Politics; State Convention soon; Brookfield will be in middle of it

Some Points of Interest

The Republican state convention will be held at Saratoga next month. It will place in nomination candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and judge of the court of appeals. There will be some little trouble there, with Mr. William Brookfield right in the middle of it. Mr. Brookfield is lofty and sour with those who love him not; to others sweet as summer. His devotion to Mr. Platt is not passionate. He is as sure to go to Saratoga as Saratoga is to remain where it is. A brief not remarkable for brevity has already been presented to the state committee; that is to say Mr. Brookfield has shown his hand. He has found out why Mr. Platt is invincible in the metropolis. He outvotes his foes at the primaries across the river with the aid of dead men, women, convicts and "Democrats or members of Tammany hall." No explanation of the distinction between Democrats and members of Tammany hall is offered, but that will not wring Tammany's withers with much severity. Mr. Brookfield is prepared, he declares, to show that in the absence of prompt and radical action the coming primaries of the regular organization in New York will be among the most fraudulent ever held. The inference is that, fraud being impossible, Mr. Platt will go down and Mr. Brookfield go up.

Another point of interest is the fact that no possibility of a second term confronts the governor. This virtually means that New York will say to Levi P. Morton: Never more be officer of mine. The governor had hoped for better things. He can be praised as well as blamed. Though words are no deeds it is kind of good deed to say well. We have had worse executives and better. There is something more than a suspicion that Mr. Morton is not entirely satisfied with what has come to pass. There is a yawning gulf between where he is and where presumably he thinks he might have been. On the other side of the gulf William McKinley stands. There is also something more than a suspicion that the winter of the governor's discontent is cold for Platt. Mr. Platt has many sins to answer for but he had no knife in his sleeve for Morton. He was neither lukewarm, treacherous nor clumsy at St. Louis. His possibilities there were limited and he fell little short of them, if any. Little that could be done for Morton there remained undone that Mr. Platt could do. The truth of the matter is that the Republican leader might have gone not quite so far and still have gone far enough. He said of McKinley, in his zeal for Morton, that which he probably now wishes were stricken from the record.

Truth loves open dueling. For Morton's showing at St. Louis, Morton is responsible. If that in truth be not the truth, in truth there is no truth. The governor was manifestly fashioned to much honor from his cradle. The state could get along very well with many duplications of his admirable type. At not much that he has done can discerners wag their tongues in censure. His gauge is broad, his grasp vigorous and his purposes have been other than unworthy. He is a man of many and no superfluous inches, but he was not a commanding figure at St. Louis. He might have been taller and yet have been too short. With his own size he had infinitely more to do than anybody else, the Potent Mr. Platt to the contrary, notwithstanding. His honored name is written on many pages of the history of a great state, but some of the characters are in diluted ink. There were times when he was accommodating, when virility found a substitute in vacillation, when feebleness took the place that rightfully belonged to force. Morton's nomination for first place at St. Louis was never among the possibilities. Nothing that he could have done at Albany or elsewhere could have carried him across the yawning gulf, but he might have been a much more formidable factor at St. Louis than he turned out to be and that he was not was the fault of Mr. Platt to no extent whatever. The governor was ambitious and not as stern as the stuff of which ambition should be made. He played for big stakes and lost them. He was too ready to conciliate, propitiate and cultivate. We may outrun by violent swiftness things we run at and lose by overrunning.

The state convention will not be held for several weeks yet, but some things are already settled: Neither consolidation nor the excise question will have anything to do with the choice of a candidate for governor. For this information we are indebted to Hamilton Fish, who is gracious enough to notify us that he will have sixty Brooklyn votes in that convention, that nearly all state committeemen from Kings will support him and that he is more than likely to hold what Mr. Morton will surrender. He adds that everything looks encouraging and that he never felt so hopeful in his life. In other words Fish is getting along swimmingly. The state is obviously angling him with a gubernatorial bait it expects to land him. Perhaps it might go further and fare worse. He is manifestly a man of power. With one sentence he complacently carries consolidation out of court and with another he dexterously extracts the rattles of the Raines bill snake. With yet another he takes political possession of the very considerable County of Kings. These are real achievements, if there is nothing fishy about them. They will save us much trouble. There is so much the less to bother about. Now that excise, consolidation and Kings have been more or less calmly disposed of we shall have time to think of other things and our gratitude to Mr. Fish would be proportionate.

It is gratuitous to suggest that Brooklyn has some claims to consideration at the hands of the Republican state convention? We have fishes of our own to fry. What is, for instance, the matter with Mr. Wurster? He is clamoring for nothing, but then ha happens to be modest, and modesty should be permitted to stand in no man's way. He has already entered something in the nature of a protest. Those who have approached him on the subject have been reminded that he was elected Mayor of Brooklyn. It is proper in the mayor's behalf to say that this reminder was intended as a reminder pure and simple, and not as a rebuke. His honor took no offense at the gubernatorial suggestion, which clearly proves a certain and not ungratifying amiability of disposition. Approachable he is, but unmindful of the claims of Brooklyn he is not. He is under a sort of contract to serve as mayor for about a year and a half longer. All his domestic and nearly all his political ties are here. Albany is a long way off and contracts are contracts. Brooklyn has its own interests to look after. They come first; it is time enough to think of the state when they have been thoroughly subserved. Not willingly would the Eagle stand in the mayor's way nor would it unthinkingly and inconsiderately call upon him for too great a sacrifice. A call from the state, however, means something. Could we be persuaded to most willingly give what most willingly we'd keep?