The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-12-18
ANTI-SEWELL FIGHT
Said to Be iii the Interest
of a New Senatorial
Candidate.
IS FRANKLIN MURPHY THE MAN ?
Hudson and Essex's Combine Likely
to Go to Smash-Interesting
Legislative Gossip.
Special to the Jsrseu CItu Ns,ps.

TRENTON, Dec. IS, 1S93.-The Sewell peo-
pie are very much worried over the revolt
against their leader, which broke out last
week in Newark, and are doing everything
IN their power to discount its effects and i'm
portanee. The ground that they are taking
is the high one of loyalty to the party.
They say that those who.are fighting against
the despotic rule with which General Sewell
governs the party are doing inestimable
damage to the cause of Republicanism in
New Jersey, and if they do not desist will
ruin the chances of the Republicans ~electing
a United States Senator two years hence
and will succeed in robbing the party of all
the fruits of last months brilliant victory.
They are calling the ~anti-Sewen men
TRAITORS" ''renegades'' and other equally
hard sounding and opprobrious names.
In fact they are doing everything in their
power to show that these Independent and
high minded republicans who object to put
ting their necks into the Sewell yoke for the
purpose of dragging the General into the
United States Senate are ~disrupting the
party: But in all their TRADES no hint is
contained that General Sewell is a TRAITOR
or a renegade or is ~disrupting the party
with his determination to rule it with a rod
of iron.
REPUBLICAN PARTY GOING TO SMASH.
The following taken from one of the lead
ing Republican organs will give some idea of
the position the Sewell men take
IF all that is whispered in the political
closets is true, the Republican party of New
Jersey Is going to smash at the speed of a
limited express. In these days there is much
said about Sewellism and anti Sewell-
ism, and some people, and even
some Republican newspapers, are try
ing to create the fixed impression that the
fractional lines are drawn very closely,
and that the clan Of Hudson and Essex
are sharpening their snickersnees to move
on to Camden and politically annihilate
General w. j. Sewell. The situation when
carefully analysed is directly the opposite
of the current stories. There are scattered
through the State some republicans who
are endeavoring to help their own individual
cause by frantically shouting too much
Sewellism. They threaten to disturb the
organization of the Legislature and even
obstruct the possibilities of a Republican
United States Senator unless General Sewell
throws up both hands and gives the Repub-
ican party over to them, so that they might
step into prominence and position.
sEwELL THE ONLY LEADER.
"The trouble with the Republican Party at
the present time is that the recent victory
came on them and discovered them. In
tw~enty-four hours the majority of the lead
ers were transformed from disconsolate pol
~iticians, bewailing their lot, to successful
leaders with everything lovely and the
party goose hanging very high. They
awoke very much like a man out of a sound
sleep, saying, Where am / at, and how did
it happen!' As Chairman Franklin Murphy
observed, it was not the leaders victory,
the politicians success, but it was the vic
tory of the people. As soon as they recov-
a-Al Prov, +hn o1aaco-% r1@o1- 4L1 10000
query was, who is to rule, will it be the
old campaigners, designated as the old
hacks or shall it be the new blood? The
divided leaders were for a time overjoyed,
and they said, Let us dwell together in
unity and peace
"M~etaphorically, the loving cup was passed
around. That old c%hestnutty anti-Sewel
dodge was declared a worn out scheme and
the party was to be united in the future and
all work was to be for its common good.
General Sewell stepped to the front and as
sumed temporarily the leadership. He has
been the leader before and the only one that
had kept close to the organization. There
are other men whose services are needed, but
they keep SO very much in the background
that if Sewell did not lead it would be a
leaderless party. Because Sewell is the only
one to come forward he is accused of subvert-
ing the powers and possibilities of the party
to his own interest"
A NEW SENSATIONAL CANDIDATE.
This line of reasoning caused the smaller
statesmen in Essex and Hudson to find fault
with compromise. They charged the men
that had thrown down their apti-Sewell
mask with treachery, that they had sold
out to the enemy and We're going to wear the
collars of the kind made in Camden. So
some of them went to work and famed the
sparks of disruption and last week there was
a funny explosion in Newark.
The T03Jn AnroYfieer cl1ODncod IN ba q
staunch Republican organ, came out with
sensational accounts of the greatness of the
anti-Sewel movement, and told of the
great things it was going to do, all of which
was published in THE JERSEY CITY NEWS at
the time. Franklin Murphy, the wealthy
young varnish manufacturer, chairman of
the Republican State Committee and candi-
date perpetual for Governor, it is said, has
more or less influence over the editorial
columns Of the Advertiser.
His friends say that he was out of town
when the articles appeared, but whether his
absence was a coincidence or a prearranged
affair, the same friends do not state. 1t is
shrewdly surmised, however, that this
spasmodic attempt to scare up an anti
Sewell bugaboo is in the interests, of a new
candidate for United States Senator who
bears a striking resemblance to the young
Essex leader. The movement thus far
seems to have done General Sewell more
good than anyone else, as it warns the Gen
eral of the movement of his enemies and
puts him on his guard.
HUDSON AND EssEx'S DEAL OFF.
1t looks now as if the deal alleged to have
been made between the Hudson and Essex
county republicans for the purpose of help
ing each other to much Of the patronage
that will fall to the Republican party will
not get through. When it became known
that Hudson wanted the COMPREHENSIVE
and Essex the State Treasurership there was
a mighty vigorous how sent up by nearly
all of the other counties in the State, and
side of Essex and Hudson would combine
and Essex md Hudson would get the big
finger, SO to all intents and purposes the deal