Press enter after choosing selection

Judson As Bliss Manager

Judson As Bliss Manager image
Parent Issue
Day
5
Month
September
Year
1902
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

How the Washtenaw Republicans Like It

 

AS SEEN BY AN OUTSIDER

 

Fitzgibbon, of the Detroit Evening News, Writes Up a Visit to Ann Arbor

 

John Fitzgibbon, the Detroit Evening News correspondent, sends his judgment of republican politics gained while visiting Ann Arbor to his paper as follows:

 

Ann Arbor, Mich., Sept. 2.- Silent Bill Judson is accounted the busiest politician in Washtenaw county these days. He is the most profitable long distance talking customer of the telephone company. His mail is big. But. as usual, Bill isn't talking. and the most the republican boxers, who seem to be as earnest as ever in their efforts to undo him, presume to tell, is a general story that he has taken on himself the duty of re-electing Bliss, by whose grace he holds the job of state oil inspector, and also of delivering a few dozen votes in the next legislature to Gen. Alger for senator. There are a lot of republicans hereabouts who get sarcastic whenever they talk about Bill.

 

However, there is no sarcasm in their talk when they say that Bill is the man that Gov. Bliss has selected to direct the campaign for his re-election. They mean it. Aside from the tact that Bill has been elected chairman of the executive committee of the state central committee, and that it is usual for the chairman of the executive committee to direct the practical field work of the campaign, they haven't any evidence as to what the contract relations are between him and the governor. But boxer talk is that of men morally certain that Bill will be the paymaster of the campaign and that he calculates that if he lands his patron winner at the polls on election day by a good majority he will have added enough to his reputation to warrant him in extending to other districts of the state the boss rule that he has exercised in Washtenaw. In a word, they think he is planning to expand himself from a district boss to a state boss.

 

THE ANTIS MEAN BUSINESS.

The boxers, however- or the anti-Judsonites, as they call themselves- don't propose to be passive while Bill is manipulating things to expand himself. Two years ago when they polled some 1,300 votes in the county for the stump republican ticket, thereby defeating the Judson republican county ticket and bringing about the election of democratic county officers, they supported Bliss and the rest of the state ticket. They had no fight on Bliss then. They haven't now, in one sense, it would appear, except that in a general way they believe that as a governor he has been a mighty poor stick. The spectacle of Bill in the saddle as the generalissimo of Bliss with presumably unlimited powers and munitions has the same effect on them that a red rag has on a bull. You have to mingle with the boxers to understand the intensity of their feelings towards Bill. Hate and all of its synonyms are needed to express it. Accordingly there is a strong disposition among them, if their talk is an indication of what they are going to do, to vote for Judge Durand so as to pile up as large a majority for him in the county as possible with a view of demonstrating to the rest of the state how unpopular Bliss' manager is among the people in his home community. Then, too, the very thought that Gov. Bliss would select Bill for his manager is almost enough to turn them against the governor's selection.

 

REPS. BETTING ON DURAND.

The two matters combined- the governor's apparent subserviency to persons who would use him to promote their own interests, and Bill's appointment as manager - have put them in a frame of mind which accounts for talk, not by democrats, but by the boxers themselves, that Washtenaw is likely to give Durand a larger majority than any other county in Michigan. In fact bets are already being made. Ex-State Senator Ward is stakeholder for one bet that Judge Durand's majority in the county will be nearer 2,500 than 1.500.

 

This fight within the party explains why there isn't any contest worth mentioning for places on the republican county ticket, which will be selected at Gen. Fred Green's primary election on Sept. 22. Green has for a long time been Bill's county chairman and when several weeks ago, he proposed they select county officers at informal primaries, according to the McLeod plan in Detroit, Bill affected to be skeptical and it was rumored that there was a break between him and Green. There wasn't though. The boxers say that the scheme was really Bill's and that his purpose is to try and create an impression that he isn't going to dictate county nominations. He shifted the credit to Gen. Fred so he could continue playing the role, "I've graduated from county politics."

 

NO FAITH IN JUDSON'S PROMISES.

Emphatic professions by Judson and his close friends that he will do the fair thing by the boxers if they will only quit and be good don't go with them even a little bit. While the loudest of them will say that Bill's promise in business matters is as good as his money any day, the only way to get a square deal In republican politics in the county is to kill him politically.