New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-11-07
After Twenty Years

1
| Wyck Tammany Hall has pandered to
decency in the choice of its candidates,
alike in the case of Shepard, of McClel
Ian and of Gaynor. Even in naming Judge
Mccall it went to the bench, seeking at
least the color and semblance of respecta-
bility. 1t was not until this year that
Fourteenth Street felt the memories OF
the shame and scandal Of Van Wyck, the
noisome recollections Of the last straight"
Tammany Hall administration, were SUI
ficiently obliterated to make it safe to
choose one of its own.
In the present campaign Tammany
Hall at last decided to abandon all re-
straint. 1t gambled on the forgetfulness,
the laziness, the bad citizenship Of a
majority of the people of the City of New
York. 1t went down into its midst and
produced out of obscurity a candidate
whose every utterance since the campaign
began demonstrated that he belonged to
Mr. Murphys order Of politics.
Ever since Van Wyck was driven out Of
office and into exile the people of the City
of New York have had good government in
increasing measure. One by one the
sources of corruption and scandal have
dried up. Each administration has been
better than the preceding, and Mayor
Mitchels has been the best in the history
of this town.
Such being the case, no man should
mistake what has now happened. Having
TO choose between light and darkness, the
people of the City of New York have de-
liberately chosen darkness. Having to
choose between a non-partisan administra-
ton and a Tammany Hall administration,
they have deliberately and shamelessly
elected to 90 back to Tammany Hall. They
have made Charles F. Murphy political
master of the greatest city of the Western
Hemisphere, and they have restored that
older order from which the city escaped
with so much difficulty and so much effort
half a generation ago.
Volumes would not express more clearly
/ the truth than the simple statement that
the political organization whose name has
/ become a byword not alone in America,
/ but in Europe, whose title is an epithet
of abuse all over the civilized world, has
been permitted again to lay unclean hands
upon the power and the control of this
town.
| Mr.. Mitchell can endure mis- present de-
feat. He has done his duty, and his ad-
ministraton at no distant date will become
q memory to taunt those who yesterday re-
jected him and elected Judge Hylan. 1t is
the people of this city who have cause for
regret. For four years Charles f. Murphy
and William Randolph Hearst, collectively
or severally, will control the man who was
elected yesterday as Mayor of this town.
For four years the seat of government of
this town will be in Fourteenth Street, and
not in City Hall Park. For four years
the word Of the organization will be law
in every city department. This is what
the people Of the City of New York have
chosen, and this is what they deserve.
Perhaps the greatest regret amidst all
that Is to be regretted is the fact that
when at last Tammany Hall was at the
point of disintegration, when years of
exile from power had brought a corrupt
and shameless organization to the edge
Of ruin, the chance to deliver the final blow
was lost, and once more, as so often in the
past, the people of this town forgot when
TO remember was to destroy Tammany.
One has to believe deeply in democracy
not to find in disappointments like yester-
days cause for permanent distrust A
campaign Of Misrepresentation, appealing
10 passion and holding out covert invita-.
ton to disloyalty, has succeeded in the
face Of the most transparent truth and
the most inescapable fact. New York has
, shamed itself and tie country at a time
when the eyes Of the country and of the
world were fixed upon this city. In 1917
as in 186l-New York City has shown
itself lacking in national patriotism and
local self-respect. Conceivably, it has
, failed on the side Of patriotism through a
lack of understanding Of the issue, but on