The Winslow mail., 1900-02-15
LAST OF TANNER.
The Illinois Leader Gets the GnT
from His Former
Henchmen.

In repudiating John Riley Tanner
'or that Is what has happened-the re-
publican party has repudiated its prin-
clpies and traditions as well as perpe-
trated a grave injustice upon the gov
ernor. No one will believe-no one is
asked to believe-that his eXcellency
is turned down" because of his sins
OF omission or commission. The things
with which he is charged are the very
things which form the equipment of an
ideal republican statesman. Gov. Tan
ner is an ideFl republican statesman.
He is repudiated not because he has
transformed the civil service of the state
OF Illinois into political machine reek-
ing OF corruption-not because his ad-
mlnistration has been one series of
scandals-but because it was feared
that he couldn't be reelected. The
statesmen who guide the destinies of
the republican party in Illinois are
practical politicians. Much as they
may admire Gov. Tanner, they will take
no chances of losing the state by re-
nominating him.
Gov. Tanner is no worse than his
party. If anything he is a little better.
For he possesses one quality, at least,
which raises him above the Hertzes and
Peases and Jamisons and Maddens who
have taken his political scalp. He is
courageous. He fights where they sulk.
He is an organizer of victory, while they
are the camp followers who come up
after the battle to share in the loot.
Some of them-Hertz, for instance
hate him, but they all fear him and re-
spect him, if respectabiiity can be pred
icated of such character. They would
all follow al his heels in hope of further
swag, but they fear that his prestige
is gone. Hence they turn and rend him
AS for the governor himself, he does
not add to his reputation for fortitude
by the manner in which he takes his de
thronement. He complains that he has
been abused and vilifed from the mo-
ment he assumed Office. If he will take
the trouble to reflect he will remember
that his immediate predecessor was
likewise vilified and abused and that
John r. Tanner was foremost in the
ought to be sauce for Tanner. His ex-
cellency is the last man in Illinois to
reprehend and. complain of abuse. 1t is
his main stock in trade.
Indeed, he may charge his downfall
to this very prediction for antagoniz-
ing and abusing people-his carrying
hatred into his official acts and using his
position as club wherewith to beat
those whom he deemed his enemies. 1t
may safely be asserted that his con-
s;stently malignant hostility to the in
terests of Chicago rendered his over
throw certain, because the camp fol
lowers realized that he could not carry
Cook county, and without Cook county
he stood to lose the state. Hence he was
set down as unavailable. And to add
to the bitterness of his defeat he can now
realize that the republican nominee for
governor will probably come from the
very section which caused his down
fall. 1t is retributive justice.
Still, the passing of Tanner reflects
no credit upon the republican party.
He was worthy of the party and the
party was worthy of him. He was the
typical republican officeholder and he is
ungratfully abandoned merely because
he practiced in every official act the
fundamental republican maxim: A
public office is private snap.-Chicago
Chronicle,