Omaha daily bee., 1897-11-15
TOM PLATT GETS INTO PRINT
New York's Easy Boss" Treats of the
Late Municipal Campaign,
PAYS HIS RESPECTS TO CITIZENS UNION
Says the Republicans Were DESTROYS
of Union, but that the Re-
formers Would Make
No Concessions.

NEW YORK, Nov. 14.-Senator Thomas H.
Plat gives out the following statement:
at is the plain purpose OF those repub-
lican factionists, who, failing in every effort
repeatedly made TO control the republican or
ganizatlon. projected Seth Low luto the mu-
nicipal campaign, thereby dividing the anti
Tammany vote to force upon the public
mind the impression that the responsibility
for this division attached not to them, but
to the republican organization. And Just
as during the campaign they stopped at no
act of treachery in order to create dlssen-
sion, SO now they are hating at no false
hood or caumny in order to promote it and
keep It alive.
THE malicious Misrepresentation of these
incurable factionists must not go unchal-
lenged. No fair minded republican who will
look back over the last six months can fail
to remember that the attitude OF the repub-
lican party UP to the last moment that the
law permitted nominating certificate to be
| filed was much more favorable to a union
with the citizens ticket Fair-mnded men
Will remember that when Mr.. Qugg as
sumed the presidency of the county forces
he made the offer Of union distinctly and in
uDequivccal terms. They will remember that
his offer was as distinctly refused by those
to whom it was addressed.
CHALLENGED REPUBLICAN PARTY.
They will remember, indeed, that wher
the citizens association organized it adopted
platform which was intended to commit
its members to the go-it-aone policy. 1t
challenged the right of the republican PARTY
to make a republican nomination. 1t placed
| upon the doctrine of non -partisarship a new
Interpretation and one which forbade the
possibility of cooperation between the re-
publican party and the citizens union. This
was done, we must remember away back in
20 md hnfp tla
had begun to consider what his political
course should be. Nobody paid any attention
at the time, for nobobay supposed it would
mem that the citizens were going deliber-
ately to work to defeat themselves, or that
they could obtain a candidate who would
stand with them in such a suicidal policy.
THE republican leaders however, who had
long experience with the impractical political
IL eorists who had devised this folly and the
republican factonsts who were expected to
advocate 1t, perceived the significance and
:he perilous situation to which it was bound
| to lead. 1t anticipated everything which the
republican party would do to secure union
and repudiated all advance. 1t demanded
the unconditional surrender of the republi-
can party, not simply to Objectionable can
didates, but to impossible platforms. 1t de-
| rnanded that the republican party must say
that in municipal affairs it would not allow
itself to be the republican party, and
would assert no right to make nominations
or define policies.
NO OBJECTIONS TO LOW.
"The republican leaders met an insolent
charge without bitterness and resentment.
| They found no fault with the candidate
whom the Citizens union picked out as the
expression of its purpose and ideas They
do not now deny that they regard him as
practically the sort of a man that he turns
out to be-a vaingorious self-seeker mas
QueTading republican, but willing at any
time to wreck the republican ship on ledge
of his own ambitions. The republican lead
ers do not deny that they were
then opposed to the candidacy OF
Seth Low. But they allowed their
opposition to take no definite shape They
| simply insisted tnat the republican party did
have just and inevitable relation to munc-
ipaL affairs; that it did have the right to
| nominate, and 1t must exercise that right;
| that the views and wishes of its adherents
| wero entitled to consideration, and that there
| ought to be union between the citizens or
| ganization and the republican party, but that
| 1t ought to be an honorable, friendly, equit-
able union, under the terms of which both
| should have a voice in choosing candidates
nnd in defining policies.
| REPUBLICANS FAVOR UNION
| This was the eNlct state of things up to
| the time when the republican county COM
| mlttee adopted Commissioner Collins reso-
| lutiCa inviting all arti-Tammany Organiza-
| tions into conference in order that a day
might be fixed when they should hold their
| nominating conventions, so that unanimous
and harmonious action might be assured.
! Tho Citizens union refused to participate
| in this conference, frankly asserting as it's
reason the fact that 1t was committed to
the go-it-alone' policy. Can any honest
| man, in the face Of that fact, charge the
responsibility for dlsunion on the part of
the republican party? Does not every honest
man know that if the Citizens union had
gone into the proposed conference united ac-
tion would have been inevitable? Is it not
plain enough that the republicans could not
possibly have broken up or have allowed to
be broken up conference which they them
| selves had originated
THE republican organization in the city
OF New York, no less than in the country dis
tricts. is still powerful, earnest and devoted,
| In the menace of another Bryanite campaign
| factional controversies will soon be forgotten
and republicans will be republicans again"