, should appoint substitutes, but their
appointments must be approved by the
campaign committee. BY this plan Nc
Nab wanted to shut out substitutes dis
tasteful to him.
Then P. J. Harvey, the Port Warden,
who has never affiliated with the Rainey
end. caused the first sensation by vigor-
ously denouncing the resolution, declar-
ing that it was in the interet of the one
man power that he and many others OBJ
jecIed to. He also denounced the plan of
making ineligible members submit their
proxies to majority of the committee as
gross injustice.
lion against Boss McNab caused McNab to
grit his teeth, Braunhart to wipe his head
and Sullivan to turn pale. Harvey moved
an amendment that 100 delegates at large
be appointed. This was the distinctively
Rainey programme. The significance OF
the number of delegates TO be appointed
by each member of the committee was
that the appointoes would change fac.
tional majorities in various districts, and
thus change the control of the district
dele atoms in the matter of legislative
nominations and other things. Then
Rainey would rather have small num-
Der to hold Ii control than large one.
and 100 votes is big thing in a conven
tion where factions are pretty evenly di-
vided.
r. L. Mann, who is an attorney in Con-
gresham Maguire's Office and interested
in Maguire's possible as United States
Senator, introduced as third amendment
the proposition of the anarchists" a. the
independent seven in the committee have
been styled, which was that 14O be the
number.
The vote on this amendment was 10 to
10, and by the constitution fourteen of the
twenty votes were required to pass con-
ventlon measure. Harney's amendment
received but four votes and the original
motion was supported by a minority.
Then the tug-of-war began and lasted
Until after midnight when the compro-
mise on $50 was reached.
The votes had a significance that manv
are puZzling over. Captain FITZPATRICK
who was bought up with a place in the
mint few weeks ago, and whose vote is
controlled by Daggett, voted with McNab
and against the Raineyites. This is taken
as one of several indications that McNab
is quietly working the legislative game on
the Junta end in the interest of Daggett's
Senatorial aspirations, as the dictation of
several legislative nominations was in
volved in the programme at issue. Harvey
voted against the McNab programme clear
through.
The voting also exhibited the third fac
ton in the committee, the anarchists
or independents, as an organized element
standing solidly together from first to
last. These eight middle-of-the-road feI-
lows hold the balance of power between
McNab's minority and the Rainey- LAM
gan minority. They are strongly against
McNab, and while they are doing practical
politics for themselves they are known. or
at least several of them are known. to be
ready to do politics with Rainey and Lani-
gan in their own interests, as they have
already been doing.
The coming Junta municipal convention
will not cut very big figure in the local
campaign owing to the smallness of the
Junta faction in the local party, but such
as it is it will be worked BY Sam Rainey
and Ed Lanigan with juiicious combina-
tions with bosses hostile to McNab
The Bush-street stable. are ALREADY
showing ante-convention life as the dis
trict politicians float there to talk bnsi ness
with Sam.