The Savannah morning news., 1902-05-15
A ROAST A MINUTE
UNION CLUB ORATORS CRITICIZED
CITY-PAID WORKERS.
MAYOR GOT HIS USUAL SHARE.
PRESENCE OF CITY EMPLOYEES AT
COURT HOUSE HIS FAULT.

pudiates Citizens Club for Past Al
legged Misde meanOrs-W. f. Slater
the Star Orator of the Evening.
"If the City Administration Is Not
an Issue in This Campaign, Let the
Mayor Call His HOunds Away From
the Court House."
An enthusiastiv rally of the Union
Clubs of the First District, which was
addressed by some of its most success
full spellbinders, was hrld at Champion
& Evans Hall last night. AS usual
the meeting developed some caustic
and at times amusing criticisms of the
present city administration.
The hall was we'll filled with mem
bers of the clubs that took part in the
meeting, every seat being occupied
and the halls and doorways crowded
with eager listeners. There was en-
thusiasm to throw away and the tell
ing points in, the speech of each one of
the orators of the evening were cheer
ed to the echo. There was liberal
supply of cheers and laughter in the
crowd and the spellbinders tapped it,
with happy results. whenever they
pleased.
Mr.. John E. Schwarz presided and in
auugrated the festivities of the occa-
sion with an earnest appeal to the
men of the district to get in line to
vote and to rally for the Union Club
on May 49,
Nor did Mr.. Schwarz overlook the
opportunity to get in some hot shot at
Mayor Myers. He was abiding to the
fact that various employees of the ad
ministration have recently been spend
ing the time they are paid to devote
to the service of the city to partisan
work as "runners-in' for the regis
tration forces of their faction.
One of Two Things.
And the Mayor has said he knows
nothing about it," exclaimed Mr..
Schwarz Knows nothing about it!
Well, I've got this to say: If Her
man Myers says he doesn't know that
Clarity, Peck and Sheftall are spend
ing their time every day in the office
of the tax collector, overseeing the
registration of voters for their faction,
then he is either a pluperfect fool or
a pluperfect liar. 1 say that, and l
mean it. I'm responsible for what
say and if he attempts to call me
braying jackass, like he did Mr.. Saus-
sy, I'll show him that l am"
Mr.. Schwarz said that Honesty with
the public money, the best men in the
right places" would be the Union
Clubs slogan, and that when the cleo
ton day rolled round and the fight was
fought it would be found that the
blood-sucking vampires that make up
the office-holding class of the Citizens
Club will be buried under a perfect
avalanche of Union votes
Come out and help us win the fight;
come and help US put the rascals out,
and when the sun goes down upon the
day of our victory be able to say, each
of you, that you have cast ballot
against as dirty a political gang as
ever infested Gods green earth"
The next speaker was Mr.. Robert
Kent, who was put up to represent the
laboring classes and to speak from
their standpoint. Mr.. Kent made d
strong argument in favor of his con-
tention that the Citizens Club had
| consistently and persistently denied
the right of labor to representation on
the board of aldermen and to a voice
in the guidance of the city's policy.
An Old Turn-DOwn Recalled.
He recalled that a year and a half
| ago a delegation, representing eigh-
teen labor unions of the city, had call
ed upon the leaders of the Citizens
Club and asked them to name one man
from the ranks of organized labor to
serve on the aldermanic board. They
| had been asked to name six men, and
when these were declared unsatisfac-
tory, two more; all of them had been
| thrown down.
lis it fair asked Mr. Kent, for the
Citizens Club to ask the laboring man
to vote for it's candidates, when it
threw labor down less than a year and
a half ago? No organized labor man
can be loyal to his obligation and give
the Citizens Club his vote; no unor-
ganized laboring man can support its
candidates and be true to his own in
| terestS."
One of the warmest speeches of the
evening was made by Mr. w. F. Sla-
ter, who turned loose on the admins
| ration and handled its record without
gloves.
LET Him Call OF His Hounds"
1.-The Mayor says the present adj
ministration is not an issue in this
campaign. began Mr.. Slater IF that
be true let him call his hounds away
from the Court House.
mot day passes that there are not
between fifteen and twenty-five men.
now employed and paid by the CITY.
doing political work, in the interests
| of the Citizens Club, around the office
of the tax collector. To- day a camera.
levelled upon the front of the Court
House, caught eleven policemen. There
were more inside.
Now that's not right. These men
are being paid by the city and the
money that pays their salaries comes
out of the pockets of the taxpayers. It
is not fair or honest for Mayor Myers
to take thousands of dollars from the
pockets of the people to hire men to do
his dirty political work.
THAT is an issue in this campaign
and they can't hide it; it is an issue.
and we intend to keep it before the
minds of the people"
Mr.. Slater, commenting upon what
he referred to as the disgraceful ad-
| mlnistration of the affairs of the CITY
government, recalled the destruction of
certain records of the house DRAINAGE
system in Savannah, which it had re-
quired six months time of several we'll
paid employees to collate. The incident
fingers in the recollection of Savannah
people.
Reproach to savannah.
Now the man who DESTROYED +hosa
records is known. Mr.. Myers and half
the officers around the City EXCHANGE
could, if they would, put their hands
on him in ten minutes. 1 don't know
him, but they do. and I declare to Won
that it is an outrage, a reproach to
any decent community. that a man
who would commit such an offense
should still be retained in the employ