Tammany Hall seated its candidate by a majority of votes sufficiently decisive. But although Mr. Van Wyck was 85,000 votes ahead of his nearest competitor, he did not poll a majority of the citizens. If the principle of a second ballot which is established on the Continent of Europe had been the law in New York, the issue would have had to be fought out again in a single-handed fight between Mr. Van Wyck and Mr. Seth Low. In default of such a provision, all that can be said is that at the first election of Greater New York Tammany polled 235,000 and the three anti-Tammany candidates 272,000 votes, making a majority against Tammany of 37,000. If Tammany be as black as it is painted, the worst thing about the election is not the return of Mr. Van Wyck, but the divisions of his opponents. That Tammany should be beloved of her own progeny is nothing. What is serious is that those children of light who see the evil of Tammany rule should treat it as a matter of trivial importance compared with the passion and prejudice of personalities and parties. If good men do not combine when bad men conspire, the inference is very obvious. Either the conspiracy of the bad men is not very bad, or the good men hardly deserve their name. The familiar saying of Burke that he refused to draw an indictment against a whole nation may be applied to cities as well as to nations. What is clear enough is that Tammany in the past has discredited democracy. It has done so twice in the most conspicuous and unmistakable fashion. Under Tweed it became a synonym for Thieving. Under Croker’s government the Lexow Report proved it became an organised system of Blackmail. What is it to be under Mr. Van Wyck? That is the question which it is for Tammany to decide. Mr. Croker professed admirable sentiments as to his resolution to make New York the ideal city of the world. Nothing could have been worthy of the man to whom the citizens have entrusted their destiny. We should, however, have had more right to face the future with confidence had Mr. Croker’s contemplation of the past--and such a past--not been quite so complacent. Nevertheless it is a good rule that which Cardinal Manning laid down for dealing with those who protest that they have been cruelly misjudged by their contemporaries. “When a man tells me that he is an honest man,” said the great Cardinal, “I never enter into a controversy with him as to the past. The past is past. And although I may have in my hand conclusive proofs of his guilt, I never refer to the subject. I always say, ‘My friend, you say that you are an honest man. I am delighted to hear it. We will not discuss the past. We might be unable to agree on that subject. But the future is before us. Act as an honest man from henceforth, and I shall treat you as an honest man.’” The Cardinal’s rule may be invoked in favour of extending the same act of oblivion to Tammany and its Chief.