Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-12-30
A CITY BLOC.

w in congress now, and it has
been doing things to the distress Of
the president and the republican
leaders. 1t consists of republicans
and democrats who vote together
for certain purposes. Recently
Senator LaFollette, who by the
way is a member of the agricul.
sural bloc, sought to form a new
bloc of his own, a progressive
bloc" and Senator Elect Wheeler
of this state is said to have joined
the new organization under the
LaFollette banner. Now we hear OF
a city bloc. It's hacker is Mayor
Hylan of New York and its OBJ
iect is to boost w. r. Hearst for
president, and look out for the in
terests of the cities as against the
country. The Literary Digest re-
marks concerning the movement
that:
Another three-ringed political
circus, such as toured the United
States in certain presidential cam
paigns, still remembered, is dis
cerned by the republican New York
Tribune in the effort of Mayor
Hylan, of New York, to have a
~"cities bloc" participate in the
next presidential campaign. If his
honor's plans work out as he hopes
they will, a nationwide league of
cities, with Chicago and New York
in the lead, will operate if pos
sible within the democratic and
republican parties as the agricul-
tural and progressive "blocs" now
work in congress. Or if the two
old parties will not let New York's
democratic mayor play with them,
he may have to form a third party
to fight against corporations and
international bankers" as he ex-
presses it.
Mayor Hylan has made the dis
covery that the third-party threat
is a game which more than one
bloc can play" observes the indie
pendent Baltimore News. Mr..
William Randolph Hearst will be
the presidential candidate, and the
oppressed people Of the United
States will be gathered to his ban
ners by the combined efforts of
Mayor Hylan and Mayor William
Hale Thompson, Of Chicago. These
three will then call upon the demo-
cratic party to reform or to suffer
the consequences of a partisan split
and a third party" ut is a good
idea" thinks the independent Utica
Press. I'm fact, it might be called
a grand idea. Maybe a wonderful
idea. The only trouble with it is
that it won't work"
While Mayor Hylan is said to be
paying in this fashion a political
debt to Mr.. Hearst, whose New
York papers supported him in the
mayoralty race, these papers have
not commented upon the mayors
bloc" idea since it was voiced in
Chicago on December 9. And as no
other newspaper which has come
to our attention comes to the de-
Tense of his honor, we shall have
to let him speak for himself. First,
however, it should be pointed out
that in New York's last guberna-
torial campaign there was an en-
tente of Albany. Schenectady, New
York, Buffalo, and other cities in
the state against Governor Miller
and the interests" and that it is the
opinion of Mayor Hylan that if the
larger cities of the country CO.
operate, they can force the nomi-
nation (for prcsident) Of real pro-
gressives. such as William Ran
dolph Hearst, Hiram w. Johnson,
Rodman Wanamaker. or Clifford
Pinchot; some one who will be the
peoples friend and end the domi-
nation Of the corporations and the
international bankers" Declaring
that we have got to get the cities
together for the 1924 fight" the
mayor said in a recent Chicago
speech:
"A small group of international
bankers and money-lenders, public
utility exploiters and tariff bene-
ficiaries have actually dictated
nominations for offices up to tfE
presidency.
This invisible power whose
black and menacing form hovers
over every fireside in the land
~stealthi!y and secretly reaches out
and seizes in its filthy paws our
Wanted institutions of free gov
eminent with the an ruthlessness
and relentlessness as the grim