Boss Youngs's Blundering

New York, 1895

The Job to Defeat Martin Wood Hung its Author.

(From the Brooklyn Times.)

The reappointment of Robert Seabury as clerk to the Queens county board of Supervisors was a severe blow to the Republican leader in the county as well as to certain Republicans who had fondly hoped that the position would fall to one of them. The result, however, had been anticipated, indeed it was difficult to comprehend how the movement against Mr. Seabury could succeed. A more sorry exhibition of poor politics has, perhaps, never been witnessed in Queens county and it is to be hoped that the lessons to be drawn therefrom will be remembered and stored away for future guidance. Had the party leaders given this matter the attention it should have received and entered the race openly and with one candidate upon which all had agreed the result would undoubtedly have been different. No one can blame the Supervisors for their action. They were justified in their preference for Mr. Seabury over an untried man, and when their own party could not agree upon a candidate there was no other course open to them. The failure of the party leaders to select a candidate would seem to indicate a disposition to dodge the issue and leave the supervisors to shoulder the responsibility of deciding which of the six Republicans should be chosen. Chairman Martin V. Wood was one of those who voted for Mr. Seabury, and under the circumstances it is doubtful if any fair-minded Republican will blame him for doing so. Mr. Wood had every reason to believe that Chairman Youngs, of the Republican county committee, was a moving spirit in an unsuccessful attempt to arrange a deal by which Mr. Wood was to be defeated for the chairmanship and a Democrat elected to the position, the idea being that the same votes which elected the Democratic chairman should also elect Mr. Youngs' favorite for the clerkship. The deal did not go through, but Mr. Wood took the position that he could support a Democrat as well as Mr. Youngs, and so when there seemed no possibility of appointing the Republican from his own town he voted for Mr. Seabury.

—Reprinted in The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, May 10, 1895, p. 8.


"Bello Siebrecht."

Do not fail to see the beautiful blooms of this magnificent rose. We will have them on exhibition Friday and Saturday of this week at our store, 70 Fulton street. We are the sole agent for Jamaica. J. B. Cooper. [1895 advertisement]

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, May 10, 1895, p. 8.