The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-02-20

All organizations for good govern
 ment, be they of men or women are
 to be as one movement for the better
 ment of municipal government, if they
 desire success" was the tenor of
 thought at the non-partisan good gov
 ernment league meeting last night at
 the Chamber of Commerce. The pres
 ident of the league, Levi T. Snow, pre-
 sided, and in introducing Dr. Newman
 Smyth said: There is no man whose. words go fir fffast sther in definite thought Tor
 the good of our city-and I will, with
 equal force say the same of our states
 policy, His voice has been timely and
 with remarkable warning force on
 important issues of our nation"
 The following are some of the points
 which Dr. Smyth made in his speech
 As l am one of the civic Independents
 l am not to be understood as commit
 ting myself by my coming here to any
 local political movement many months
 before the next city election It is pos-
 sible by that time that the spectacle
 of our last election may not be repeat
 ed, when we seemed to have the politic-
 al wonder of two parties with but one
 head, and one mouth The republican whale may not then contain the demo-
 cratic Jonah. If we really have two parties again, 1t will time enough then to judge whether a third party is call ed for or not,
 l come here tonight because l am
 willing to Joe present wherever citizens
 are seeking to get together for the pur-
 pose of gaining good, business-like
 municipal government.
 Experience seems to me to demon- strate certain ways in which we cannot expect to achieve practical results. We cannot hope to accomplish much in To- cal politics by clubs organized by sep arate classes or groups of citizens,
 Good citizens hunting in select groups | make much noise, but kill little game. ] Politics will never be reformed by any | class movement. The people prefer to ] overthrow their own bosses, when the 1 time comes. 1 do not care to belong l to any reform club unless the list of it's members reads as promiscuosly as l the names on a page of the city di- 1 rectory. For democracy can only be ! reformed by democracy.
 | Another thing we cannot do. We can not put out any industrial or civic evil l by wringing up the moral fire alarm at the wrong box.
 Uninformed and indiscriminate de-
 nunciation may be a popular amuse- I,,,t ott tt,aI work than a bonfire.
 It is easier to speak hundred words | of vehemence against poor official than it is to do one thing to help | good public servant The people do only the easier half of their business when they turn the grafters out; the other part is to stand by true men in office and save them from the ringsters. Effective reform must begin with To-
 eating the evil, with finding out the | facts. General denunciation of political corruption accomplishes nothing; hit a | specific wrong as hard and as squarely l as you can between the two horns of 1t. l As industrial and political reformers l weare too apt to go about as the Chin I ese physicians are said to do; they car- ry around with them bag of long needles and thrust them here and there ! into the system to let cut something
 wrong in it. We need occasionally some specific treatment and local surgery in l our municipal system. | We must accept the fact that party effort is the established method of gov l ernment in this country. And some or I ganization is a necessary condition of party effort. The popular uprising in I New York would not have elected Mr. l Jerome if an informal organization \ mostly fo young men had not gone to work and got the vote out. The evil arises and may become intolerable
 when the organization compels the par I ty to bow down and serve it, When
 the party exists for the organization l it is time for the people to do some