FOR A CLEANER LIFE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8608, 19 December 1913, Page 6

FOR A CLEANER LIFE

Recent American newspapers to hand contain particulars of tho very exciting election last month of Mr John Purroy Mitchell as Mayor of New York. Tho event was a severe blow to that huge and powerful organisation of corruption known the world over as “Tammany.” Mr Mitchell secured a surprisingly large majority, and it is felt that the community has thus registered an emphatic demand for cleaner civic government and administration. At the same time, the fact that Tammany was able to secure a very large percentage of tho votes, although but a minority, is proof of the immense amount of money and influence behind it, and evidence enough that the election of a Mayor pledged to clean methods is but a step towards tho more complete victory that is necessary for unqualified reform. Tho vote suggests, in a word, that tho battle for honest government is “only half won,” as a leading newspaper puts it; but half is certainly better than none. Mr Mitchell is a Democrat of very high standing, and was recently appointed by President Wilson to be Collector of Customs at the port of New York. The Tammany candidate, Mr McCall, was generally considered to have the better chance of election. He was certainly favoured in the betting, for the people are accustomed to see Tammany succeed, but Tammany is, of course, in disfavour owing to the Sulzer impeachment. Moreover, tho Democrat candidate was not run solely as a Democrat, the Republicans, Progressives, and reformers of all shades having joined forces with the Democrats to bring about a Tammany defeat. The city of New York, it has been said, “exists to be plundered,” and that' has certainly been its experience. Men with little education, but with no scruples, have made huge fortunes out of the city’s affairs, through “Tammany.” The fact that tho Mayor of Now York will this year have the supervision of an expenditure totalling about £200,000,000 gives some idea of the enormous scope that exists for plunder by a thieving administration. Tbe defeat of tho Tammany nominee is therefore a circumstance for groat gratification. We may add that the now Mayor of New York is a grandson of John Mitchell, the famous Irish revolutionist, who was convicted as editor of the “United Irishman” in ISIS and sentenced to fourteen years’ banishment. Ho escaped from Van Diemen’s Land and went to New Vork in 1854. After residing in the United States for nineteen years the exile returned to Ireland and was returned M.P. for Tipperary, but was declared ineligible. John Mitchell was unquestionably a man of unusual ability, and probably imbued with patriotic impulses, however much his methods may bo the subject of dispute. if his grandson has inherited the "revolutionary” instincts of that prominent figure of the “Young Ireland” movement of the past, it is something to know that his energies are to bo directed towards cleansing tho of a great city.