I am directed to say that this committee find that none of the four are methods fitted to obtain a harmonious and honorable unity of the Republican voters of Pennsylvania. All of them are inadequate to that end, for the reason that they afford no guarantee that, being accepted, the principles upon which the Independent Republicans have taken their stand would be treated with respect or put into action. All of them contain the probability that an attempt to unite the Republicans of the State by their means would either result in reviving and strengthening the political dictatorship which we condemn or would permanently distract the Republican body, and insure the future and continued triumph of our common opponent, the Democratic party.
Of the four suggestions, the first, second and fourth are so inadequate as to need no separate discussion: the third, which alone may demand attention, has the fatal defect of not including the withdrawal of that “slated” ticket which was made up many months ago, and long in advance of the Harrisburg Convention, to represent and to maintain the very evils of control and abuses of method to which we stand opposed. This proposition, like the others, supposing it to have been sincerely put forward, clearly shows that you misconceive the cause of the Independent Republican movement, as well as its aims and purposes. You assume that we desire to measure the respective numbers of those who support the Harrisburg ticket and those who find their principles expressed by the Philadelphia Convention. This is a complete and fatal misapprehension. We are organized to promote certain reforms, and not to abandon them in pursuit of votes. Our object is the overthrow of the “boss system” and of the “spoils system.”
In behalf of this we are willing and anxious to join hands with you whenever it is assured that the union will be honestly and earnestly for that purpose. But we cannot make alliances or agree to compromises that in their face threaten the very object of the movement in which we have engaged. Whether your ticket has the support of many or few, of a majority or a minority of the Republican voters, does not affect in the smallest degree the duty of every citizen to record himself against the abuses which it represents. Had the gentlemen who compose it been willing to withdraw themselves from the field, as they were invited to join in doing, for the common good, by the Independent Republican candidates, this act would have encouraged the hope that a new convention, freely chosen by the people, and unembarrassed by claims of existing candidates, might have brought forth the needed guarantee of party emancipation and public reform.
This service, however, they have declined to render their party; they not only claim and receive your repeated assurances of support, but they permit themselves to be put forward to secure the use of the Independent Republican votes at the same time that they represent the “bossism,” the “spoils” methods, and the “machine” management which we are determined no longer to tolerate. The manner in which their candidacy was decreed, the means employed to give it convention formality, the obligations which they incur by it, the political methods with which it identifies them, and the political and personal plans for which their official influence would be required, all join to make it the most imperative public duty not to give them support at this election under any circumstances.
In closing this note, this committee must express its regret, that, having considered it desirable to make overtures to the Independent Republicans, you should have so far misapprehended the facts of the situation. It is our desire to unite the Republican party on the sure ground of principle, in the confidence that we are thus serving it with the highest fidelity, and preserving for the future service of the Commonwealth that vitality of Republicanism which has made the party useful in the past, and which alone confers upon it now the right of continued existence. The only method which promises this result in the approaching election is that proposed by the Independent Republican candidates in their letter of July 13th, 1882, which was positively rejected by your committee.
On behalf of the Independent Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania,
I. D. McKee, Chairman.
With this communication ended all efforts at conciliation.
The election followed, and the Democratic ticket, headed by Robert E. Pattison of Philadelphia, received an average plurality of 40,000, and the Independent Republican ticket received an average vote of about 43,000–showing that while Independence organized did not do as well in a gubernatorial as it had in a previous off-year, it yet had force enough to defeat the Republican State ticket headed by Gen. James A. Beaver. All of the three several State tickets were composed of able men, and the force of both of the Republican tickets on the hustings excited great interest and excitement; yet the Republican vote, owing to the division, was not out by nearly one hundred thousand, and fifty thousand more Republicans than Democrats remained at home, many of them purposely. In New York, where dissatisfaction had no rallying point, about two hundred thousand Republicans remained at home, some because of anger at the defeat of Gov. Cornell in the State nominating convention—some in protest against the National Administrations, which was accused of the desire for direct endorsement where it presented the name of Hon. Chas. J. Folger, its Secretary of the Treasury, as the home gubernatorial candidate,—others because of some of the many reasons set forth in the bill of complaints which enumerates the causes of the dissatisfaction within the party.