The Gray Goose and the White Goose

New York, 1895

The leading Republican paper of the county, the Long Island City Herald, makes a stirring attack on Sheriff Doht and Boss Youngs. What it says of and about Mr. Doht we do not copy into THE FARMER as the Herald was but threshing over old straw. The fact that the Herald waited nearly three months before indulging in any criticism of Mr. Doht, and only began when other papers had left off, and then without having anything new to present, or any fresh argument to draw from the old issues, goes a few steps toward making the Herald's attitude ridiculous.

The Herald's position is quite different as to Boss Youngs, and because his arraignment embodies a piece of interesting news THE FARMER reprints it that all the county may learn it. The Herald alleges that Boss Youngs is looking for the position of State Railroad Commissioner and $8,000 a year salary; that the Boss has become a tool of Tom Platt in the hope of getting the office; that the Boss is not a sincere and trustworthy leader of the Republican party in the county; that he enunciated the principle that no party leader should be an office-seeker; that he would live up to this principle while he remained the party Boss; that he stultified himself last year by seeking the office of clerk of the Assembly while at the head of the party in the county, and now totally abandons his self-proclaimed anti-office seeking principle by demanding the railroad commissionership.

These are pretty tough accusations for the leading Republican newspaper to make against the party Boss, and they must have taken his breath away when he read them. Far be it from THE FARMER to say that Mr. Youngs should not receive the office of Railroad Commissioner. It would give us pleasure to see him appointed, and we hope he will be, and we have no doubt that he would make a first class officer. We are not among those who believe that a party leader should bar himself from seeking office, and no person with common sense will expect Mr. Youngs to bar himself because of a sentimental expression when laboring under great political excitement. He has a buoyant spirit, a quick mind, and a rapid tongue, and does not always say what he means, nor mean what he says, and, like other bosses, he is privileged to change his wind, and alter his program, and undo to-day that which he did yesterday. If a boss did not do these things he would not be a boss very long. Everybody complains of these same elements of change in Boss Platt.

There is, however, a serious side to Boss Youngs' office seeking, and it may be a decided objection. The Republican county committee, and Mr. Youngs as its chairman, indorsed Charles L. Phipps for State Assessor and asked Governor Morton to appoint him. Queens county does not occupy so large a space on the political map that Governor Morton would accord it two state offices, and Mr. Youngs, in looking for the commissionership, must be trying to chouse Mr. Phipps out of the assessorship. It is a law of the Republican County committee that no person shall be presented for office who has not received its indorsement, and that law is necessarily violated when Mr. Youngs presents himself for office on his own motion. It goes to prove what THE FARMER said after the election in November last, namely, that Boss Youngs was not a true friend of Mr. Phipps. He could have given him an office last year, but preferred to give him the gray goose. Now he seems to be trying to give him the white goose.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 29, 1895, p. 4.