Year: 1879

Tammany mt Syracuse.
Will Mr.. John Kelly and his body-guard
Of local delegates carry out their repeated
threats to bolt from the CONVENTION in the
event of Governor Robinson's nomination
There is widely diffused impression
among politicians of both parties that this
menace is mere bluff and bravado, and that
when it fails to accomplish its purpose
Tammany will find some excuse for falling
into line and working for the success of the
ticket


We do not undertake to predict what
Mr.. Kelly and his adherents will or will
not do; but it is safe to express judgment
on what they have done in advance of the
Convention. The spasmodic and screechy
threat which they have so industriously
proclaimed is simply ridiculous. That
childish piece of bravado has probably in
sured Mr.. Robinson's denomination. It
was confession of weakness and an act of
desperation. 1t advertised to the de-
mocracy of the State that Tammany
had no hope of controlling the Convention
and defeating Mr.. Robinson by the ordi-
nary political methods. It puts the dele
gates from the rural districts in the position
of seeming to yield to menace if they
should desert the tabooed candidate. There
is an air of dictatorial assumption in the
demand of Mr.. Kelly to which the democ-
racy of the State cannot submit without
forfeiting their self-respect and renouncing
their right of free deliberation. There could
not have been more suicidal blunder
than this gross affront to the independence
Of the Convention. A small minority has
no more right to dictate who shall not be
nominated than it has to dictate who shall
be nominated. It is an attempt to substi-
tute coercion for conviction, and if such
coercion were submitted to it would make
the will of small minority more potential
than the deliberate choice of the majority.
This act of childish. petulance is likely to
meet its fitting reward. But will Mr.. Kelly
and his body-guard actually bolt when their
threats prove to be impotent?


We gently suggest to them that they may
not even have an opportunity to bolt. Are
they not reckoning without their host in
assuming that they will be admitted to
seats in the Convention? How can they
bolt if they should be excluded?


1t looks now as if the friends of Mr..
Robinson will control the preliminary
organization. They claim eighteen of
the thirty-three members of the State
Committee, as we'll as majority of
the delegates. If this claim is well
founded it depends on their pleasure
whether the Tammany delegates shall be
admitted. Mr.. Kelly has unwarily given
the majority of the Convention plausible
grounds for refusing them admission with
out going into the thorny question of the
regularity of their election. 1t is settled
principle of party morals, principle which
has been SO long and So universally ac-
cepted as to make it the common law Of
political conventions, that all who partici-
pate in the action Of such body are
bound by it's decision. The majority
ut Syracuse may think fit to enforce
this principle. If resolution should be
offered and passed instructing the Com
mittee on Credentials to refuse admission
to delegates who will not pledge themselves





such action might be legitimate under the
circumstances. What right has any dele
gate to participate in deliberations in
the result of which he does not in
tend to acquiescep The Tammany threat
would justify the requirement of a
pledge from all delegates to submit
to the decision of the Convention. If the
Tammany delegates refuse to accept seats
on this condition they will have no oppor-
tunity to bolt; but if they give the re-
quired pledge, that will be an easy way of
retreating from an untenable position. If.
as many suppose. the Tammany threat is
mere bluster and bravado, the Convention
would confer favor on the Tammany dele
gates by requiring a pledge which, if ac-
cepted, would relieve them from a disa-
greeable dilemma.


Mini