Life — October 11, 1906 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“While there is Life there's Hope VOL. XLVI 17 West OCT. 11, 1906. T IS debatable whether the Hearst- Murphy exploit of capturing for Hearst the New York State Democratic nomi nation for Governor ought to be classed as kidnapping or body-snatching. If the Democratic party in New York State is dead it was body-snatching; if alive, itwas kidnapping. Lire admits that it does not yet know which it was. In so far as the party is alive, it must abandon for the time its captured standards and vote for Hughes for Governor, and by comparison of Mr. Hughes’s vote with Hearst's we shall be able to form some idea of how many Democrats still exist in New York State and what their chances are of re claiming their star from the custody of the Hearstites. Just now the party looks undeniably like a corpse, and not a pretty one, either. Charles Murphy is its dominating undertaker, and Murphy, of course, is really of no party, but purely a hold-up politician and chief of what the Hearst papers call a plunderbund. If the Democratic party in New York is really the party of Murphy and Hearst, the sooner it is recognized for what it is the better. So it may be for the best that the Murphy Democrats and the Hearst ites should all stand up together and be Hughes is a candidate for whom any one can cheerfully vote who does not want Hearst. ‘There are really no party issucs in the old sense in the coming election in New York. It is sim- ply Hughes against Hearst. Hughes is decent and responsible. Hearst is neither. Hughes represents the victory of the best men in the Republican party in New York. Hearst represents the def of all that was reputable in the Demo- counted. “LIFE: cratic party in New York and the capture of the rest for the mutual profit of Hearst and Murphy. No situation could be clearer. It seems hardly to need much expounding, but what it does need it will get, and we presume there is strength enough in the Republican organization to secure something like a fair vote and a fair count next month, in the city of New York, een TY HE Albany Argus, squirming doubt- less at the prospect of supporting Hearst, has invented issues of its own, “Shall the record of Higgins be indorsed and approved? Shall the President have a third term?” These, it says, are the issues. Affirmative, Hughes; negative, Hearst. The Argus must be feeling very far from strong. We offer it our sym- pathy, A despatch from New Hamp- shire, dated the day after the Buffalo convention, announced that Grover Cleveland had gone fishing. That is an example that the Argus might profitably follow Mr, Bryan, who lives in Nebraska, has expressed himself as bluntly gratified at Mr. Hearst’s nomination and as con- fident that he will run strong and make a good Governor. Bourke Cockran, who lives in New York, was somewhat less whole-souled. “Tf T must choose between rottenness and riot,” he said, “riot is the lesser evil of the two,” Alas! he took both, for Murphy stands for rottenness and Hearst for riot, whereas Hughes stands for neither, UR friend the London Times cannot understand how Hearst got his nomination. It finds him described as “a bankrupt in political honor, a traitor, a disgrace to journalism and a whole- sale employer of corruption,” and it is perplexed at his being wanted as candi- date for Governor in such a State as New York. Let us explain: Hearst is a bad lot; a man without character, standards, compunctions or a sense of what is wrong. His threatened ascendancy is part of the price we pay for privileges given by the tariff to some citizens at the cost of others, for corruption of legis- latures and public servants who have traded in franchises, public lands and other privileges, and for that general lust for money which has diverted so much of the time and ability of the country to money making that there has not been enough left for the public service and the guardianship of the interesis of the people, Hearst isa symptom. He could not have broken out on us—no, not with Brisbane, Carvalho, Ihmsen, Sam Chamberlain and all his nine newspapers to develop him—unless we had had a bad disease. . Good brother in London, lots of us are hogs and lots more are fools. That's the wherefore of Hearst. We got him for our sins. The reason why we are not more scared about him is that we have not yet lost faith in our capacity for repentance. HERE is nothing at this writing for us to do about Cuba except to wipe the perspiration off the brow of William Taft and encourage him to do his ut- most. He is doing his best to keep an independent government in Cuba that will square with the requirements of the Platt amendment. His intentions are honorable and benevolent. So are the President’s; so are Commissioner Ba- con's; so are ours. None of us antici pate anything but expense, worry, trouble and discredit from meddling in Cuba. We shall be lucky if both Lib- erals and Moderates do not hate us and lay for us with machetes. Possibly we shall have to thrash the whole popu lation of Cuba to a standstill, a work that will make an Atlanta race riot look like croquet, and which will probably bring the Czar of Russia on his yacht to Wash- ington to protest against our severity. But we very much hope that Cuba will not need that sort of help from us. Her imperfect effort at self-government promises to strengthen considerably the ties of mutual disadvantage that join us to the Philippines. comicbooks.com