Truth Plainly Told

New York, 1895

A REPUBLICAN NEWSPAPER'S COMMENTS ON ITS PARTY LEADERS.

The Board of Supervisors Attacked Because they Would Not Knuckle to Boss Youngs — Party Organs That Stand in the Way of Reform — Corrupt Legislation at Albany.

The Republican gang is breaking up. Boss Youngs has driven all self-respecting Republicans away from him. The Long Island City Herald has kicked clean over the traces. The Herald is an out and out Republican paper, and the organ of the party by resolution of the county committee. Following are some of the things that the Herald says editorially in protest against Boss rule at home and corrupt legislation at Albany:

"Our esteemed Republican contemporary, the Jamaica Standard, is feeling rather blue over the result of the town elections in Queens County, but it places the entire blame for the Democratic gains in Newtown, Flushing, Oyster Bay and North Hempstead upon the Republican members of the Board of Supervisors. The Standard supplements this declaration by another which is even more serious when it says:

"The Republican members of the board of Supervisors have already succeeded in impairing public confidence in their ability to administer the affairs of the county wisely and well, and if they continue the course they have pursued they will by the time their term of office expires have placed their party in a position so humiliating that its defeat will be a foregone conclusion.

"The Standard seems to be more concerned about the patronage at the disposal of the Board of Supervisors than the real underlying causes of the failure of the Republican party to hold all it gained last fall. We agree with our esteemed contemporary that a Republican Board of Supervisors ought to give the offices at its disposal to Republicans, exercising, of course, proper care in selecting competent men, and men who are entitled to some reward for long and faithful service to fill those offices. But we demur to the charge that the Republican members of the Board of Supervisors are alone responsible for our troubles.

"When the Supervisors started out to reform the Sheriff's office did they receive the help they had a right to expect from the Republican papers of the county, especially from those which are officially related to the board? The Standard is one of the official papers and George Wallace of the South Side Observer is counsel to the board. Have these papers said anything in favor of abolishing the tramp swindle, which costs the taxpayers about $20,000 a year simply to furnish that enormous revenue for the Sheriff? If the board of Supervisors had abolished this swindle before the town elections were held we believe their action would have been of great benefit to the Republican party.

"The jockeying with legislation at Albany by Mr. Youngs and other leaders is doing the party more injury than the inaction of the Republican members of the board of Supervisors. There is some excuse for the Supervisors. Mr. Youngs expected they would be dominated by him. They refused to accept him as their counselor and guide because they knew him of old."

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, April 26, 1895, p. 1.