Cameron County Press

NEW YORK'S MAYORALTY FIGHT
Tammany's Candidate Talks in Tammany Hall—Mark Twain Gets Into the Contest.

New York, Oct. 18.—The democratic mass meeting at Tammany hall last night brought together an immense number of people. They jammed themselves into the hall and packed Fourteenth street and adjacent thoroughfares until the 250 policemen detailed to the meeting had their hands full to prevent serious accidents from the crush.

The speech of Mr. Shepard, the candidate for mayor, was the first he had ever delivered in Tammany hall. He said in opening:

"It is well known to you, and it seems to be a chief part of the capital of my distinguished competitor, that I have from time to time, and more especially four years ago, been hostile to Tammany and criticized it without stint. I am not here to excuse or to recede from anything that I have said. If it were possible for me, as it is not, to make any such excuse I should lose the respect of the voters of Tammany, a genuine respect which will be of far more consequence to me and the success of my administration if I be chosen mayor, than any liking I may gain in this campaign. Whatever my political fortunes may be this fall, you shall have no occasion to withdraw from me the confidence you have shown in my integrity and steadfastness of purpose by reason of any abandonment—even the slightest—of the standard of public conduct and political behavior which I have set up in the past."

Saving he had been charged with making an implied promise, if elected, not to disintegrate Tammany, Mr. Shepard continued:

"I know very well that, if elected, I shall have no power to disintegrate Tammany. And I know that if I were to have the power it would be gross treason to the cause of good government that I should use it for so factional a purpose. I will not do it."

Samuel E. Clemens (Mark Twain) entered the local campaign last night by addressing an audience of invited guests at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, he having lately joined a local anti-Tammany organization known as the "Order of Acorns."

Mr. Clemens used for his speech an article written by himself which is to appear in the November issue of the North American Review, but Col. Harvey, publisher of the Review, agreed that the article should first appear as an address.

The whole address was a comparison of Richard Croker to Warren Hastings, and the city of New York to India under Hastings' rule. He used the words spoken by Edmund Burke at the trial of Hastings, substituting Mr. Croker's name where that of Hastings occurred and New York City where India occurred.