Moderate Republicans v. "Reckless" Republicans

I am reading more than usual these days. One reason: several gifts of fine books that kind friends gave me for my birthday earlier this month. One observation I read today caught my attention:

Republicans who have been Republicans all their lives are up in arms [over] the most reckless lawmaking body that ever sat at Albany. It was the first in the history of the United States, to my knowledge, that ever went so far as to attempt to bridle the press. True, the Anti-Cartoon bill was defeated by the Assembly, but the mere fact that such an infamous measure should have been seriously put forward in the name of the Republican State organization and passed by the Republican Senate was enough to damn the legislature for all time.

You may not have heard of an Anti-Cartoon bill, other than in certain countries with large Islamic populations. I should fess up that the comment above was made in an interview on April 29, 1897 with New York City Republican John E. Milholland in The New-York Journal. Milholland was the father of suffragette Inez Milholland, and during the last 15 years of his life was one of a minority of faithful Lincoln Republicans.

But an Anti-Cartoon bill is not stranger than some anti-environmental and anti-women statements in the GOP primary. Moderate Republicans such as William Ruckelshaus, the first federal EPA Administrator, are on record as saying they don't recognize the GOP of today and have endorsed Democrats.