Bloomberg’s Welcome
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Mayor Bloomberg struck the right tone and spoke for many of us here yesterday when he welcomed the Republican delegates to New York City. We were particularly struck by his comments on New York Republicans. “It was New York’s delegation to the Republican National Convention that moved to make Abraham Lincoln’s nomination for the presidency of the United States unanimous. I’m proud to say that, framed on a wall of my home, is the flag those New York Republicans carried during that convention. It’s a constant reminder to me of the proud role New York played at a pivotal moment in our nation’s history,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
Regular readers of these columns will be aware that we’ve had our innings with Mr. Bloomberg. But he – and the other nationally prominent local Republicans who will address the convention, Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani – are onto something in reaching back into the history of the party in the city and state that not only gave a leg up to Lincoln but also produced Theodore Roosevelt. And it was in New York, Mr. Bloomberg made a point to mention, where another Republican, Jackie Robinson, “erased the color barrier in our national pastime with his bat and glove and gallant spirit.” The mayor noted that “a monument to this trailblazer is under construction in Brooklyn to remind us all: America is for everyone.”
A New York editor who worked for Lincoln during the war, Charles A. Dana, returned to edit The New York Sun from 1868 until his death on October 17, 1897. It was his tradition of anti-racist, low-tax Republicanism and quality journalism that was one of the things that attracted your current editors to pick up the banner of The New York Sun when we launched this broadsheet in April of 2002.So we appreciated Mr. Bloomberg’s mention of New York’s long Republican tradition. And we note that back in the Civil War, too – just as in the present one – there were New Yorkers who opposed the war and rioted against the draft that marshalled the Grand Army of the Republic. But the cause of freedom triumphed in the end. It is satisfying to see and hear a New York mayor fanning the embers of idealism that inspired the GOP of an earlier era.
