partisanship out of the Convention. I had no desire to join a political debating club nor to be a member of a Convention dominated by a caucus lashed into line by the party whip and existing mostly for partisan advantage. I do not wish to be understood as ascribing to the majority of this Convention at the outset a desire for partisan advantage alone. I can quite understand the distinguished gentleman from Cattaraugus who, a few days ago upon the floor of this Convention, said that he came here not as a Republican, but as a citizen consecrated to the service of the State alone. I entertain the notion that the majority of this Convention when they first arrived here were animated by that same spirit. But, Mr. Chairman, partisanship is a contagious disease. You cannot live in its atmosphere without absorbing its virus. It subdues and attacks. the most rugged constitutions; it overcomes and makes its victims the most patriotic and benevolent of men. I have been curious to study its ravages in this Convention. Brought here by a small and uninfluential minority of the majority, it soon began to spread. First, the weaker vessels fell, and then, finally, the strongest and most vigorous members of the majority became its victims, until now the whole of you are almost eaten up with disease. (Laughter and applause.)

Now, sir, I have made those remarks because I think they are applicable to this whole question of apportionment. The question in this apportionment is this: is it a work of chance or of party action? The question is, is it a matter of sinister design, and if it is a matter of design, what is the design of this apportionment? The inventors of this measure wish us to believe we assembled together for the purpose of working out an apportionment which would. recognize the growing population of the State; by one of those flashes of genius which sometimes come to patriotic men who are engaged in a patriotic work they hit by accident upon the fifty to 150 apportionment; that it came to them as a great thought sometimes comes, unheralded and unawares, for they recognize in it a definite inspiration in which they perceive a solution at once of all the problems with which they are confronted. Ah, Mr. Chairman, I wish we of the minority could believe that. We ought to take the gentlemen of the committee at their words, but we find it difficult to do so. You ought to have given us something not so thin, something more substantial if you wished to win our approval. No, Mr. Chairman, there is no accident nor chance except, perhaps, the main chance in this apportionment. It is a work of design. It is stamped from one end to another with the evidence and the elements of design, and what are those elements? They are, first, the

unnecessary change from thirty-two and 128 to fifty and 150 for the purpose of making certain populations in the State believe that they are in fact increasing their representation, whereas a greater preponderance against them is maintained. Then, the next element of design is the postponement of the census in order that the results of this apportionment may be retained for the period of the next ten years. The next evidence of design is the number of plus ratios in Democratic districts and the number of minus ratios in Republican districts. The next is the discrimination between cities and the country as to additional senatorial representation. The next is the ingenious classification and division of counties for the purpose of maintaining the prestige of the agricultural districts and subordinating the population to territorial representation. And the last is the barefaced carving out of Republican districts in the hearts of Democratic cities, in New York and in Brooklyn and in Buffalo; and then there is the deliberate ignoring of the law of population in this State and the tendencies at this time and the whole progress of current events. I say, sir, that this apportionment is stamped with the evidence of some design. What was the design? Now, who does not know it, who cannot understand it, who on oath would deny it? What was the design? The design was to secure to the Republican party the control of the legislative branch of government for half a generation at least. It says to the people of this State, "You may elect your Governor and State officers, you may elect your judges, but we will make your laws and elect your United States Senators until the twentieth century is well under way." For this you postpone the census, for this you make the new apportionment, for this you divided counties by a new classification, for this and for this alone you sacrificed cities and aggrandized agricultural interests, for this you defied the law of population and the whole order of current events, for this, sir, in defiance of experience, in contempt of history, in disregard of any just law of apportionment, you have been willing to violate the law of population, to subordinate population to territorial representation. And now you propose to soil the white pages of the Constitution of this State with the mire of partisanship itself. That is the design of this apportionment.

And what defenses are made to it? I have no time to discuss them numerically. The labored defense in which the gentleman undertook to justify the increased number by a comparison with the United States census in other States; the Root defense, where he actually had the audacity to attempt to persuade this Convention that it was the Democratic apportionment and not the Republican

apportionment at all. I like better the Gilbert defense. That is the safest one. He says this is a fair apportionment. Why? Because it favors the Republican party, and the Republican party can never do anything unfair. That is the proper answer to the situation. The Republican party can never do anything unfair. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Skeletons of the Louisiana returning board rattle in their box! The Republican party cannot do anything unfair if it tries. It is like the hero of that Gilbert and Sullivan opera:

"His taste exact

For faultless fact,

Amounts to a disease;

He always tries

To utter lies,

But never quite succeeds."

That is the first defense. But there is another defense. There is one correct defense of this apportionment never yet urged by any gentleman upon the floor of this Convention, and that is this. The Republican party, some of its defenders say, is the party of equal rights, liberty and fair government. It is, therefore, to the interest of the people of this State that the Republican party should always control. This apportionment secures a permanent control to the Republican party. That is an honest defense. Is there no one here who dares to state it? Is there no one amid this great body of intelligent men, this triumphant and reckless majority, who dares to stand upon the floor of this Convention and assert the only true defense to this apportionment, when every man knows it? Will no champion of truth come forth and enter the lists in this debate? "Oh, for a man for a man with heart, head and hand Like one of the simple great ones gone

Forever and forever by;

A still, strong man in this blatant land,

Whatever you call him what care I

One that can rule and dare not lie."

Now, gentlemen, the whole proposition here is that suggested by the distinguished gentleman from Chautauqua; that is, can you succeed? I know what the proposition is. You have said to one another, "Lo, brethren, this is a tidal-wave year, this is the year of political reaction; in this year the people of this State will not be industrious to observe our shortcomings. We will charge up the hard times to the Democratic party, although we have bankrupted

the national treasury and exhausted the surplus. We will win in a canter and carry the constitutional apportionment at Albany."

Well, it is a good scheme; it is worthy of the audacious inventor of this apportionment scheme. Will it succeed? The verdict of the popular jury, like the verdict of the petit jury, is always uncertain. It may succeed, and if it does succeed, I ask but one thing of this majority. We of the minority will have little interest in the governing of the State thereafter; our occupation will be gone. Those of us who do not like it, can leave it. But I ask but one thing: never forget him of Jefferson, or him of Erie, or him of Cattaraugus; keep them green in your memories; write their names upon your hearts; make them household words, and condemn them to be permanent representatives from their respective districts in this Capitol. Make them breathe the summer air of Albany and drink its summer water unmixed with that which cheers for the balance of their lives. Give them census tables and State and national statistics and put them to the business of showing how they can whistle up Republican districts and whistle down Democratic districts for the balance of their lives until the next Constitutional Assembly assembles. That, at least, will be some consolation for us.

But, gentlemen, do not be deceived. No such scheme as this ever did or ever can succeed. Do not encourage yourselves by thinking of the apportionment of 1846. That found a place in the Constitution of this State only because the people were then determined to wrestle the control of this State from the domination of the Albany regents. There is no parallel here. This is a proposition: to take the control of the State from the people and put it in the hands of one political party. I say it never can succeed; it is sure to meet the fate which overtook the apportionment of 1867. It never can succeed, gentlemen of the majority. We of the minority whose rights have been assassinated will kindle again our camp-fires;: we will appeal to the people of this State; we will expose in all the blackness of its darkness this nefarious scheme of apportionment. Jealous of the invasion of their liberties, affronted at the proposal to stifle for half a century the expression of their popular will, the people of this State will rebuke a party which attempts so atrocious a crime against public morals. They will nip in the bud your blooming hopes and overcome with disaster your nicely-calculated schemes of permanent aggrandizement and control. (Applause.) Mr. E. R. Brown Mr. Chairman

Mr. Gilbert - Mr. Chairman, may I make one correction?

The Chairman - Will Mr. Brown give way?

Mr. Brown-I give way.

-

Mr. Gilbert Mr. Chairman, I merely rise to correct the last speaker. The argument I made here was simply based upon the argument of Mr. Peck, of Rensselaer. I was merely reiterating the argument which he made.

Mr. Brown-Mr. Chairman, after listening to the address of my brilliant friend, Mr. Nicoll, I hardly feel like attempting to reply to it, but I will say that I think the gentleman has entirely misconceived the attitude of the majority upon this floor. It is the first time that I ever heard the minority, composed as it is very largely of Tammany delegates, likened to a canary. It may be a bird, Mr. Chairman, but not a canary; more likely the four-legged animal which we have often seen in the illustrated papers.

Why, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman reminds us that the apportionment of 1846 was adopted by the people of this State to be rid of the Albany regency. Does he think that it is impossible that the people of this State may make a like effort to rid themselves of the Tammany regency and the apportionment which it gave to the people of this State in 1892? Is there no virtue, no desire for independence left in 1894 after that effort of 1846?

Mr. Chairman, we are closing this debate and now we have to look back over the field and weigh the criticisms that have been made upon this bill. We preceive that they are not general, but are devoted to minor details. It has been the preference of the minority upon this floor to divide and to sub-divide the measure until it had reduced it to such small fractions that the orator for the time being could toss one of them as a certain animal would hay on its horns.

Mr. Chairman, when the measure is looked at broadly, viewed from top to bottom, and it is discovered that its average is nearer to the standard than any average of apportionment that has ever been made in this State, then the gentlemen confine their attention to the highest and the lowest figures and omit to discuss the general fairness of the measure. When the Assembly is considered, gentlemen forget that it gives a greater degree of equality than has ever before been given. They prefer to spend their time discussing a single inequality in a single corner of a single county that has thirty-five Members of Assembly. It is no satisfaction to them that there will be a general representation of the people of the State more nearly correct, more nearly just, than in any other apportionment that has ever been given to the State. No, they prefer a single line, and if that single line is too hard for them to handle, they prefer a single