The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-08-12
VOTE ron COURT OF r Jupon, 1895.
The Attempt to Disgrace Mr.. Low.

1t is notable that the hottest support of
the petition for the nomination of Mr.. SETH
Low, to which a regiment Of hired IAN
vassers is now seeking signatures, comes
from the two newspapers which are notori-
GUS as the o%riginators of the yellow school
Of journalism. Both of those papers have
been excluded from all decent clubs, libra
ries, reading rooms, and families as i'm
moral, nasty, vulgar, and wholly perni-
cious. One Of them is an open Bryanite
organ, and the other is using daily coarse
pictures and seditious letter press to in
flame social discomfort and excite the poor
to envy and hatred Of the rich.
These two papers are bitter rivals. Each
is trying to cut the others throat, for
neither has any competitor except the other,
and each is struggling to make the moro
provocative and more seductive appeal to
the same audience. They stand by them
selves, actually and in public estima-
tion. wholly outside of the field of
decent and self-respecting journalism.
In all sinister and subtle ways, with
pen n pencil, they are pursuing
industriously their feverish competition
to %monopolize the forbidden field in which
they are rivals. II the one can kill off the
other the survivor will be in exclusive pos.
session of that domain. The combat be.
tween them, accordingly, is mortal, and
undoubtedly it will not end until one or
the other is destroyed, or both expire be-
cause of the exhaustion of the resources on
which they are drawing so lavishly in the
ferocity of their competition.
1t is remarkable, therefore. that these
two Infatuated journalistic combatants.
each struggling to get downthe lower with
its incentives to social disorder, should
now agree in scenting an opportunity for
profit in the Low movement. Each of them
welcomes its appearance as a valuable con-
tribution to it's stock of sensations, and rs
a means Of producing political disorganiza-
ton and consequent social disturbance
conducive to the ends for which both are
striving with a common lust of gain.
Yesterday, for instance, these two papers,
the World and the Journal, were alone
among New York journals in declaring
with joyful scare heads that Mr.. Low had
actually accepted the Citizens Union
nomination and was busily preparing to re-
turn to New York from Northeast Harbor
to make a rough-and-tumble canvass in his
own behalf. Curiously enough, too, the
story in each was substantially the same,
even in its typographical form. Both,
too, egged on the candidate with the
same articles and they gloated over the
trouble they expected to make for the Re-
publicans in consequence of his ambitions.
OF course, neither of them is in favor of the
election of Mr.. Low as Mayor. yet both are
eager to have him become a candidate, for
they want him as an ally in fomenting So
cial and political disturbance.
This remarkable concert of the ~flercely
competing yellow journals suggests that
the petition for the Low candidacy, to
which the paid canvassers have been get
ting signatures, may nave been filled I'D
with names written with equally sinister
and baleful motives. Undoubtedly, it is for
the interest Of the Bryanites to do what
ever lies in their power to divide the
forces of conservatism. and such would he
the tendency of Mr.. Lows entry into
the field as a hustling aspirant for election
as Mayor in advance Of the regular nomi-
nations. Accordingly, the Journal, which
is the frank Bryanite organ in New York,
is laboring daily to initiate the Low boom,
and the World. appealing frantically to
the same constituency, is vociferously
cheering on the paid Low canvassers.
Hence it is that Mr.. Low, the Pres.
ident of Columbia University, is getting
his most jealous backing from sources SO
disreputable; from the vilest examples of
journalism which have appeared in Ameri
can history! OF course, it is insulting to
him that they should be using his respecta-
bility as a stalking horse for their vile and
incendiary purposes. Never before has a
President of a great American college been
logged into an association so defling.
Outside of these two ~disreputable and in
cendiary journals, Mr.. Low has no active
support from the newspapers of New York,
exceptth the Mugwump papers, whose advo.
cacy of his candidacy is obviously for the
sinister purpose of worrying the Repub-
leans, whom they hate so bitterly. They
cannot conceal that their game is the same
as that of the yellow journals. They want
to force the running of Mr.. Low against
the Republican party, without who's cor.
dial and united support it is obvious that 10
candidate can be elected in opposition to
the Bryanite Tammany Hall. The yell
low journals and the Mugwump jour
mails are in close accord on the Low aues-
ton. They want to use him to beat the
Republican party, and consequently to as
sure a Tammany triumph next November.
Pretentious social and political virtue and
blatant and shameless social and political
vice are bound together by a common ma
Lightly.
Thus it happens that even the name
of the President of an American uni.
versity is used for ends so fiagrantly in
congruous with everything for which a
school of learning and enlightenment is the
impressive symbol. At a time of the gray
est social and political agitation In Arner-