The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1914-09-06
. IS ROGER SULLIVAN A BOSS? e
In Golfers Weekly


corporation representatives IN his
appreciation of changing public SEN
timent.
Although he voted his cohorts
against the bill to give Chicago the
right to regulate the price Of gas,
he confessed to the proponents of
tho bill. and declared to his fellow
opponents, that regulation was
bound to come.
One Ear to the Ground.
When the bill became law Sui
hvan stood with the Peoples Gas
Company in its fight Tor the most
favorable terms of regulation, We,
when deadlock developed he ap-
reared as an intern ediary between
the representatives CT the city and
tho Peoples Gas company.
THU is cited beth to do the man
justice and to show the extent OF
his political prescience.
Sullivan as a political leader has
heen pra,tical-a man without
| ideals-who played the game as he
found 1t. He is sort Of political
barometer AS the popular standard
| has risen his standards have risen.
Here arc few o. the barometer
| readings in Rogers case: AT GER
tain times in his career in Illinois
| he has cast the weight. of his infiu-
ence for the civil service, direct pri-
| maries, and the commission form OF
government, merely because he had
sensed the advance In the popular
| mind. This is tho most hopeful
! thing You can say about Sullivan to-
day, apart from his brains and
: likableness-he ia politically wise,
/ He reads the drift-and follows IL.
Like Murphy, "If uplift's the word.
/ he's for it," And yet Sullivan's rec
ord is long enough in this behalf
| that we may give him credit for
some real sincerity. In fact, there
IL not much OF seeming about Roger.
/ His vices have been about as public
as HIS virtues possibly a triac
more so.
| Sullivan's es1ousal of the cause
of Woodrow Wilson Is cited as an
other case in point Of course, It
may be pointed cat that there was
no necessary virtue in this that
when his political enemies, Harrl-
son and Hearst, cspoused the cause
Of Clark, there was nothing for
Roger to do but spouse the cause
Of Wilson.
On tho other hand 1t was yell
known that whom Sullivan returned
from the meeting OF the National
Democratic COMMITTEES at Washing
ton IN December. 1911, after having
heard the Bryans and the Clarks and
the Underwoods talk. he made the
statement 10 somo of his friends
that this fellow Wilson put it all
over en-
Still he did not come out for will
son. He merely told Wilson one
| day when he was in Chicago:
! When 1t is all over | am satisfied
that you will be satisfied"
| | see no deep reason. therefore,
| for doubling that his support OF
| Wilson was not as sincere rs 1t was
| effective.
His Beginnings, and Now.
These things are all pointed to by
| The friends Of Sullivan today as an
| evidence Of the progressive tens
dency of his life. They admit that
he was schooled in low politics;
that he bargained, traded, log-rolled
| and blinked his eyes exactl, as any
man must do who would be a leader
| among the only kind of people Sui
Ivan could lead; but they say that
his horizon was widened. that his
ethical standards have risen. They
claim his career should be scanned
with sympathetic and an appre-
ciative eye. Such offenses as are
justly chargeabIe to Sullivan, they
declare, lie far in the past, and that
IL Is unjust, for instance to measure
the Ogden Gas deal of twenty years
ago by the standards everywhere
accepted today, nor to charge the ig-
norant and unethical operations OF
an obscure ward politician OF the
nneties against the aspirations of
the intelligent and widely ohserv-
ant Roger Sullivan of the present.
But" asks some one, ''if Roger
is the friend of President Wilson,
why is he the foe of Secretary Bry-
an?"
All! BY that keen question is
begged an interesting tale that tells
almost as much about our versatile
Secretary OF State az about the re.
sourcefJll lion of Chicago's Demo-
cratic junrles.
The beginnirr Of the trouble was
hack, far back, for Mr. Bryan. it
appears has never been able to