Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1913-08-01
suIzer and NIignon.

utterly deSpicable things we hav
known the yellow newspapers t
do is the serial publication of th
stories and letters of woman
calling herself "Mignon Hop
kins, regarding Governor Suit
yer, of New York. This newspap
er never has fancied Sultzer. H,
looked. talked and acted too mucl
like an imitation, theatrical
imitation statesman and hero
too obviously was trying to make
people think he was a new Henry
Clay; was a kind of East Side
Joe Bailey without Joe Bailey &
brains. Men who undertake tt
put on some special front and
depend on it are to be disturbed
and suspected always, like the
picture on side show in a cir
Gus.
Nevertheless, Mr.. Sulzer is
governor of the great State of
New York, elected by the people
and so entitled to some special
respect and consideration; and
is a man and so entitled to fair
play and decent treatment.
First, they tried to bring out
on Sulzer twenty years old
prejury case. That fell to pieces.
1t was legal technicality in an
other State growing from a
bitterly fought suit at law and
the men responsible for the old
accusation confessed publicly that
they were ashamed of it an had
no basis for it.
Now comes Mignon Hopkins a
lady who must be several years
old by now as she confessed to
having been engaged to marry
Sulzer in 1902, and a full grown
woman. at that period. A simple
arthmetical calculation places her
at thirty odd now and out of the
ingenious, or broiler, class.
Mignon-poor Mignon! CON
fessed that when she heard Sulz-
er was married in 1908, which
was five years ago, she sued him
for 100000 for breach of prom
ices and compromised on So, 600,
paid in solid scads, and gave a
receipt. This amount soothed
her feelings five years and
placated her wrath and restrain
ed her Indignation. Now, how
ever, when Sulzer is governor
and in a fight with Tammany
and might be made to pay hush
money and the yellow newspaper
reporters swarm about like so
many tumble-bugs, her feelings
overcome her again. She weeps
and tells how awful all this
notorety is to her high bred and
aristocratic and delicate feel
ings-and peddles out few more
sobby recollections of her loves
and a few more of her own let
tiers to Sulzer-so much a sob,
80 much a moan, so much a tend
er line at space rates. And a
Virginia newspaper takes it by
wire and parades it all on the
front page for Sunday reading
for respectable Virginia people,
intimate details of an intrigue
between a cheap greedy woman
and very ordinary man. They
are not Suffers letters that are
given out. They were surrender
ed as part of the consideration
for the $4,000 cash, the jingle of
the guinea healing the hurt that
honor and shamed maidenhood
and torn heart felt. 1t is her
own letters, revealing the sec
rets of her own maiden soul and
the depths of her own womanly
passion than are being peddled
and syndicated the yellows. They
were returned to her by Sulzer
in the $4,000 settlement.
1t is,as disgusting as any hui
man performance can be. Pro-
badly it will make Sulzer. He
is fifty years old. 1t is safe to
say that a large majority of men
of that age have had love affairs
with women they did not marry
and exchanged more or less silly
and ardent letters. That is a
matter of ordinary, hard, com
mon human sense and know
ledge. The general instinct of
reserve and propriety in such
matters will revolt against this
persecution of Sulzer and the
newspapers engaged in it. He
may be something of a charlatan
and a fool, but as governor and
in the congress he has been hon
est land has not been afraid.
"Mignon and Sulzer" has the
sound of some kind of an ex-
toradinarily fascinating new
drink or comic opera. Really it
is as cheap, sordid, degraded,
vulgar a business for the woman
concerned and all her surround