As to Hearst.
The case against Plutocracy gained an advance upon the Docket by the New York gubernatorial contest, but, unless I am much mistaken, two national figures came out of it with mud on their boots.
One of these is W. R. Hearst.
The other is W. J. Bryan.
When Max Ihmsen advised Mr. Hearst to come to terms with Murphy, the striped Tammany Boss, he disgusted thousands of sincere Hearstites, not only in New York but throughout the Union.
The deal was too bad.
It took Hearst out of the class of Reformers and put him into that of self-seeking Politicians.
It created in the minds of his disinterested friends the suspicion that he posed as a Reformer to serve the purpose of a personal ambition.
***
Boss Murphy is a rich specimen of the Boss—the man who is in politics for Money, who cares nothing for Principle, who has no conception of Duty, who would not understand what you meant if you talked to him about Moral Obligation, who amasses wealth by screening from adverse legislation the rascals that rob the Public under corporate names, who makes it possible for invaluable public franchises to be stolen with impunity, and who renders it easy for the robbers that grabbed the property to use it to oppress and exploit the people from whom it was stolen.
I know that Murphy is the worst representative of that class of Bosses because the Hearst newspapers told me so.
I know that he has used his power, as Tammany Chief, to protect such robbers of the Public as Belmont, Morgan, Rogers and Ryan, because Mr. Hearst has told me so with “damnable iteration” and convincing emphasis these many years.
At the breakfast table, he reminded me of it in his morning paper, The American.
At the supper table, he recalled the fact to my memory in his evening paper, The Journal.
In fact, he gave me no chance to forget it.
Murphy, a protector of Crime, Murphy, a tool of the Plunderbund; Murphy, the stuffer of ballot-boxes; Murphy, the ally of Murderers and thieves; Murphy, the inciter to assassination; Murphy, who robbed New York in the interest of Ryan and Belmont; Murphy, who ought to be in the Penitentiary garbed in convict stripes—THIS Murphy became so familiar to me in the Hearst newspapers that I would have felt the loss of something habitual, and therefore necessary, had my friend Hearst ceased to grind the coffee-mill.
DREAMING OF 1908.
Yet Max Ihmsen deliberately planned a coalition between denouncer and denounced, between the Angel of Reform and the Devil of Plutocracy, between the Champion of the “Common People” and the hireling of the Plunderbund, between the man who cried “Stop thief” and the rogue who was making off with the stolen goods.
It was too bad.
It shocked the Sense of Right of ten thousands of enthusiastic Hearstites who had believed in him as an honest leader. * * *
See the Consequences of this foul and fatal deal:
First—the loss of that most valuable asset, the real reformers of The Independence League;
Second—the revulsion of feeling among disinterested Democrats and Republicans who were supporting Hearst on principle;
Third—the calling back to robust life of the almost defunct Boss, Murphy;
Fourth—the complete rehabilitation of Tammany;
Fifth—the surrender to the Plunderbund of the State Supreme Court for fourteen years;
Sixth—the restoration to his place of power and hurtfulness of Thomas Grady, the most debauched legislative corruptionist in America.
I know that Grady is that kind of man, because the Hearst papers have assured me of it so often that no doubt upon the subject disturbs the absolute serenity of my fixed opinion.
***
As these net results of the New York election loom up clearly above the dust and noise of the conflict, it is natural that Mr. Hearst will be seen to have dimmed his halo very considerably; and the fact that Murphy, after securing to himself and his gang all the benefits of the coalition, turned upon Hearst at the last moment and put the knife into him, will cause no tears ANYWHERE.
That’s just what Hearst ought to have known would happen—for he had said things about Murphy which no man, born of woman, could possibly forgive.
***
But Bryan put a shadow upon his radiance, also.
He swallowed the Hearst programme all the way through—from soup and fish to cheese and coffee. His stomach balked at nothing. The ousting of Democratic delegations which had been elected to the Buffalo Convention; the packing of that Convention with delegations which had not been elected; the throw down of The Independence League; the guillotining of the Independent candidates; the repudiation of the honest labor-champion, Thomas Rock, and the endorsement of the Plunderbund corruptionist, Thomas Grady; the fix-up of the Judiciary ticket in which three Judges were allotted to Hearst while Murphy calmly pocketed seven—Bryan’s gorge rose at none of these things. One and all, they slid down his gullet like rain-water down a tin valley.
Just think if it!
In 1904, Bryan was making 60 speeches a day for Parker—Judge Alton B. Parker—whom he described as “the Moses of Democracy.”
In 1906, he was writing, telegraphing, telephoning and so forth for W. R. Hearst, the exact CONTRAST to Parker.
Heavens, what a leap!
From Parker to Hearst—from Greenland’s icy mountains to India’s coral strand.
Never saw such a jump before in my life.
And Bryan is going to find that it will require considerable dexterity to fit his crown on straight, after that trouser-splitting leap.
Hearst has not changed in principle; Parker has not changed in principle; yet within two short years Mr. Bryan has advocated EACH OF THEM with equal fervor.
Quit playing Politician, William, or you will do yourself irreparable injury.
Fly your flag as Reformer and hold your sword straight before you.
Don’t again call such a man as Parker “the Moses of Democracy.”
Don’t endorse Hearst, when he is WRONG!
Condemn the wrong, and thus encourage Hearst to mend his ways, to retire Max Ihmsen, and THUS MAKE his powerful newspapers, more useful, more effective in the grand cause of Reform.