The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-11-15
PLATT ON LOWS RACE.
Senator Says His Party Tried in Vain
to Bring About Union.

to Bring About Union.
New York, Nov Ex-senator Thomas C.
Platt tonight gave out the following
statement:
1T is the plain purpose of those repub-
lican factionists, who, failing in every ef-
fort repeatedly made. to control the re-
publican organization, projected Seth Low
into the municipal campaign, thereby d.
viding the anti-Tammany vote, to force
into the public mind the impression that
the responsibility for this division attaches
not to them, but to the republican organi-
zation, and, just as during the campaign
they stopped at no act of treachery in
order to create dissension, so now they
are hesitating at no falsehood or calumny
in order TO promote it and keep IL alive.
The malicious misrepresentation OF
these incurable factionists must not go un-
challenged. No fair-mnded republican,
who will allow his mind to go back over
the events of the last six months, can fail
to remember that the attitude of the re-
publican organization up to the very last
moment at which the law permitted
nominating certificate to be filed, was
much more than favorable to a union with
the citizens organization. Fair-minded
men will remember that when
Mr.. Quigg assumed the pres
idency of the county committee
he made the offer of union distinctly and
in terms. They viii remember that his
offer was distinctly refused by those to
whom it was addressed. They will re-
member, indeed, that when the Citizens
union organized 1t adopted platform
which was intended TO commit its MEM
bers to the 'go-it-alone policy, This plat
form denied the relation of a national po-
litical party to municipal affairs 1t chal-
lenged the right of the republican party
to make republican nomination. 1t placed
on the doctrine of -partisanship'
new Interpretation and one which forbade
the possibility of cooperation between
the republican party and the Citizens un-
ion.
This was done, we must remember,
away back in the campaign and before the
average citizen had began to consider
what his political course should be. No
body paid any attention al the time, for
nobody supposed 1t could mean that the
citizens were going deliberately to work to
defeat themselves or that they could OBJ
tain a candidate who would stand with
them in such a suicidal policy.
1.-The republican leaders, however, who
had had long experiences both of the i'm
practical political theorists who had de-
vised this folloy, and of the republican
cate 1t, perceived its significance and the
perilous situation to which it was bound
to lead. 1t anticipated everything which
the republpn party would do TO secure a
union, and repudiated all in advance. 1t
demanded the unconditional surrender of
the republican party, not simply to object
tionable candidates, but to impossible plat
forms 1t demanded that the republican
party must say that in municipal affairs
it would not allow itself to be the republi-
can party and would assert no right to
make nominations or define policies.
1.-THE republican leaders met an insolent
challenge without bitterness and resent
ment. They found no fault with the can
didate whom the citizens union picked out
as the expression Of its purposes and ideas.
They do not now deny regarding him as
practically the sort of a man he has turn
ed out to be-a vainglorious, self-seel1er,
masquerading as republican, but willing
at any time to wreck the republican ship
on the ledge of his own ambition.
''The republican leaders do not deny that
they were then opposed to the candidacy
of Seth Low, but they allowed their oppo-
sition to take no definite or irritating
shape. They simply insisted that the re-
publican party did have a just and newt
able relation to municipal affairs; that it
did have the right to nominate and that it
must exercise that right; that the views
and wishes of its adherents were entitled
to consideration, and that there ought TO
be a union between the citizens organiza-
ton and the republican party, but that it
ought to be an honorable, friendly, equit-
able union, under the terms of which both
should have a voice in choosing candidates
and in defining policies,
This was the exact state of things up
to the time when the republican county
committee adopted Commissioner Coils
resolution inviting all the antiJTammany
organizations into a conference in order
that day might be fixed when they
should all hold their nominating conven-
tions so that ready conference and har-
monius action might be assured.
'"The citizens union refused to partici-
pate in this union, and frankly assigned
as its reason the fact that 1t was COM
mtted to the 'go-it-alone' policy Can
any honest man. in the face of that fact,
charge the responsibility for disunion up
on the republican party? Does not every
honest man know that if the citizens un-
ion had gone into the proposed conference,
united action would have been inevitable? =?
1t Is not plain enough that the republi-
cans could not possibly have broken up or
have allowed to be broken up, a confer
ence which they themselves had origi-
mated?
',The republican organization in New
York and in the city Of New York, no
less than I'M the country districts, Is still
powerful earnest and devoted. In the
menace of another Bryanite campaign
fractional controversies win soon be for
gotten and republicans will be republi-
cans again."