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Show PARKER THE POLITICAL EXPERT. (Alfred Henry Lewis in the Saturday Evening ' Post.) I know a policeman who, south of Fourteenth street, is a Demoorat and a Catholic, and who, north of that thoroughfare, is a Republican and a Protestant. He follows closely the rule for success suc-cess iaid down by Machiavelli, and matches his religion and mates with his times. And yet that supple officer in blue but expresses in exaggeration exaggera-tion what is a commonest trait of humanity. Whether we deal with man or woman, whether it be an occasion of business, or politics, or love, we go reaching for agreement, fishing for consent, and as a readiest method we seem in look, ana word, and sentiment, and sort whatever the taste or fancy of him or her at whose indorsement we are aiming will most thoroughly approve and most quickly accept. And this is as true of humanity when it asks to be your President as when it asks to be your cook. From the beginning Judge Parker attracted attention at-tention as a politician rather than a lawyer. Politically, Po-litically, he began as a manager and not as a candidate. can-didate. He conducted a campaign, while yet the new down of a first beard was on his face, for Judge Schoonmaker, in whose ofllce he had studied stud-ied law. He succeeded; and then, on its occuring to him that if he could win for Judge Shoonmaker he couid win for himself, he personally sought the post of surrogate. He was elected, and he c the ofllce for years. Politics in New York is hard and ironboundi it is without sentiment, and has no principle save the principle of success. This is as true of country coun-try as of town, as true of the cornfields as of Tammany Hall. Victory is the only virtue, defeat the only crime in New York. Judge Parker knew these things; he saw no visitors, courted no dreams, lapsed into no trances. Patiently, practically, prac-tically, he added one man to another, and the two to somebody else, until the result of his additions was the control of the county of Ulster. Judge Parker's steady successes, and the unsentimental un-sentimental consistency of the means by which they were achieved, attracted in 1885 the notice of Mr. Hill, about to make his first canvass for the Governorship. Mr. Hill asked Judge Parker to assume the practical management of his campaign. cam-paign. Mr. Hill desired to be Governor; it was Judge Parker's duty to go forth as a reaper of politics and gather those majorities which should nfake for the end in view. Judge Parker, then in his thirtythird year, became the political manager of Mr. Hill. When the polls closed he had elected his man. In 1885 I was in the Texas Panhandle, which is a far cry from New York. I knew little of New York, and less of Mr. Hill, and must leavo it to older and better posted minds to say just how much honesty, and elevation, and patriotism, and high principle Mr. Hill at that time desired or demanded in the management of his political interests. in-terests. Whatever the measurements of those demands, de-mands, both for quantity and quality,'they would seem to have been fulfilled by Judge Parker, whom Mr. Hill, when Governor, rewarded with an early appointment to the Supreme Bench. That was eighteen years ago. Speaking generally, and skipping skip-ping deails, Judge Parker has occupied the Supreme Su-preme or the Court of Appeals Bench ever since. There you have an outline of Judge Parker's record, and you are to make your own deductions therefrom as to his kind and character of man. To win those fights for Judge Shoonmaker Shoon-maker and for himself and for Mr. Hill meant sleeplessness and incessant toil, and Judge Parker must have furnished them. Also, to win those fights would preclude the 'impression of any extreme ex-treme refinement of patriotism. One would as well look for refinement In soap-boiling or delicacy In a slaughter-house as in the practical management manage-ment of party in New York. More, Mr. Hill has never ben a transcendentalist in politics; never tslked or written of the oversoul when seeking ofllce. Somewhere above I submitted some probable callousness of patriotism, some dimness of a public pub-lic ideal, on the side of one who could catch and match the political approval of Mr. Hill. It might likewise be surmised that he who sat tongueless throughout the Judge Maynard scandal, and whose voice was not raised in condemnation when the snap convention stole the state from Mr. Cleveland, must have been gifted of a political honesty that was capable of strong self-restraint. On those occasions of burning shame a brave man and a statesman would have been heard. By the same token a prudent man, and a politician who bore himself and his own personal fortunes exces- sively upon his slope of thought, might have abode H as moveless and as mute as any image. Aside from a man's record one may best dis- 1 cover nis kind and his attributes and this I said jH before by discovering the company he keeps. To lH me, at least, those Sheehans and McDonalds and ' O'Briens who belt Judge Parker round, and upon whom he throws himself in confidence, prove mar- volously discouraging. And that they are there M demonstrates that while Judge Parker may be lH wise as a politician in the straitened definition of Jl mere New York, he is dull to desperation in that broader, deeper insight of politics required when H one traffics with the nation. He may know the 'M New York man, as his triumph for himself and M Mr. Hill in 1885 would go far to prove. On the lH other hand, the present comings and goings of the ll Sheehans and the McDonalds and the O'Briens display beyond distrust that he does not " know the man beyond Now York. |