The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1895-09-20
This paper is Democratic IN principles
end is independent az its uie.os o" q" local
questions.
John w. Griggs.

1t is probably a surprise even to
Mr.. Griggs himself 1t is SO
great a surprise ITO the public
that people have not yet recovered.
their breath enough to begin figuring out
how it happened. Next to the surprise of
it. we imagine. the prevailing sensation
is one of pleasure. 1t is gratifying to
State pride to find that New JerseysYhas
not exactly been lined up with Pensylva-
MIA and New York. 1t may be assured
that the nomination was not made with
out General Sewelrs consent. It may be
regarded as certain that it is not un-
pleasing to him: but. at any rate, it is
not a nomination forced by him on his
party. and to that extent we are better
off than are the States where Matthew
Stanley Quay and Thomas C. Plat rule
the roost.
There is a second reason why the nom
ination is pleasing to the people. 1t elm
mates the possibility of mud-slinging
from the campaign. Mr.. Griggs is per-
sonally a man of a high standard. He has
political virtue of a kind. and intellect
and energy of every kind. He is a gentle
man in tone and in the grain. He is
honest and conscientious in his own mis-
taken way. He is above temptation by
considerations of power and Office as well
as more sordid considerations So far as
ability goes, he is capable of occupying
with honor any office in the gift of the
peoples
And. yet. all this being granted in his
favor, job W. Griggs remains the
most dangerous man in the State of
New Jersey. the man whose tenure of
high Office is most inimical to the inter
ests of the people. Indeed. it is largely
on account of his high personal qualities
that he is so formidable as the repre-
sentative of the characteristic prin-
ciples of Republicanism. That John w.
Griggs conscientiously believes in the
doctrines he teaches. We have no doubt.
They come to him temperamentaliy.
They are part of his nature. Adhesion
to the interests of a dominant class.
hostility to the rights and wishes and
instincts of the people at large are of
as spontaneous growth in his heart and
brain. as were popular ideas, broad
sympathies and a sense of equal rights
for all men native in the breast of that
great dead Democrat of New Jersey,
Leon Albeit. 1t is. perhaps, in con-
t~rasting the records of these two men,
as we shall often nave occasion to do
between now and election day, that the
justest ideas may be formed of the char
acter of Mr.. Griggs. of the alliances
which his personality has involved him
in. of the ideas which he represents,
control the affairs of State in case by
any accident he should be elected Cover
nor.
Three characteristic phases of Mr..
Griggs' career simultaneously suggest
themselves to us, as we realize the fact
of his candidacy. They are his relation
to the equal taxation question; his part
in preventing water legislation. and his
agency in procuring the passage of the
liquor law of 1889. The record he has
made upon these three great issues
should be enough to utterly destroy his
chances of success in every county from
Sussex to Cape May, and from Mercer to
the Hudson. 1t will be our pleasure and
our duty to fully ventilate that record in
weeks. and upon it we shall base our APP
peal to the people of Hudson, and above
all. to the tax-ridden people of Jersey
City, to return to, the Democratic fold
and help crush a man who has shown
himself in such signal instances, the Bit
ter enemy of the State and its people. sos
We shall show that when Leon Albeit
raised the standard of equal taxation
to save the State and its cities from
bankruptcy. the principal force that he
encountered in his ever-memorable cru
sade was the intellect and The voice of
John W. Griggs. We shall sho that
when the banded railroads and corpora
tions found he tidal wave OF public
opinion. under the great leadership of
ALBEIT. too strong for them to resist.
John w .Griggs was the ingenious gentIo-
man from whose brain sprang the COM
promise which is now the law of the State
and in virtue of which the railroads own
ing two-fifths of the territorial extent of
Jersey City pay one per cent. taxation
upon their holdings, while the oppressed
private owners Of property lave a bitter
time of it keeping their assessment with
in the three per cent. limit allowed by
the Martin Tax Law. We shall show
again. that when the fight for equal tax
alton was renewed in the recent days
under Democratic leadership, with As
semblyman Usher of this city as its very
able spokesman, John w. Griggs was the
man singled out by the railroads to once
again lead the fight against it, and it
was his specious inventions and ingenious
falacies that gave a Republican Legis-
1at1re. controlled by bosses from Cam