The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1900-07-12
HILL-CROKER QUARREL.
Alfred Henry Lewis, Gives its Secret
History,

History.
Alfred Henry Lewis, writing in the
Philadelphia North American, gives what
purports to be the secret history of the
Hill-Croker quarrel. 1t is as follows:
While one is waiting a week or fort
night before searching for popular feel
ing as to Bryan and the Kansas City
platform, the brief story of the Croker
Hill difference in its course and extent
may with profit be told. 1t will assist one
in any New York estimate he may now or
hereafter seek to make. AS a first pro-
posal, then, no one need fear harm 10
Bryan as the fruit of Hill enmity. Hill
may offer no effort TO the injury of the
ticket. If he be sagacious he will not
Should he do So however, he would but
waste his time. Hill could not with the
bitterest effort he could make detract
from the ticket 100 votes
Says Hill Has no strength.
This will sound strange to ears beyond
New York. Hill has been Governor and
Senator, and one might naturally expect
him to have a following. As a fact, how
ever, he has no strength that would ad-
here to him were he to fight the party at
the polls. Hill has no personal following
as Croker has. Folk admire Hill for his
courage, his brains, his forensic genius
They do not cling to him; do not even
trust him. Hill is capable of much I'M
popularity. This is due mainly to the
fact that Hin thinks of no one but him
self. and is moved oftener of an impulse
born of his vanity and his selfishness than
of anything else.
No one walks the avenues of politics
to-day who is better off because of Hill.
He has helped no one. This is import
ant, at least, in New York, where most
folk are asleep or awake, are dreaming
or thinking.
Croker so far differs from Hill that
those who have benefited politically by
his friendship and his effort might for
their numbers be mustered into bril-
gade. Even Hill is himself an exam
pie. Hill has been Governor and sena-
tor, in the past, wholly and solely, by
delegates votes, and funds that Croker
gave him. AS Croker has more than
once said, however Hill owes him moth
ing for that. Croker did it to please and
favor Murphy not Hill. Still. the whole
story of the Hill ana the Croker past.
the first selfish, the other generous and
conducting his politics on a live-and-let-
live plan, offers the key 10 that riddle
why-locally at least-the one is so much
hated and the other so much loved
Cookers Feud with Hill.
Cookers feud with Hill is one of no
late date. 1t will never be patched up.
1t began as far away as the days of
Tweed. Hill was a favorite of Tweed's,
ran Tweed paper in Chemung county,
and was known as "Tweeds Elmira
man" Croker from the beginning was
inimical 10 Tweed; his day and night
enemy, and among those foremost agen-
cies that brought about Tweeds downfall
and rescued Tammany Hall from Tweed's
control.
From that far-off day of Tweed until
now Hill and Croker have never once
agreed In their very natures they could
noS come together. Hill. alert, agile. brill
liant, shifty, full of word tricks and
more apt 10 keep a promise in its letter
than its spirit, was precisely a figure
that Croker would first distrust and fin
ally contemn. Croker, on the other hand.
cool. steady, oaklike, with a capacity to
indomitnbly defend; who held his word
higher than gold, and never departed a
promise or avoided an obligation, was just
as naturally the subject of HIS hatred.
Murphy, whose forte is peace and peace
making and in whom Croker has bound
less confidence, has ever stood between
the other rancorous two and prevented
war.
Croker would have contented himself
with positively despising Hill as one
whose word was breakable and who had
no gratitude-an attribute, this latter. I'd
OIL which Croker in his estimates of men
lays deepest stress-were it not for enc
guilty caper of HlPs. 1t was in 1894
Croker had resigned his headship of Tam
many Hall to John c. Sheehan and gone
TO England. Hill was pleased to the point
Of open glee, and rejoiced with the
thought that he had seen the last Of his
stubborn enemy Hill had the ill-grace
not to say the unwsdom, to tubilate with
an insulting pponness.
Hilfs Attack on Croker.
1t was one evening when Hill was asked
TO address the Democratic Club; the same
whereof three years ago Croker took pos