The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-01-09
DELEGATES SHY
OF ACCEPTING
Are Anxious to Know
More Before Commit
ting Themselves.
Too Much Secrecy Is Being
Observed to Suit Those on
the Outside.
The Original Date Set for the Mu-
nicipal Convention Has
Been Postponed.
OAKLAND OFFICE SAN Francisco CALL,

OAKLAND OFFICE SAN FRANCISCO CALL
sos Broadway, Jan. s.
The committee OF twenty-one Is meet
ing with considerable difficulty in its
effort to find men willing to be appointed
delegates to the municipal convention.
The policy it is pursuing OF ignoring pri-
maries is so completely opposed 10 the
teachings OF the Republican party in this
county during the past Two years that the
plan is being regarded with suspicion
that increases daily.
a circular letter has been sent to several
people in each ward asking them if they
viii consent to be appointed delegates TO
the Republican convention. Many of
these circulars have been UNDECIDED. They
contain blank for the party who receives
them to sign and return to the ommittee-
man who is anxious to appoint them. Up
10 date not many of these blanks have
been signed.
In the Seventh Ward several men APP
preached refused to sign until they knew
who were to be appointed from the other
wards and what is the general programme.
The secrecy with which everything Is
being done has not drawn out an express
sion of public confidence, but rather the
reverse, and 1t is now admitted that the
com mittee has undertaken big and
thankless task.
q One member of the twenty-one said to-
day that he had been surprised to find the
plan of appointing delegates so unpopular.
He declared that at the last two or three
meetings Of the committee an adjourn-
ment was taken on various pretexts, but
the real reason for deferring the matter
was the difficulty of finding men willing
to serve.
THO com p,jr4aa vrar aDr,ojpt tod for No
other purpose than to appoint delegates
from the various wards, and although a
month has passed by, no one has as yet
named a single delegate. The date origi-
naliy set for the holding OF the convention
has passed and has been postponed by the
committee till the end of the month, thus
making 1t appear that some serious set
backs have been received.
There are many Republicans who are
not in sympathy with the movement,
and they openly declare that the appoint
ment OF the committee OF twenty-one was
a neat little trap engineered by the City
Central Committee, into which their old
enemies have fallen. The fact that they
were appointed at secret meeting hastily
called one Saturday evening and to whic n
no formal notices were sent out lends
color to this view. 1t is not possible to
conceive that the old line Republicans,
represented by the City Central Com
mittee, who have been fought desperately
during the past four years by the party
which is dominating the present plan of
calling a convention, can have been so
suddenly harmonized. There is altogether
TOO much secrecy in the whole matter
from its very inception, and if those who
have the interests of the Republican party
at heart do not at once axe steps to pre-
vent an open disagreement all that was
gained to the party during the Mckinley
campaign in this county will soon be lost.