The herald., 1898-09-14
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER IA. 1895.
THE TIMES AND IT'S PARTY

THE TIMES AND ITS PARTY
Without question the Generalization
which had already entered the Repub-
lican camp as the result of too much
progfaming and too much blundering
hassbeen greatly enhanced by the dis
affection of the Times of this city. Some
Simple Simons may go about with
thumbs in waistcoat, proclaiming that
the hostility of the Times is the very
thing they wanted; that it is good for
twenty-five hundred votes, and all that
sort of thing, but they don't mean it..
They are only whistling on their way
through the graveyard at the sight of
another spook.
The position taken by our morning
contemporary, while not avowedly hos
tile to the head of the ticket, is yet so
vehemently against the party manage
ment that the public will not be able to
draw any satisfactory line of demarca-
tion. Not only is the support of the
Times for the ticket, or any part of It,
negatived, but the influence of that paper
is turned into hostile factor of the
most demoralizing sort. This is a
serious backset for the party to en-
counter at the opening Of the campaign.
1t is especially serious in this instance.
inasmuch as the disaffection starts at
Mr.. Cages home, and deprives him of
the staunchest supporter he has had
=; Arcf y,,eptioned for
the gubernatorial nomination.
The decentralization thus inaugurated
III the south will spread throughout the
state, and we venture the prediction that
the Republican party is going for
ward to a most complete rout in Novem-
ber.
While we think the Times as stead
fast ant-monopoly journal has acted
upon its convictions and is endeavoring
to maintain the consistency of its record.
1t seems to us that the position assumed
is somewhat illogical after all. The
Times must have known when the Re
publican state convention was held that
it was entirely dominated by the rail-
road ring; that Boss Burns and Boss
Herrin and several other up-country
bosses who are notorious as railroad
manipulators figured boldly on the floor
of the convention and made no secret
Of directing the movements of their
henchmen. The Times must have known
that the nominations at Sacramento,
from start to finish, were copied from
the railroad slate. If it's vision had been
projected back of the convention it
could have read a complete list of the
nominees and the organization of the
conventions published in the San Fran
cisco Chronicle a week before. If 1t had
glanced backward still further it could
have realized that Mr.. Cages boom did
not originate in Southern California
but was entirely an up-country product;
that it was planted and watered by the
bosses in San Francisco and brought
down to our fruitful soil by Colonel Dan
Burns. 1t could readily have fathomed
the object of this untoward generosity
on the part of the up country managers
If it had seriously set its mind to the
study If our contemporary had realized
the import of all these things, it would
have known that its heroic protests
against the nomination of George Ar
mold, the slated candidate of the rail-
road for a useful position on the state
board of unequalization, would be with
out avail.
But the Times, with all these warnings
before it's eyes, scurried along with the
Republican procession into Boss Burns
rabbit drive at Sacramento. That 1t now
wants to jump the fence is not much
wonder.
1t would have been more felicitous,
however, if our contemporary had
jumped the fence at one bound. To try
to get half way over is worse than use
less. Instead of denouncing two or three
underlings who are simply working to
program, it would better attack the big
manipulators who have captured the en-
tire machinery of the party and are
making 1t subservient to the Southern
Pacific schemes. 1t would have been
better to repudate the entire ticket,
even though at its head stood a man
close to the Times. Here was a case
where principles rather than individual
friendships should have decided the rule
of action.
If our contemporary had exposed the
shameless manipulation Of the Repub-
lcan convention at the time and had
repudiated its ticket without any reser-
walton its position today would be more
logical and more defensible. Whether
1t could have carried more complete