containing full text of speeches by Charles Stewart Smith, Joseph Larocque, Carl Schurz, Charles L. Guy, Seth Low, Charles S. Fairchild, John H. Schumann, and Charles C. Beaman

“ The trust power exercised by the voter in helping to give this great city its first government is therefore an uncommonly grave one. He who votes this or that ticket without conscientiously weighing for himself the reasons for and against, merely because some one has ordered him to do thus and so, or merely because he wants to be one of this or that crowd, violates his duty in a situation of extraordinary gravity, and commits an uncommonly heinous offense against himself and his fellow-citizens. ”

“ Already thousands of Democrats have arisen in revolt against the creation of the Democratic machine, against their betrayal of the people's interest, and announce their readiness to follow the standard of Seth Low in the cause of honest government. The city stands like a stone wall for Seth Low and sound government. The presence in this audience to-night of hundreds, I may say thousands, of Republicans shows that the Republican voters of the city also stand ready to follow his high and honorable attitude and leadership. ”

“ Now, however good the man may be, a system by which he breaks down our Constitutional Government and our legal Government, and makes our public officers mere puppets or men of straw, taking all dignity from their positions, because all responsibility and authority is gone, produces in the end in the public mind a contempt for government, and creates a condition where the temptation to wrong is irresistible. ”

“ I make that appeal now to the people of New York, in their own behalf and in behalf of free government, to elect this year officials who will be responsible directly to them, and not indirectly to some person whom they cannot get at.
Every intelligent American knows that our institutions have had their smallest measure of success in relation to the government of cities. Nowhere else have there been so many and such serious scandals. Nowhere else have there been such frequent failures to secure the good results for which all government exists. ”

“ It seems to me, gentlemen, that the independent citizens who constitute this large assemblage to-night, who constitute the Citizens' Union proper, and more than both of these combined, the large, silent vote of both great parties, can well afford to trust with the reins of the first Government of Greater New York, particularly with that stanch leader, Seth Low, who knows no fear nor compromise, and who stands for purity of purpose and ability without a peer. ”

“ Often power in the hands of one individual is very effective and made very honest. But our position as citizens under it is that we get what we get as favors and not as rights. We wish to stand before government and the officers of government on our feet, pressing our causes as we may have them, whether we be rich or whether we be poor — whatever our condition in life. We wish to be able to go to our government as a thing that belongs to us, and get our cause heard upon its merits and as a matter of right, not as a matter of favoritism granted by some one unknown to us. ”

“ With one voice they proclaim the doctrine that the administration of the city ought to be responsible to some party, as they put it, and not directly to the people themselves. If a party were to represent the final judgment of a vast body of people there might be something to say for this proposition; though even then, for such business as the city demands of its officials, I think it would be open to question. But what are you going to say when a party becomes an organization, and the organization becomes a machine that responds absolutely to the will of one man. ”

“ I have lived through many campaigns and helped to decide many elections, and I may say to you that during my whole experience I have never seen an electoral contest in which the cause of political morals and of the public good was more manifestly and more completely on the side of one contestant than it is in this instance by the candidates of the Citizens' Union. I have never been inspired by a clear consciousness of being right. ”

“ Low as the first Mayor of our great new city one who will reflect credit and honor upon the community, who will conduct its government firmly on the lines of decency and order, and whose election and administration will be for years to come the highest vindication of the right of self-government by enlightened, intelligent American people. ”

“ I am simply stating my belief that so far as good city government is concerned, it is far more likely to be had from officials whose sense of responsibility to the public is keen and overwhelming than from those who feel that some organization must accept the blame for their mistakes of judgment, and even for their misdeeds. ”

“ But the people will approve of it, and they will register that approval on election day if there is a drop of honest manhood in the veins of the citizens of New York. [Applause.] Shall the will of the people prevail, or shall the will of the political machine prevail? Shall the government of this great city, the second in the civilized world in population and importance, be handed over to the chosen representative of the people or be handed over to the agent of a corrupt political machine spoilation? ”

“ The purposes are enumerated in the platform of the Citizens' Union. They may be summed up in one sentence: Good government — that is, government not for the benefit of the office holders, not for the benefit of any political party, not for the benefit of any corporations, but wholly and solely for the benefit of the people. Such good government these men, if elected, are to secure. ”

“ Here am I, a Republican — an earnest Republican, as I always have been — here I am in favor of this movement, not simply because I believe that citizens should manage their own affairs, not simply beause I believe that bosses should not manage either city affairs, State affairs, or National affairs, but because I believe more than all that the separation of city elections from State and National politics is not only a good thing for cities, but a good thing for States, and a good thing for nations. ”

“ Or, if we are to have a Mayor responsible to the Republican Party of to-day, unless, indeed, he be man enough to shatter this theory into atoms and be his own master, we encounter difficulties of another kind. The responsible party, in that case, is a very busy man. It must be admitted that he attends to the business of being responsible for his party much more assiduously than the actual leader of Tammany Hall has done for the last three years. Nevertheless, the Republican leader has already a great deal on his hands. ”

“ If this appeal to the people of the city to disregard outside questions and to vote from the point of view of the city's interests alone should result in the election of the ticket named by the Citizens' Union, it would do more to advance the cause of good city government in the United States than any single event that could be imagined, and this, I trust, will be an added motive in the minds of the people for electing the ticket of the Citizens' Union. ”

“ I ask them to aid us for the good of their party, for the good of this great city. We are asked to repudiate our own child, our own Constitution. I think it was my friend, Mr. Lauterbach — lawyers are all friends [laughter] — who reported the resolutions at the convention, starting them with all these indorsements of National and State politics, and said:
“The cause of good Government (meaning thereby honest and intelligent administration) can never be divorced from the Republican Party.” ”

“ Henry George. Ask yourself the simple question to which of these bodies would you be most willing to confide your goods and interests in the municipal, as well as in the private sense? In which are all classes, high and low, most honorably represented? Has anybody seen, or can anybody remember, a political convention of higher character?
The Best Citizens Are Behind Low.
And can there be the slightest doubt that behind it among the 130,000 citizens who indorsed Mr. Low's nomination with their signatures, stands the best part of our professional, working, and business population? ”

“ Every Republican, as well as every Democratic citizen of New York City was at perfect liberty to enter the Citizens' Union and to exercise his influence upon its councils, if he only accepted the principle of non-partisan political government. ”

“ On March 14, 1894, in the days of the greatest idleness and the most intense want that the working people of New York have known for a generation, when we went to the Legislature of our State to induce them to prosecute the public work so that the unemployed could be put to work, we found among the upper ten thousand a man who was prepared to throw the weight of his influence and to plead for them. ”

“ Thus the strength and prestige and party spirit of the Democratic Party as a National organization were used to put and keep a ring of unscrupulous politicians and their mercenaries in place to misgovern and plunder this long-suffering community. ”

“ These are the four tickets between which we have to choose when giving the City of Greater New York its first Municipal Government. Can any good citizen who has the public welfare and the honor of this great municipality sincerely at heart be seriously doubtful? ”

“ As is perfectly understood by every one, in a division of mere party lines the Republican Party is and always has been in a hopeless minority in the City of New York. [Cheers.] In a campaign conducted on party lines in the interest of good government, it is perfectly evident that no Republican candidate nominated upon a partisan platform ever had the ghost of a chance of success.
The Citizens' Union declared it would nominate no man whose character and record were not such as to assure the people that, if elected, he would administer his office for the people. ”

“ In fact, you will find that wherever National politics is infused into the management of the affairs of large municipalities, municipal employments, with their powers and opportunities, always are misused for other than municipal purposes and interests, and misgovernment and corruption are always the result. ”

“ If you will look at the sanitary conditions of this great City of New York, you will find that it is so administered that the death rate has been less during the last year than ever before in the history of the city. ”

“ During the campaign of the Committee of Seventy, which resulted in the election of Mayor Strong, we were often indebted to them for their presence. I hold it to be an augury of victory that in this large audience so many ladies have honored us with their presence. Ladies generally accomplish what they undertake, and I am sure that Seth Low will be the first Mayor of Greater New York. ”

“ The problem before the voters of New York, therefore, at this election is not simply to secure capable and honest administration of a governmental organization already in operation, but it is to install, over an immense territory, an entirely new City Government ”

“ This you know, gentlemen, will be a new departure in political management, and I hope it will be a good example for certain men who have deposited party funds, collected from their followers, in their own names, and sent their individual checks to their friends without accounting to the members even of their own committees.
Death Alone Can Withdraw Low. ”