on John M. Zurn. Mr. Zurn at the election in the fall of 1895 received 5,026 votes to 2,401 cast for John A. Small, Republican, and 166 for William Spoerer, Socialist Labor. In 1896 Mr. Zurn was a member of the following Assembly committees: Ways and Means, Villages, and Indian Affairs. John M. Zurn, Democrat, who represents the Fourteenth Assembly district of Kings county in the Assembly, was born in Greenpoint, on November 1, 1864. He received his education at Public School No. 22, Java street, Brooklyn, from At the election of 1896 Mr. Zurn which he graduated. He entered was again a candidate for the Asthe law business in the firm of Mor- sembly, and was re-elected by reris S. Wise, of New York, and was ceiving 5,369 votes to 3,007 for admitted to the bar in 1886, and George E. Rogers, Republican; 71 commands a practice that is very for A. B. Burnes, National Demolucrative, but his friends wished crat, and 118 for R. J. Lark, Socialist him to enter the Assembly race and Labor. he was there by dictation. He is a member of the several political clubs of his ward and altogether is very well known. In 1897 Mr. Zurn was a member of the Assembly Committees on Labor and Industries, and Affairs of | Villages. ARCHIE E. BAXTER, OF CHEMUNG COUNTY, Clerk of the Assembly. Archie E. Baxter, Clerk of the As- | orator in many towns and cities of sembly, was born at Port Glasgow, the State. Scotland, upon the 16th of December, 1844. He was brought to this country by his parents and educated in its schools. When the War of the Rebellion broke out he enlisted In 1883 he was elected County Clerk of Chemung county and served at that post with great acceptability to the residents of the county. Once he was the Republican candidate for Congressman in the district. In 1889 he was appointed United States Marshal for the Northern District of New York by President Harrison, and held that place until President Cleveland reassumed office in 1893. In the years 1895 and 1896 Mr. Baxter was elected Clerk of the Assembly. In 1896 he was elected a delegate to the Republican National Convention. When the Assembly of 1897 was organized Mr. Baxter was again unanimously chosen by the Republicans as Clerk in the One Hundred and Forty-first JAMES C. CRAWFORD, Sergeant-at-Arms of the Assembly. James C. Crawford, Sergeant-at- | Mr. Crawford has always been Arms of the Assembly, was born in identified with the regular RepubNew York city, April 20, 1866. lican organization, and has rendered He is of Scotch-Irish descent. many services to his party in the Scotch on his father's side and Irish city and State. on his mother's side. He was edu- An indefatigable worker, of more cated in the public schools of New than ordinary intelligence, and a York city. His father, a master jolly companion, he has made many plasterer, brought up young Craw- friends and is one of the most ford in that trade and for some popular leaders of the Republican years he was a trustee of the party in New York city. Plasterers Association of New York city. The critical political condition of his district required all Crawford's attention, and in 1889 he abandoned his trade and devoted all his time and his energy in the furtherance of the interests of his party. In 1888 he founded the "James G. Crawford Association," which is one of the largest and most influential clubs of the Twenty-ninth Assembly district. He has a wife and two children to whom he is devoted. He is a member of the Republican Club of the Twenty-ninth Assembly district, of the James C. Crawford Association, of the Phoenix Club and of many others. When Phillip Reinhard, Sergeantat-Arms of the Assembly of 1896, was elected to the Assembly of 1897 Mr. Crawford's friends and among them Mr. Reinhard set to work to secure the election of Mr. He was the Republican candidate Crawford as Sergeant-at-Arms and for Alderman in 1892, but was de-' easily secured his nomination by the feated by Rollin M. Morgan, the Republican caucus, and election as Democratic candidate, by a small Sergeant-at-Arms of the Assembly majority. of 1897. JOSEPH BAUER, 1861, he enlisted as a private in the Union army. He served with distinction until July 6, 1865, when he was mustered out of the service. He then returned to his former home and his trade at the bench. Joseph Bauer, Doorkeeper of the Assembly, is a native of Baden, Germany, where he was born April 18, 1845. At the age of seven years he came to America with his parents, setling with them in Rochester, N. Y. He received his education in the Mr. Bauer was always prominent splendid schools of that city. At as a worker among the Republican the early age of fourteen he began hosts, and in the interests of the to learn the trade of shoemaking. Republican party, but not until the Becoming a skilled workman, he fol- fall of 1888 did he accept public lowed his trade until the breaking office. In that year he accepted the out of the war when, on October, Republican nomination for Member of Assembly, in the Second Monroe Sprinkling of Rochester, holding district, at that time the largest dis- that position until 1894, when he trict in the State, and was elected was elected Principal Doorkeeper by a plurality of more than 1,800. of the Assembly. By his kindly His service in the lower house was manners and courteous bearing he with credit to himself and with made himself popular with the memhonor to the district which he rep-bers, and has been rewarded with resented. Owing to a combination a re-election to his old post by each of local circumstances he was de- succeeding Legislature. feated for re-election the following year by a very few votes. Mr. Bauer returned, like Cincinnatus of old, to his trade and worked at it for the succeeding four years, when he was forced to give it up by failing health. He remained active in politics, and in 1892 was appointed Assistant Superintendent of Street Mr. Bauer has been very active in labor organizations, having been indefatigable in working for their interests whenever opportunity presented. He has represented his local assembly in many State and National conventions. Mr. Bauer is a member of the G. A. R. and is popular with veterans. The Declaration of Independence. MADE BY THE ORIGINAL THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ON JULY 4, 1776. When, in the course of human events, It becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indced, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies, and such is now the necessity which con. strains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpa tions, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses. repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the laws for natur. alization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses: For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary gov. ernment, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies: For taking away our charters, abol ishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments: For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to com plete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with cir cumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrection amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistin they should commit on the inhabitants guished destruction of all ages, sexes, of these States: For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most For imposing taxes on us without humble terms: our repeated petitions our consent: have been answered only by repeated For depriving us, in many cases, of injury. A prince whose character is the benefits of trial by jury: thus marked by every act which may |