He relishes neither the one nor the
other.
In the larger cities the citizens' tickets and fusion movements
are types of independent activities. In some cities they are
merely temporary associations, formed for a single, thorough
housecleaning. The Philadelphia Committee of One Hundred, which
was organized in 1880 to fight the Gas Ring, is an example. It
issued a Declaration of Principles, demanding the promotion of
public service rather than private greed, and the prosecution of
"those who have been guilty of election frauds, maladministration
of office, or misappropriation of public funds." Announcing that
it would endorse only candidates who signed this declaration, the
committee supported the Democratic candidates, and nominated for
Receiver of Taxes a candidate of its own, who became also the
Democratic nominee when the regular Democratic candidate
withdrew. Philadelphia was overwhelmingly Republican. But the
committee's aid was powerful enough to elect the Democratic
candidate for mayor by 6000 majority and the independent
candidate for Receiver of Taxes by 20,000. This gave the
Committee access to the records of the doings of the Gas Ring. In
1884, however, the candidate which it endorsed was defeated, and
it disbanded.
Similar in experience was the famous New York Committee of
Seventy, organized in 1894 after Dr. Parkhurst's lurid
disclosures of police connivance with every degrading vice. A
call was issued by thirty-three well-known citizens for a
non-partizan mass meeting, and at this meeting a committee of
seventy was appointed "with full power to confer with other
anti-Tammany organizations, and to take such actions as may be
necessary to further the objects of this meeting as set forth in
the call therefor, and the address adopted by this meeting.
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