Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-05-21
POWER OF THE PRESS

FINDER the caption Alexander Ma
chine Trigged,'' our morning Re
" publican, anti-recall. anti-reform,
pro-vice and pro-machine contempt
rary says, with reference to the action
of the council upon the recommended
ton of the mayor and the board of
health for the reorganization of the
sanitary force:
"In its deliberations and action the
council has not been influenced by the
clamor of the puny recall organs which
sought to aid the administration in
completing job of petty politics and
unworthy revenge"
That the journal which is such con-
slant and consistent supporter of Wal
ter Parker's machine should designate
an effort on the part Of Mayor Alex
ander and his board Of health to accom-
plish a reform which will save the tax
payers of the city about $4,000 per an
mum petty politics" and unworthy
revenge" is probably not a subject for
surprise.
Any sort OF politics which does not
contemplate the reckless expenditure
of the peoples money in paying sal
aries which are not earned to men who
have been appointed to office because
they were supporters of an unworthy
and infamous political machine, could
not be expected to secure either the
approval or the admiration of such a
thick and thin machine organ as our
81, e h. ~,
every line that it publishes concerning
the Alexander administration and its
efforts to accomplish good for the
people.
There is just one expression in the
excerpt above quoted from the edi-
torial under consideration which is
amusing. and at the same time sug-
gests a line of inquiry that may be en-
Tightening. In referring to the "puny
recall organs" it presumably intended
to include The Herald and the Express,
which have the enviable distinction of
being the only two papers in the city
that supported the victorious recall
movement which resulted in relieving
the city Of Los Angeles of the most
infamous city administration that it
has ever known.
First calling our contemporary at
tention to the fact that the adjective
''puny," which it applies to the recall
organs" is defined in Websters Die
tionary as Small; feeble; inferior in
size or strength; we would like our
pro-vice contemporary to say just what
adjective should be sufficiently ex-
pressive of "smallness; feebleness; in
feriority in size or strength" to make it
correctly applicable to the newspaper
which ANONYMOUSLY failed in it's most
strenuous efforts to oppose the recall.
When our contemporaries lexico-
graphic investigation, which it will nc
doubt undertake as the result of this
suggestion shall have furnished it with
an adjective sufficiently indicative OF
sublimated smallness and weakness to
make it applicable to a journal which
recently failed so completely in the
fight in which the "puny recall organs
were so entirely victorious. we will
take much pleasure in applying this ad-
jective to our aforesaid pro-vice and
pro-machine contemporary.
Until then, we will pass the question
up for the reason that our own vocab.
ulary does not furnish us with a term
which win adequately describe the
weakness that our contemporary has
lately developed in this city as a
"molder of public opinion"