The Railroad Contractor Who Thought He Could Boss the Republican Party

Senator L. F. Thompson, of Pierce, has written a letter to the Republicans of that county which appeared in yesterday's Ledger. The senator deplores the recalcitrant attitude of Mr. Bennett's paper, and urges the party in that county to stand by the work of the convention, whose results were favorably and honorably won, and to indorse the action of the Republicans in November. The senator says: The nomination of Hon. John H. McGraw was fairly won.

Now that we have secretary of state and member of congress may Pierce county be satisfied, and come forward like men who were fairly beaten on the canal and help elect the state and national ticket. Hon. John H. McGraw is without doubt one of the best organizers in the state, and will in my judgment make an able governor, and will be an honor to the grand old party, and discharge his duties faithfully and honestly. I wish to impress it upon the minds of all loyal Republicans to stand by the action of the convention, and your ballots for your state candidates.

This advice is sound to the core. It is upright, manly, direct and fair. If the Republicans of Pierce county will take counsel of such loyal sentiments and good politics, and now that a clean, strong ticket has been named, will come up to its support as one man, they will be doing a service not only to their party, but be furthering their own interests as well.

As Senator Thompson says, the fight was fairly won. There was not one feature that could reflect upon the integrity and sincerity of the convention as a whole. Pierce county has nothing to gain by fighting the ticket, and much to lose. Antagonism, dissensions and Republican defeat are not going to help Pierce county, but such result would turn against that county, and Tacoma especially, an overwhelming majority of the Republicans of this state. If the kickers imagine that King county is arrayed against them, what could they expect if, through their desertion, the state should by any possibility be thrown into the Democratic column? What would Mr. Bennett and his friends expect from the Republican party?

The Olympian has every confidence in the Republican majority in this state, as it has every faith in the men who were nominated by its representatives fairly and squarely in this city last week; and it cannot believe that the personal warfare that is now being waged against its work in that county will gain momentum or seriously imperil its prospects.

The Ledger is governed by jealousy and pique. It is not a Republican paper any further than the ambition and wishes of Mr. Nelson Bennett may lead it. Its open hostility to the ticket must be accepted as positive proof that it is a personal organ, conducted for the purpose of recording the opinions and encouraging the ambitions of one man.

This is a late day for any boss to imagine that he is greater than his party; that his will can turn aside and thwart the recorded wish of an organized and intelligent majority, or that the public is so great a fool that he can long deceive it by fighting his own private battles on the public campus.

Mr. Bennett is a man of wealth who has bored a big hole through the Cascade mountains, but he has apparently yet to learn that successful politics and successful engineering are widely different pursuits.