The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-09-07
Jerome at Albany.

II Is no disparagement of the other
distinguished and high minded men who
spoke at the conference of Democrats
In Albany on Wednesday to say that
the voice which rang out preeminent in
irresistible appeal to the brain and heart
Of honest citizens was that OF District
Attorney JEROME, who was recognized
as personifying at once the will and the
power to brace, stiffen and electrify the
public mind by vindicating the right OF
the boss driven and defrauded voter to
genuine self-government.
When JEROME declared that IA things
are now it is growing more and more
difficult for a mar to say why he be-
longs to one political organization rather
than another he struck the very heart Of
the matter. So utterly disguised have
citizens become with machine made
politics and machine made nominees
that party discipline and party watch
words have ceased TO have much bind
ing power. For the moment it is men,
not measures, that voters are looking for
in their desire TO make their wishes and
their rights effective. The Republicans,
indeed, have a man, so far as the nation
and national politics are concerned; and,
as Secretary TAFT is showing in Maine,
they are determined to make the most
Of him. But where are the Democrats
TO find a leader in the State of New York?
How are they to be consolidated. rallied
and restored to their old ascendency and
usefulness? There was one a time
when the name Of Democrat was a con-
citizens who owed to it the boon of uni
versal suffrage, the substitution of cleo
tive for appointive officers and the Erie
Canal. In the days that followed the
convention OF 1921 distinction had to be
earned. It did not go by favor, much
less by purchase. Public men realized
that they must begin by executing with
fidelity the laws already On the statute
book before they could hope to be in
trusted by the people with the power of
shaping new legislation.
The people Of New York are hunger
ing to-day for an Executive Of the old
fashioned sort. They are sick Of aspi-
rants who come forward with specious
programmes Of innovation. They are
in the mood to welcome with a sigh Of
relief and a thrill of confidence a man
who promises nothing except that he
will be faithful to the oath he takes as
Governor TO execute the laws. They are
tired to death Of the candidate for Office
who can look over the statute book from
A TO lizard and find all barren, and who
gulls himself and bewilders his country
men with an exhibition Of untried novel;
ties. They have lost all patience with
bromisers who never perform. They
want this time a leader who will prove his
fitness to lead them onward and upward
by first demonstrating his ability and pur-
pose to apply unflinchingly the legislation
which etnbodies the ripened wisdom and
the triumphant struggle of the past.
In other words. as JEROME pointed
out in Albany, the people of New York
as a whole now want what the Demo-
cratic party in its best estate strOve to
give them, a standard bearer who incar-
mates the idea of progress, not that of
revolution. They have had enough of
clamor and chimeras. They mean to go
forward, but they also mean to march
steadily and cautiously. They want no
Coxey at the head Of their consolidated
column. To that end they must begin
by discarding and destroying a party
mechanism which has outlived it's USE
fulness and has become a p~aralyzing
instead of a helpful agency.