New-York tribune., 1906-10-26
OSLERIZED.

Is it necromancy, or just plain politics! one
moment we have lot of hopeful independents
running for Office and the next moment they
are gone 1t is like East Indian magic IL Is
q trick in political prestidigitauon tnal MURPHY
should learn, If his familiar, Hearst can teach
him II is practical politics carried INTO rour-
dimenslonal space You may keep your eye on
man when he has only length, breadth and
thickness but give him another dimension ana
he mysteriously eludes you.
They were an inconvenient lot those ambi-
tious little independents If they stayed in
the field, they were likely to beat many OF
Murphy's own little regulars. Moreover. II
they persisted IN running, they were likely to
put Murphy in a frame of mind to slaughter
the great Independent They troubled Murphy
and they troubled Hearst and the worst of it
was that they could not see the expedlency of
political choroforming. They didn't know
that they had outived their usefulness and
that they were due to be Oserized.
We cannot say who did the job; but 1t was
to the interest of Murphy and of his confed-
crate Hearst to have 1t done, and whoever did
It did it with neatness which makes political
murder a fine art The fact that the trick IS
new IN the annals Of New York politics sug-
gests a new hand. Murphy seems to have
known Of the coming fate Of the victims, for
he kept assuring the newspapers that there
would be no independent candidates. The
Hearst managers looked with equal disfavor
upon the independents Mr. Cohalan, chair
man of the Tammany law committee, told
the Tammany district leaders on Tuesday that
he had been assured by the Independence
League representatives that they had not in
tended to put in the field minor Independent
candidates. The men had nominated them
selves against the wishes of the Independence
League executive committee. Poor menl
They took their Independence seriously. They
even thought they could run for Office If they
wanted to. THE mistake" as Mr.. Cohalan
said, has been repaired"
When the Humbert creditors had gathered
TO see the strongbox with the Crawford mill
ions opened they did not experience a more
painful surprise than did the independent
candidates when the Board of Elections took
a look at their nominating petitions. A new
way with independents has been found for the
use and profit of BOSSES Those Independent
nominations which were part OF the Murphy
Hearst deal conformed to the law The rest
were grossly defective. The poor fellows who
had tried to butt in" in the great Independence
game had made a sorry mess of it. 1t may
be that the law committee of the Indepen-
dence League had been trife careless in
drawing up the nominating petitions OF indie
pendents whose ambitions confcted with the
terms Of the deal and who had not the sense
to see that they were making nuisances Of
themselves.
But this scandalous snuffing out of the inde-
pendents has brought forth worse charges than
the characteristic Hearst-A1urphy trickery and
reachery. Some petitions adequately drawn
are alleged to have been rendered inadequate
by theft and mutilation. The nominating peti-
tons filed with the Board OF Elections are
open TO public inspection, and some one pre-
sumably IN the interest of harmony between
Hearst and Tammany, destroyed parts of some
of the documents. Mr.. Quinby for instance,
who wanted 10 run for Congress as the Inde-
pendence League candidate against Riordan,
the gas man." filed petition of ffty-three
consecutively numbered pages. Later it turned
out that eight pages had disappeared and there
were not enough names left on his petition to
qualify him TO run Independently. Such case
is matter for the grand jury.
The same corrupt and Strong arm" methods
with which the Hearst Murphy deal began
operations at Buffalo have consummated it
down here. The ant-Hearst delegates were
thrown out in Buffalo; the and-Murphy candi-
dates are thrown out in New York Those whose
petitions were not destroyed were trcked out
of their nominations. They were lambs for
slaughter. OF the Independence League there
now remains only Hearst. Ihmsen offers re-
ward Of $1,000 for the man who did the deed.
Who killed Independence? Hearst sets up in
defence an offer to buy a tombstone