Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1889 — NEW YORK DEMOCRATIC LEAGUE. [ARTICLE]

NEW YORK DEMOCRATIC LEAGUE.

Tile Meeting Addressed by Gov. Hill and a Letter Head from Grover Cleveland. [New York special.] The League of Yoang Men’s Democratic Clnbs of New York State met at the Hoffman House on Wednesday. The two features of the day were a letter from Mr. Cleveland and a speech by Gov. Hill. President John Boyd Thatcher explained the reasons for the formation of the league, and declared that the Democratic clubs were in full sympathy with the Democratic ticket. He criticised the Republican Legislature severely for failure to pass an enumeration bill The convention received this speech with enthusiasm. Gov. Hill, in the course of his remarks, said: “We must win this fight, not only for the effect it will produce in this State but to the country at large. The Demo-, crats of the country always look to New York. Our platform places the party where it was a year ago. We have taken no step backward. A year ago the Democratic party pledged itself to tariff reform. Our State platform reiterates the

platform of a year ago, and we xuran to fight it out on this line if it takes us many campaigns to do it. That platform was not a free-trade platform, although our opponents misled the people into believing it was. We believe the surplus in the treasury should be reduced. We believed in the economical and honest administration of public affairs. The longer the present administration remains in power the more it shows up the honest, capable, and excellent administration of Grover Cleveland. President Cleveland fulfilled the pledges of his party. He conducted the affairs of state not only honestly and efficiently but always with a view to the public good. When his administration is contrasted with that of his successor, it grows brighter every day." Gov. Hill said that in the course of his visit to the South he had talked with Capt. McKinney, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Virginia, and he found that the Democrats in that State and other States were not at all depressed by last year’s defeat. He congratulated the club for the excellent work it rendered to the cause last year, and urged upon it the necessity of organization. A recess was taken, and upon reassembling Mr. Weeks, the presiding officer, read the following letter from ex-Presi-dent Cleveland, which was received with cheers: “New Yobk, Oct. 9, 1889. “Barlow S. Weeks, Chairman : “Deab Sib — l am in receipt of your invitation to attend the convention of New York State Democratic Clubs to be held at the Hoffman House in this city the 22d inst. lam glad that you were considerate enough of my situation and feelings to give me an opportunity to infer from your note that my failure to aocept your invitation would neither cause great disappointment nor be construed as indicating any lack of interest in the work which the clubs represented in the league have taken. These organizations had their origin in the heat and activity of a Presidential election, which furnishes plenty of that enthusiasm upon which political organization s easily subsist. While they are certainly very useful at such a time, it must be confessed that the noise and excitement of. a campaign are not conducive to the accomplishment of missionary work, or the effective dissemination of political truth. This most important work can best be done in more quiet surroundings, though usually it is not then so easy to maintain political associations. It has been too oxten the case, if it may not be said to be the rule, that political clubs, whatever their declarations of perpetuity have been, have only lived during the campaign in which they got their birth, and only performed temporary campaign work. “I am very much pleased to learn that the League of New York Democratic Clubs intends to make the organizations of which it is composed permanent agencies for spreading and illustrating the doctrines of the Democratic party at all times and in all circumstances. In making this effort the league is to be congratulated upon the fact that the principles of Democracy occupy at this time a larger place than they lately have in the consideration of the party. The study and propagation of these principles afford strong inducements to associated effort, and, what is better, the efforts are invested with a value and importance as great as the prosperity of our land and as broad in their beneficence as the welfare of all our people. I look to the ascendency of the principles upon which true Democracy rests, which will be greatly aided by the activity of leagues, such as yours, to secure us from wasting extravagance, from, demagogic pretense, from sectional bitterness, and from the widespread corruption of our suffrage. Gould labor and effort have greater or higher incentives than the accomplishment of these results? Yours very truly, “Gboveb Cleveland.” Besolutions were then adopted indorsing the State ticket; reaffirming devotion to the platform of the St. Louis convention of June, 1888; advocating a proper reform of the ballot laws, and denouncing the Bepublican party for having neglected to join with the Democracy in enacting a safe reform in that particular. Other resolutions condemned the action of the Bepublican administfation in the removal of the Chief Justice of one of the Territories; denounced the project of the Bepublican party in subsidizing steamship corporations; indorsed the wise and economical administration of Gov. Hill, and renewed congratulations to Grover Cleveland for the wisdom and bravery with which he fought the fight of tariff reform and true Democracy in 1887 and 1888.