Show I BILLS CANDIDACY 0 I A Slag Editorial on H by i Watterson I WHY HE CANNOT BE THE OMINEE TH OMlEE Suspicions of Him as Causing Clevelands 7 DefeatNot in Sympathy With the Tax Reform Movement Special t THE HERALD Examiner BlspatchJ LOUISVILLE July 15Henry Watterson has a slashing editorial in the Courier Journal Jour-nal It is headed Governor Hill and the Presidency and is as follows In the Now York World0 Washington letter of recent date we find the following Said a politician of experience here today after reading Henry Wattersbns suggestions about the next Democratic national ticket I am afraid Watterson is losing the finer quality of his political sense He omitted the name of Governor Hill altogether One would suppose he did not consider the governor big enough even for Vice Preal dent That of course was because Hill gave him a dressing down foe writing a certain impertinent letter we heard so much about last year Wattersons personal dislike of Governor Hill may bo justifiably very strong but it should not have con trolled him when writing for the public about a situation in which ho know Governor Gov-ernor Hill to be an important factor The truth is that should Hill be the Democratic nominee next year his vote in Kentucky would be as large as ever polled there by any Democrat The fact that Watterson was reproved by him and disliked him would not cut the slightest figure and probably under such circumstances Watter son would not care to have it cut any liguro antagonistic to the nominee of his party All of which is very childish though it Is of a piece with the average job lot of newspaper news-paper comment of tne dog days and 13 reprinted re-printed for the purpose ot illustration and example The editor of the Journal has net the smallest personal dislike of Governor HilL If the governor and his friends are satisfied with the episode referred to assuredly Mr Watterson has no desire to disturb their equanimity In the meantime however he does not regard the governor as a probable prob-able perhaps not oven a possible Democratic Demo-cratic nominee for President in 1SU3 and for the following reasons 1 There is a feeling among Democrats far and wide that Mr Cleveland lost New York in the last election on account of some deal or dicker with which they conned con-ned Governor Hill and although this does the governor an injustice it leave in the minds and hearts of Democrats entertaining in the belief that as Mr Cleveland fairly earned and won a reelection and was cheated out of it he ought again to be entrusted en-trusted with the leadership This amounts to a deep and widespread conviction It may bo met and satisfied by the assurance that New York cannot be carried for Mr Cleveland In that event it would turn regretfully to some other nominee but scarcely to Governor Hill In the person of the governor it would bo an implacable enemy of its wishes indeed the one man who had thwarted and disappointed those wishes and it could not be brought to consent that this man of all others should enjoy the usufruct of an act deemed by it both selfish sel-fish and unpatriotic In ISiU the party relinquished re-linquished Samuel J Tilden but it did not rally to John Kelly The cases now and then are of course no parallel and yet there is likeness enough to make the one serve to point the moral of the other 2It is known Governor Hill has not been in sympathy with the great Demo crqtic movement for tax reform Where he stands now that the issue has been universally uni-versally accepted by the Democrats and made clear is still a matter of conjecture but during the long nights of travail when the party was struggling to get itself together to-gether and when internal forces were at work to divert it from the true course and divide it Governor Hill was understood to be the enemy of progress and the friend of obstruction No man can lead us next year who is not sound to the core and onlichtened and equipped from top to toe upon that great paramount issue in American politics Governor Hill is certainly a factor in the affair and will undoubtedly bo felt in the next Democratic nominating convention But it will bo primarily on the side of destruction de-struction not of original creation at most and at the worst all that he can hope to do will be to defeat Cleveland perhaps to so shape the course of events as to make the attitude of New York under his hand and breath decisive in the final result Such a position cannot in the nature of the case be very wrong honoring or attractive and must inevitably leave the governor in the unpleasing role of a managing politician cold unfeeling revengeful and narrow unequal to the requirements of the hour or inspirations of his party and the people merely a selfish shortsighted man incapable incap-able of sacrifice or generous impulse or large conception of any sort For these reasons and others that might be given we do not regard Governor Hill as a likelihood likeli-hood He lost his surest and richest stake in the future when ha preferred the part of a Walpole to that of a Warwick Schemeing politicians however successful success-ful are favorites nowhere lease of all in America The people like to see how it la done they hanker after light they take to that which is open and above board For his own fame Governor Hill has been too accretive for his popularity too successful success-ful We would do him no wrong but to gain in public opinion what his gain in power has denied him he must show himself him-self a better man than the country thus far believes him to be In saying these things plainly we do not propose to express an individual opinion on the subject and still less to be uncivil or unjust to Governor Gov-ernor Hill He knows almost as little of national politics and the public men of the country as Mr Cleveland did when he came to the presidency But Governor Hill is said to be a ready and a bright man and may be expected to learn and broaden as he learns In that event the time will come may it not como to him too lato when he will realize the force of all we have said and understand that in giving him disinterested disinter-ested abliet unpalatable counsel we were acting the part of a friend and not of an enemy |