The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-11-20
THE KING BOSS on MUGwuMps.

THE KING BOSS On MUGWUMPs.
/ The outcome of the New York cleo
| lions has had like effect on the two
bosses who direct their respective par
/ ties Mr.. Plat was so eXasperated by
| the defeat of his man that he recently
scolded those of his party who reyolted
with all the vigor and something Of
! the vituperation of a fishwoman OF
Billingsgate. Mr.. Croker, the other
| boss, and, as boss, the greater Of the
two, entitled to the designation of
king boss, also, although victorious,
breaks out in petulant and wholly i'm
potent wrath anent the mugwump. AS
the swing of the elections in his state
and elsewhere from year to year. in
stalling one party one time and hurl
ing it out the next, indicates that the
mugWumpis an increasing factor there
as everywhere, it is probable that Boss
be treated next time is the cause of
his present ill-timed peevishness when
he should be bubbling with joyous
good will.
1t is always interesting, sometimes
entertaining and occasionally instruct
ing to get the point of view Of ones
opponent Mugwumps, we are sure,
will be delighted to know the opinion
in which they are held by the august,
ruler of Tammany Hall. They will,
we doubt not, have the effrontery to
believe that they must have been do
ing something very creditable if they
have incurred his contempt, and, with
that peculiar faulty of persons so dis
posed, will be encouraged to continue
in their evil and demoralizing bump
tiOusness instead of being crushed by
his opprobrium. Il have no patience"
says Croker, with sniveling, shallow
chested mugwumpery." He can re-
spect Platt who fights for his convic-
TONS but these -the-lines
fellows, these better than-thou people,
these wolves Of politics, who are so
rapacious and hungry for office that,
laying aside convictions, they will go
to any party that will feed them, and
follow both and beg from them both
at once; that mugWump form of man
[ have no use for The mugWump has
peculiar notions of what is good and
best citizenship. Their guiding prin-
ciple is that the best dressed man is
the best citizen" says Greater New
York's Richard l. SO they lure
to them the weak "Would-be fashion
ables," who take on mugwumpery as
"a garment of responsibility"
But these are not all the vices of the
vicious mugwump. Usually he is a
hypocrite." He is truest to himself
when he is falsest to every one else.
And then he is a coward IF his coun-
try is in a war, does he enlist? Never.
No man ever found a mugwump with
arms in his hands fighting for his coun-
try. No battlefield of any age ever
saw the color of mugwumps blood"
The boss has let his indignation run
away with his history. The mugwump
is not yet of age. 1t is only thirteen
years since he was born. There has
been no war to test his loyalty in his
time. For that sufficient reason no
battlefield ever soaked his blood. But,
eXcusing the lapses of the boss in his
evident excess of temper, we pass to
his peroration of contempt and anathe-
ma. He reserves his severest objurga-
ton for the last He hurls his biggest
bomb at the close of his assault. The
mugwump rs an Anglomaniac, al
ways licking British boots" Really,
we must confess, this leaves no room
for anything more to be said. If that
will not crush the mugwump, drive him
to hide his diminished head in shame,
whip him back into the ranks and
doglike submission, further effort is
hopeless, and he might as we'll be given
over to the eternal scorn of Croker
and his kind.
But the mugWump will survive even
this. He has become Injured to such
treatment Except in the richness of
his vocabulary and the Virility of his
rhetoric, the Democratic boss does not
excel in contempt or hatred his fell
| lows wearing Republican badges who
found, in 1884, their dictionaries insult
ficient to give them words that would
express their opinions of the mug
wump. They went to the language of
the untutored Lo and got the word
''mugwump" and applied it to their
recalcitrants because its phonics chord
ed with their feelings, not knowing
that, in Algonquin, it meant big
chief" But they survived all that and
multiplied. There came to be Demo-
cratic mugwumps as we'll as Republ-
can. They have become a power in
| the land, and the best evidences of that,
as well as of their need, are these vol
canic eruptions of the bosses wrath
Long live the mugwump.
EASY TO VICTIMIZE.
With all Difference to the new woman
and the success she has achieved in va