William Brookfield; letter to editor from William Brookfield regarding politics

WILLIAM BROOKFIELD

To the Editor of The New-York Times:

The issues in the present contest are unusual, and the demand upon the voter such as comes but once in a lifetime.

There is an opportunity to cast a vote for honesty and decency in municipal government, or for blackmail, bribery, theft, corruption of the ballot, and all the other evils which can possibly curse a city.

The lines are distinctly drawn. Tammany stands alone on the one side in this city contest, and against that despotic aggregation a half dozen organizations united in an attempt to crush it. These include all the elements of society that love decency, respect law, and are willing that justice should be done.

Candidates have been nominated without respect to party. They are pledged to a non-partisan execution of the duties of their office if elected. They are men of character on whom such a pledge is binding.

The opportunity is one that will not come again.

If the people miss it, and Tammany wins, it will become more arbitrary, oppressive, arrogant, and despotic than ever. It will crush the life out of the free people whom it has already throttled. It will spread its corruption until this city becomes a plague spot in the eyes of the world.

It will not be enough to elect the ticket of the Committee of Seventy, with the friends of Tammany in control at Albany, the Mayor's hand would be tied.

That the uprising against Tammany may be successful there must be laws empowering him to clean out every vestige of the pestilential horde from the municipal offices. The poisonous tree must not only be pruned, its roots must be ripped out, or it will sprout again.

The questions which confront the voter as he folds his ballot Tuesday are more than political. The hour is no time for partisanship. I believe the decent elements will win. The voters of the states democracy, the anti-Tammany Democracy, the Steckler Democracy, the German-American Reform Union, and the Republicans have laid aside party feeling. They are attacked by the Tiger. I believe they will flay him alive.

WILLIAM BROOKFIELD,

Chairman Republican County Committee.