The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-02-15
Leon Albeit and the Democratic
Party,

Party.
The spectacle of the war being
waged upon Ex-Governor Albeit by
the Republican party and a faction OF
hostile democrats is most distressing.
That a man so positive and uncom-
promising in character should have
made enemies was an inevitable thing.
That a man who had been SO
brilliantly successful should have
stirred up much envy vas to be ex-
pected. That a man who had made
Republican victories impossible, not
only for his own time but for years to
come, should have earned the indy
ing hostility of that party is not sur
prising. But it is a strange thing
that members of his own party who
have followed his banner with accla-
nation when it led the Democratic
hosts to triumph, should join in the
effort to embitter the close of his
political career by turning against
him and thwarting all his wishes.
When it was first rumored that
Governor Albeit might be appointed
to the bench of the Supreme Court,
we heard the tale, we must say, with
wonder and incredulity. 1t seemed
Improbable that a man of his aggres-
sive and ~resolute character should
voluntarily turn aside from the ca
reer which he had so long pursued
and in which he had overmastered so
many obstacles and recovered from SO
many checks. When it became pretty
certain that the Ex-Governor was
willing to accept a seat upon the Su-
preme Bench, we reasoned it out that,
firing of the emptiness. the shallow
ness, the disappointment, above all,
the ingratitude of political life, he
had turned his mind to that
other career in which he had won
an almost equal distinction, to the
cultivation of his profession, and
that he desired to give to this phase
of his life that completeness which
had failed him in the defeat of his last
political ambition. In this abandon
ment of the arena of public life, for
the sake of something even higher
and finer in spirit. there was a dig
nifty and a manly strength, which, it
seemed to us, could not but To-
the entire people of the State. 1t APP
peared to US that surely no obstacle
could be thrown in the way of this
desire. The Governors differences
with other public men had been all
political. The animosities against
him were political. The defeat he had
just sustained was a purely political
defeat, and if that fact did not sweet
en- it to his friends, it at least enabled
them to accept it stoically, as he did.
But the war that has been renewed
against him since it became known
that he had been chosen by Gov
ernor Werts for the vacant place in
the Supreme Court, can only fill spec
tators with wonder and grief aud
fears for the future of the Democratic
party in this State. We see the Re-
publican papers glorying in it. and
doing all that in them lies to feed the
flames of anger. They see in the
heated temper Of certain democrats,
today, not only the present gratifica-
ton of their own revenges, but the
seed of endless future advantage for
their party.
Our correspondent in Trenton tells
us of a certain document which has
been drawn up, and which is
being privately shown here and
there, assailing Governor Albeit
in many ways. We do not ask
what the motives NAV be of