Los Angeles herald., 1890-07-05
SATURDAY, JULY 8, 1890.
PECULIAR MISREPRESENTATION.

PECULIAR MISREPRESENTATION.
The Stockton Mail is one of our most
valued exchanges. Its opinions are
always manly and very often they are
original and highly intelligent. We re-
gret to see this able journal adopting
the pretended and not the real Republi-
can estimate of Governor David Bennett
Hill, of New York. The only man the
Republican leaders fear today is HILL
They know the important part New
York will play in the election of 1892 !;
they know that New York is naturally
Democratic, and that Hill can carry it
against anybody the Republicans put
up. Consequently, they occupy exactly
the attitude held by the Democratic
press prior to the assembling of the
national conventions of the two great
parties in 1880. Every Democratic
journalist really felt in his soul that if
Grant had been nominated in 1880 he
would have been elected, and that denf-
ocratic-republican government would
have been very seriously compromised.
In other words, that sort of Diaz deal
would have been inaugurated in this
country. Believing this, these same
Democratic journalists put in their
whole time holding up Grant as the
weakest possible candidate the Republi-
cans could put up. We are ashamed to
say that the HERALD itself participated
in this work, and that we were most
anxious to have the Republican party
nominate somebody else than Grant.
This is the game that the Republican
press is now working against Hill, and
it is not pleasant to see that some of the
most intelligent Of the Democratic jour
mails are being influenced by baseless
clamor. There has been no time in his
political career in which Governor Hill
has sacrificed principle to expediency, or
in which he has failed to prove himself
to be, in specially demonstrative way,
statesman and patriot The Mug
wumps and their organs, who could
never defeat Hill, have always taken
great delight in abusing him.
There is nothing strange or peculiar
in this. 1t is the old story of New York
politics. Governor Tilden achieved all his
great successes in spite of the very pro-
nounced ill-will of most of the repre-
sentative organs of opinion of the
metropolis OF the nation. Although his
residence Immediately adjoined that of
the senior member of the great Harper
publishing house in Gramercy square,
he was assailed by that 'journal of
civilization" ~ known as Harpers'
Weekly with bitterness and persistence
not often encountered in politics. The
editor of that sheet, Mr.. George William
Curtis, announced that Gen. Dix would
be reelected governor over SamuelJ. Til
den by 60,O00 majority. The New York
Herald took substantially the same
ground until within about three weeks
of the election, when it began to hedge,
the signs of the times warning the ex-
perienced and sagacious journ alists that
then conducted that great newspaper
that if they desired to maintain any
reputation whatsoever for sagacity they
must begin to trim a little. AS mat
ter of fact, Harpers' Weekly was obliged
to print the announcement that Dix,
instead of being reelected by 10000
majority, was beaten by Tilden by
$4,000. Such little discrepancies, how
ever, were nothing to the individ-
ual whom Roscoe Conkling pro-
nounced the "man milliner" of
politics, and he hung on the flank of
Tilden with persevering malignity, pre-
dieting his defeat in 1876 in the race for
president by large majority in the
state of New York, while, as a matter
of fact, the exposer of the Tweed frauds
carried the Empire state over Hayes by
upwards of $4,000 majority.
While the Democratic press was
steadily engaged in holding up Grant as
weak candidate in 1880, the Republi-
cans; were devoting themselves to the
same congenial task in respect to Mr..
Tilden. In their hearts the jour
nalists of each party realized that they
were playing part. AS against any
body but Grant the Republicans knew
that Tilden would have been elected
overwhelmingly in 1880. The most
potent leaders of the party, like Blaine
and Garfield, were determined to knock
out Grant at all hazards in the conven-
ton, and they were trembling in their
boots for fear the Democrats would NOM
mate the Sage of Gramercy Park. On
all hands, political masquerade of un-
exampled thoroughness ht the boards
that year.
Some of our Democratic contempora-
ries, to our extreme regret, are disposed
to accept as sincere the Republican and
Mugwump estimates of Governor Hill,
notwithstanding their recollections of
the political history of the Empire state.
If they would bethink themselves a
little they could scarcely fail to recall
the circumstance that every New Yorker
that ever amounted to anything was