A Forged Delegate Ticket at the Second Ward Meeting
A letter to the Tribune accuses Boss Sickels and sewer contractor Gillie of slipping a printed delegate ticket into a Second Ward meeting, using names without permission.
Editor Tribune: Boss Sickels and his new man Friday, Gillie, of sewer-system fame, are the parties who prepared the printed ticket that made its appearance at the Second Ward meeting on Monday evening. None of the gentlemen whose names were used were aware of the fact. The only persons cognizant of the scheme were Boss Sickels, Sewer System Gillie and Plantagenet. The voters of the district owe it to themselves to call a second meeting and endorse the selection of all the delegates except these three worthies. It will be a lesson that tricksters will remember.
“The voters of the district owe it to themselves to call a second meeting and endorse the selection of all the delegates except these three worthies.”
Ward caucuses and delegate slates were the machinery of city politics in 1891, and a printed ticket appearing without the knowledge of the men named on it was a serious charge. The episode rhymes with modern fights over party rules, caucus manipulation, and who gets to choose the names on the ballot.
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