New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-01-29
HILL At THE HELM.

Governor Hills career IN this state, lmpudcnt,
violent and knavish as it has been was made
possible by the existence in this city of a COM
pactly organized Democratic society with $40
900, 900 of public money annually at its com
mand. If the same dshonorabe methods could
have succeeded anywhere else, we have been
and arc much deceived in the American people.
But Hill proposes TO try the experiment lie
has demonstrated that he could carry Newly DIRK
when Cleveland couldn't; that he could elect
a successor from his party with an enormous ma
iority, and that, defeated at the polls in his
effort to elect a Democratic Legislature, he could
with perfect impunty tear the statutes of the
State into shrcdS, insult and defy the formal
mandate Of It's highest court, and steal ma
ority as boldly as ever a highwayman Snatched
a purse lie has shown that he can bring his
party press to his support in this outrage the
most infamous and dangerous that can be per
pctIated in a free county; that he can force
men of previously good regulations to serve as
his agents in executing the job; that he has the
power to reward one of his principal tools by
placing him OH the very tribunal whose solemn
judgment he has laughed at and diSIegardod, and
that there is no public sentiment in the state
powerful enough either to restrain his audaclty
or to cover him with shame. He holds his head
up. proud of his abOmnable achievement His
marty organs call it shrcwd and great, and no
one who confeSScS himself Democrat has the
tcmcriy TO dcnouncc either the fraud or It's
author.
1t is not surprising, then that Mr.. Hill should
be proceeding, by acts hitherto reckoned dis
graceful in candidate for our highest office, to
manipulate his party conventions after the man
ncr of Tammany boss with a view to his nom
nation at Chicago. He deserts his post in the
Senate, comes here TO assume the personal dl-
rcction of his machine, and guides il in move
mentS designed to suppress by quick and force
full blows all party opposition 10 his supremacy
He arrangcS TO appoint a great army OF census
cnumcratOrs a few weeks before his midwintcr
State Convention, and TO give over to them tho
selection Of trusty delegates who will yell, and
if need be shove, everybody out of the con-
yention who dares TO mention any name but
Hills. BY a convention packed according 10
Tammany's mcancSt traditions, he expects to 20
TO Chicago rs New-York's one and only can
didatc, protesting, with record to back the
claim that the State lies in the hollow Of his
hand He will hold his bludgeon on his shout
der and say to the Democracy there "Take
me and win or take somebody and lose -
This is Hills scheme. and no doubt it plcascs
him to have it advertised. lie judges the Amcri-
can Nation by Tammany Hall, and he thinks the
very cfrrontcry and impudcncc of his sclf-scck-
Ing will be admired and applaudcd. They are
by Tammany and backed 10 win. If they ilch
the nomination, he calculates that all good
Democrats will turn in and do their duty"
Independence, We know, is not Characteristic
Democratic virtue. But, quito aside from other
considerations, if there is not enough indcpcnd-
ence in the Democracy Of the Nation outside OF
Ncw-Yorll State and inside, too, to oyerwhelm
this intriguing trckStcr, shall lose orr guess
If the Presidency Of the United States is TO bo
grabbed by the widest sharper, if it has become
the prize Of pothouse politics, if there has como
10 be no difference between the means by which
il is TO be won and those that place einmilI-
keeper in the Ncw-lolk Board Of Aldermen, the
history Of the last century Of American cam
pai,n, will have to be reversed.