Los Angeles herald., 1909-12-18

ment not alone in our city councils
and state legislatures, but in the halls
of congress at Washington.
Before the recent election | was
fond of saying that there were two
great difficulties in reform politics.
One was the financing of campaigns
and the other was the securing of
frst-class men to run for office. The
direct primary has solved the prob
lem of getting good candidates, and
through the good government fund
we have pretty well met the first diff
fculty and I believe in the future the
good government fund will be strong
enough to finance all good government
campaigns in the city and county OF
Los Angeles.
What it is worth to the citizens
Of Los Angeles to have elected the
kind of men to serve them for the
next two years that were elected on
December cannot be measured in
dollars and cents and l hope that good
citizens will appreciate this suf1ciently
within the next few days to send in
contributions which will clean up the
remaining deficit
In the recall election the machine
must have seen the handwriting on
| the wall and in the election held on
/ December the machine met its Water
| loo.
| A few minutes spent in an analysis
of the vote at the recent election
might be of interest. George AleXan-
der received 1900 majority at the re-
| call election, and increased that ma
| iority to over 1900 at the recent elec-
| ton. Where did the increase come
from? We find that the first ward
gave an increased majority of 4SO.
| The Second ward gave an increase OF
! 69 in the Third ward there was a
| slight loss in majority of 149 and in
the Fourth ward a loss of 164; in the
Fifth ward there was a slight gain IN
majority of SO: i'm the Sixth ward
majority of 120 against at the recall
election, was transformed into ma
iority of 459, a gain of 579-the best
i showing of all for Alexander at the
last election. Instead of losing the
/ Seventh ward by 1915 votes this time,
thanks to the excellent campaign
managemant of our friend Betkouski,
we lost it by only 94S votes, showing
a clear gain of g. The Football
. SQUAD" Of Occidental college held
down the bloody Eighth, so that there
/ was a gain in the machine majority
of only eight votes, and by reason Of
the excellent team work of our friends
/ in the Ninth ward. a former machine
stronghold. a majority of 81 against
in the recall election was transformed
into a majority Of 304 for Alexander
in this election. The newly annexed
/ precincts, including San Pedro, Will
mingtOn and the western ADDITION
gave a clean majority of 5ll votes,
and it is a pretty good thing to re-
member that every time we take in
an adjacent territory we are pretty
sure of increasing the Good Govern p
ment majority in Greater Los An
geles.
The significant thing about these
figures is. that while we suffered a
loss in the silk Stocking" Third and
Fourth wards. and just about held olr
own in the Fifth, we made substantial
gains in the First. Sixth and Ninth
wards, which, while not densely pop
/ ulatcl by those who belong to the
| "Pink Sock" asd tuxedo Coat" bri-
gade contain within their confines the
| great mass of the plain, honest work
| ing people of Los Angeles.
| heard a story the other day which
was vouched for by a gentleman in
whose veracity we all have the most
/ implicit confidence to the following
effect: A certain gentleman who used
to be a member of the former Solid
Three up on the hill, but who was
denied denomination last year for
what the general public considered
good and sufficient reasons, stated to
a friend that he proposed to vote for
Alexander for mayor, why, Pete,
| said his friend, "yOu surely don't
mean that you are going to vote for
that old long hair" "Sure, I am"
said Pete. GO ont" said his friend,
you don't mean it, What's the rea-
SOM" "Why,-it," said Pete "I'm
! property owner"
| l think that we got lot of votes
Of that kind; men who had been with
! the machine, but knew that the re-
election of George Alexander meant
dollars in their pockets.
But I was reminded that I was not
! down on the program for a speech. but