Arizona republican., 1903-09-26
New York's Municipal Contest.

The renomination of Seth Low for mayor of New York by the republicans and allied reform organizations opens a campaign in which the country gen. erally will take a considerable interest. The result will have some influence on the presidential election next year, and it is possible that the national contest will be determined in a large measure by this municipal election. Unques- tionabiy, the democrats must have the state of New York in order to elect president, and it is possible-altiiough not proba ble-that the electoral vote or the state will be essential to republl- can success; and the party that has official control in the city of New York will have a material advantage in the struggle for the state.
 Happily for the republicans. how ever, they can lose control of the city machinery and still carry New York state for president, whereas the demo . crats would have little reason to hope for victory unless they could command the enormous campaign fund which is always available when Tammany has its clutches on the city. Indeed. it is fortunate for the republican party that this is so. for the reelection of Mayor Low is by no means a certainty. All though he received the unanimous vote of the delegates in the two conventions Wednesday, he will not be as strong before the people as he was two years age. He and his administration have made enemies, naturally. and it is not to be expected that these enemies will refrain from fighting him for re-elec- tion. District Attorney Jerome's out spoken opposition to the renomination of the mayor was, it Is to be feared. but the expression of a large element among the reform forces.
 In the election of 1901. MT. Low was victorious by a plurality of 31,636 over Shepard, the democratic candidate. But the revelations of grating by in the public mind, and there was a clamor for a reform administration. Within a year. or at the election O. last November. Bird s. Coler. demo- New York City proper by a plurality of s6, ,604, and Greater New York by a plurality approxima ting 0,000-a change of 10000 votes in one year. Governor Odelrs plurality On the en- tire vote of the state was only S,S03. and had Tammany been in control in Greater New York it is easily con- ceivable that the Coler plurality of 10000 might have been made enough larger to give the state to the demo- crats. With the Low administration in control of the city. democratic frauds in the election are made more difficult 10 say the least.
 Mayor Lows chances will depend a great deal upon the action of the demo cratic convention, of course. Tammany leader Murphy has set his heart on the nomination of Congressman George B. Mcclellan for mayor, but Hugh Me Laughlin, the boss of the Brooklyn de- mocracy, will not have Mcclellan. Al though eighty years old, Mclaughlin maintains his grip on the machine as firmly as ever, and while Mcclellan may be nominated over the protest of the Brooklyn delega ton, nobody doubts McLaughlins ability to throw that borough to the republicans as against Mcclellan should he so desire. In the election Of two years ago the greater part of Lows plurality. or 26.000, came from the borough of Brooklyn. Speak ing of McClellan's prospective nomina- ton. Mclaughlin threw out the hint Wednesday that the democrats would incur wholly unnecessary risk of defeat at the polls should they nom mate the son of the great general. On the other hand. should the bosses Of Tammany and Brooklyn arrive at an agreement and select a strong and clean candidate for mayor there would be great danger of Lows defeat, for the simple reason that there is a nor nal democratic majority of 100000 in the combined cities of New York and Brooklyn, and it requires wholesale democratic scratching to elect a re- publican in that town.