The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-06-17
THE BLUNDER.

WHITELAw Reds nomination at Min
neapolis was the result of the hasty and
inconsiderate action of q few politicians,
and like most of such acts was blunder TO
be repented at leisure. Nothing that Mr..
REID has ever said or done entities him to
the distinction, poor as it is, of being
named for the Office of ce-president In
no sense Is he a great man. He is not even
a leader in his party. The fact that he Is
the owner and nominally the editor of a
great newspaper does not make him q
leader, though it has given him notoriety.
There are ten thousand unknown journal
ists in this country who could have directed
the affairs Of the paper founded by
HORACE GREELEY" much better than Mr..
REID has done. In truth when be assumed
control of the New York Tribune it was
the foremost and by Odds the most in
huential Republican organ in the United
States, but today there are a dozen or more
Republican journals il the country, some
of them published in New York, which
lead the Tribune as newspapers and as
party organs.
The inspiration which suggested the
nomination OF REID was of the same kind
as that which has given ALGER of Mich IAN
a following in two or three Republican con-
ventions. REID is rich and his father-in-
law is one of the multi-millionaires of the
country. The shrewdest thing that Mr.
REID ever did was to marry the daughter
of d. O. MILLS, and to that act may be
directly traced his nomination at Minneap-
oils last week, the assumption teing that
Mr. MILLS will at once place large sized
barrel on tap. The blunder came in when
the manipulators were blinded by the gilt
ter of the MILLS gold to the real
character of Mr.. REID as a candi-
date The editor has never been
popular with the press of the country.
Republicans like him even less than do
the Democrats, as he has assumed to be
something better than other Republican
journalists, both as man and q political
writer. The fraternal feeling which in
spires partisan editors has never reached
out to WHITkLAw REID, who mas attempted
to live on a social and journalistic plane
above that occupied by others. Loyalty to
party may prevent Republican papers
from assailing him, out he win not get the
cordial, enthusiastic support which the
party press would like to give to the nomi-
nee Then Mr.. REID's pronounced and
persistent opposition to organized labor as
illustrated in his long fight with the Typo
graphical union was an important matter
which was lost sight of. Nothing that can
be done between now and the election will
place him on good terms with the laboring
men of the country and it is their votes
which decide contests st the polls. To
what degree the unpopularity of Mr.. REID
viii DE extended to the whole ticket
cannot, of course, be foretold.
but it may be said that the nominee for
vice president, Notwithstanding his and his
family's wealth, will prove source of
weakness rather than strength. The fact
that striking political blunder was com
mitted is already manifest, as the Repub-
lican papers are none Of them enthusiastic
in Mr.. REID's praise, while some of them
are outspoken and severe in their denuu-
citation Of the blunder and the man. AS