The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-10
WHY THE LOW ADMINISTRATION
 IS GOING TO PIECES.

i IS GOING TO PIECES. | Mayor Low is good man.
 Nobody questions his personal hones-
 ty or the sincerity of his desire to give l New York good government. | But Mayor Lows administration is already in q bad way. He fails con- spicuously to meet the expectations of
 those who took it for granted that his election would be at once followed by sweeping and thorough reform. Why this failure?
 The Fundamental reason is that Mir Low is a class man. He means to do what is right, but the
 training and associations of his whole life have given him an acquired in- stinct that impels him to listen sympa-
 thetically to men of his own class and 10 harden his mind against petitions and proposals coming to him from be- low"
 Witness his instant compliance with
 the wishes of J. Pierpont Morgan. the
 Vanderbilts and the rest of the nine di- rectors of the New York Central Rail road company when they wrote him a letter requesting that he throw his in- nuence against legislation to compel them to make safe the Park avenue tunnel within a given time,
 It wa. not in Mayor Low to think that a request coming from men so very rich, so very respectable should not be granted
 Witness, too, his immediate surren- der to the Pennsylvania Railroad com pany when that powerful corporation asked his aid to secure perpetual fran chise from it's Jersey and Long Island tunnels
 Witness likewise his quick yielding to the Rapid Transit Commissions de- mand that it, and not the Board of AL dermen. have the granting of the fran chise and the presenting of the terms on which the Pennsylvania company should build and operate its tunnels.
 The wealth and responsibility of the Rapid Transit Commission caused that appointed and self-perpetuating body to seem to Mayor Low safer custodian of power than officials elected by the peo- pie.
 Mir Morgan, the Vanderbilts, the Pennsylvania Railroad millionaires and the members of the Rapid Transit Com mission are men of Mayor Lows own class Hence the ease with which they can influence him, he the while deem- ing that he is doing only his duty in deferring to them.
 But when the policemen of the city their wives and daughters hundreds of clergymen, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, ask Mayor Low to abolish the two platoon system, which | overworks the men, destroys their home life and gives coercive power over them | to captains who fatten on blackmail, l he becomes stony. ]
 Here the common people" are ask ing him to do something, and Mir. Lows | class instinct constrains him to regard | petitions from that pebeian quarter | with suspicion and aversion.
 Ii is because Mayor Low is not dem | ocratic that his administration is fail ing.
 According to his theory, good govern ment is not government by the people for the people, but a boon confered by the better classes upon the Tower or dels"
 The trouble that the Mayor finds himself in with respect to the Excise IdW, nDWeNeT, IS uue lb dEblHtt tdusS that his class instinct.
 Though an honest and well-meantng | man, convinced wholly of the upright ness of his purposes, MT. Low does not 1isdain to play the politician. He arr gues that in order to secure power to confer the boon of good government up 1n the inferior masses it is necessary to make compliances-to work at times with the implements at hand
 So, that he might be elected, Mir Low gave the saloonkeepers to understand hat he would not enforce the Excise aw strictly.
 As Mayor, therefore, MT, Low has