Possible Hope In Bliss' Re-election

As the campaign advances evidences accumulate that the people are to have very little to say in the selection of candidates for the offices. The primaries are boss ridden to as great an extent as ever before. Barrels are wide open. The money rather than fitness of the candidates is the supreme test. Under this kind of campaign Bliss will probably be renominated, not because of any fitness on his part, nor yet because his record during the past two years has been in any considerable degree satisfactory, but because the chief boss from Washington is for him. The chief boss being for him, of course, all the minor bosses, office holders and hangers-on are likewise for him. Of course the people have the means for correction of these conditions in their own hands but will they apply them?

It is true that there is gnat dissatisfaction among the voters about this way of managing the primaries, but it is apt to continue until they show their independence by voting down to defeat these boss made tickets. There have been a few instances in our state history in which the voters have gone to this length in rebuking the bosses. The people have preferred to submit to purchased primaries and to vote for candidates who represent nothing but money rather than to break over party discipline. They have preferred to accept dishonest, corrupt, spoils control of public affairs rather than to make the necessary fight to root these things out of the dominant party.

A primary election law would aid materially in the doing of this, but of course the bosses do not want any such law and they will not permit such an enactment until the people demand it with greater insistence than they have thus far done.

If the imposition of Bliss upon an unwilling party again will aid in developing public sentiment to the point of insistence upon a primary election law, some good may come out of it. If his re-election and two years more of his administration of public affairs will prepare the majority of the people for this great reform, they can stand the dose although the second two years may confidently be expected to be worse than the first.

According to Lewis Nixon, Croker still rules Tammany. Nixon declared in his indignant speech in which he resigned the leadership, that Croker directs everything from his retreat in England. Why will far better men than Croker submit to such domination? It is a gratification to know that Lewis Nixon will no longer submit to nominally wield power that is really in the hands of such a man as Croker. He should have gone farther than he did in his resignation, however, he should ha his membership in Tammany.