Bryanism was confounded with Tammany Hall, and it was asserted in the strongest possible terms that “the code of good government, meaning thereby honest and intelligent administration, can never be divorced from the Republican party.” “We are the people, and wisdom will die with us,” and not wisdom only, but honesty, ability, righteousness and all manner of virtue will only perish from the land unless the regular Republican candidate is put into office and kept there. That is always the burden of their song. General Tracy appealed to the citizens as the candidate of sound money, which has absolutely nothing to do with any municipal issue--the candidate of social order and the endorser of the patriotic and successful administration of William McKinley. Forgetful of the fact that they had declared they would prefer to see a Tammany mayor elected than the candidate of the Citizens’ Union, the Republicans denounced Tammany in no measured terms. “The crimes of the Tammany democracy should never be forgotten or forgiven.” The platform then commends the Raines law on the ground that by removing power from the excise or local license board, and conceding the right to sell intoxicating liquors to any citizen who paid the tax and obeyed the law, it had taken the saloon out of politics, and had liberated the saloon-keeper from the politician. It had also been financially advantageous. But having endorsed the Raines Law up to this point, they hedged in the final paragraph, in which, after referring to the cosmopolitan character of the city, they said that “provisions of the law relating to the times and conditions at and under which liquor may be sold, and the provisions of the law enforced, are wisely to be left to the will of the people of the city rather than to the judgment of their duly constituted authorities.” Finally, the platform pledged the party to a strict enforcement of the labour laws, which were defined as follows:--“The Factory Inspection Law, the Mechanics Lien Law, the Law Regulating the Employment of Minors in Mercantile Establishments, the Anti-Sweating Law, the Law Guaranteeing Union Wages on all Public Works, and the Law Preventing the Subletting of Contracts.” General Tracy in accepting the nomination declared that it was not enough for the Mayor to be negatively honest. “He must be affirmatively and aggressively honest.” But he also harped upon the spectre of Bryanism, which would not down, and invoked for the exorcising of that spectre “the Republican Party, which in the Providence of God, for more than forty years, has been the great bulwark of national honour and prosperity.” Any attempt to disintegrate, weaken or destroy that organisation seemed to him a grievous mistake, fraught with calamity and disaster.