rk State Constitution was put
in evidence:

"All candidates or appointees to public office selected by the
dues-paying membership of the Socialist Party of the State of New
York, or any of its subdivisions, shall sign the final resignation
blank before nomination is made official or appointment is made
final."

The form of resignation, also put in evidence, is here reproduced from
the same issue of the "Evening Sun":

"To the end that my official acts may at all times be under the
direction and control of the party membership, I hereby sign and
place in the hands of Local (........) my resignation to any office
to which I may be elected (or appointed), such resignation to
become effective whenever a majority of the local shall so vote. I
sign this resignation voluntarily as a condition of receiving said
nomination, and pledge my honor as a man and Socialist to abide by
it."

One of the by-laws of the New York County organization put in evidence
also reads:

"On accepting a nomination of the party for public office, the
candidate shall at once give to the executive committee a signed
resignation of the office for which he is nominated, and shall
assent in writing to its being filed with the proper authority, if,
in case of election, he proves disloyal to the party."

A protest had been made to the New York Assembly claiming that "the
fundamental principles of representative government" would be violated
in refusing to seat the five suspended Socialist Assemblymen. But it is
plain that men controlled in office by such a secret device would not
really represent their districts, nor those who voted for them, but only
the members of the dues-paying locals or the executive committee holding
their resignations; and in cases of some of the suspended Socialists it
was said that of the votes they received not one in ten nor even one in
twenty had been cast by a dues-paying Socialist. At the trial Morris
Hillquit, of counsel for the defense, tried to break the force of this
damaging evidence by getting in testimony "that this provision of the
State Constitution has been a dead letter since its inception." (New
York "Evening Sun," January 22, 1920.) But this hypocrisy was thoroughly
exposed by the testimony given on January 28, 1920, by George R. Lunn,
Democratic Mayor of Schenectady, who had been a candidate for that
office three time