The City Reform Club [ 249 ] Francis M. Scott, the candidate of the League and of the Republican party, received only 92,435 votes.30 There were a number of factors that contributed to the defeat of the League's reform ticket. The Democrats were the majority party in New York City, and in 1890 there was no strong factionalism within the party. Furthermore, 1890 was a Democratic year nationwide; Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives and substantially diminished the Republican majority in the Senate. Few New York voters heeded the reformers' advice to divorce municipal from national political allegiance, and most Democrats loyally voted the party ticket in the city election. Also, no major scandal involving the city's government was brought to light in 1890. The initiation of a major anti-corruption political campaign, which could be successful, had to wait for a more shocking exposure of corrupt activity. There was another element, perhaps more significant, which pushed the reform ticket along the road to defeat. Throughout the 1890 campaign the People's Municipal League, despite its broad program, consistently expended most of its energies upon simply condemning Tammany abuses. The reform movement had not as yet fully realized the complexity of the emergent modern city. The reformers, still very much in the tradition of "Genteel Reformers" paid scant attention to the difficulties of laborers and the new immigrants, who had been settling in New York in ever-increasing numbers. Welling, greatly disappointed with Tammany's victory, interviewed a number of working- men after the election and ascertained that workers considered the League to be composed of wealthy men who cared little for the plight of the lower classes.31 Civic reformers were yet to learn that it would be necessary to broaden the base of their appeal. Immediately after the defeat in the November elections the City Reform Club refused to accept a proposed merger with the People's Municipal League. While Welling spoke for most of the Club's mem- 30 The New-York Times, November 5,1890. 31 The only ethnic group that the League wooed was the Germans, and the Stoats Zeitung gave it unstinted support. Having abandoned hope of gaining a significant number of Irish votes, the League did nothing to gain the votes of Jewish or Italian immigrants. See minutes for August 19,1890, People's Municipal League, New York "Minutes of the Executive Committee)' June 10 to November 17, 1890, NYPL. Welling, "Civic Problems;' Welling Papers, NYPL.