The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-10-29
Selt-Government Failure in New York
City.

government of New York which has attracted
very general attention. People had generally
come to entertain the opinion, we presume,
that the city of New York was very badly
governed; but we doubt whether there are
many even of her own citizens who will not
recoil alarmed and astounded at the terrible
picture which Mr.. Parton has so graphically
drawn.
We learn from this article that the affairs
of that great city have fallen completely into
the hands of the low, the ignorant, the vile,
and the abandoned. Her Councilmen, as a
rule, are lliterate, inexperienced, irresponsible
politicians, from the pot-houses and grog-
geries-men whom no good business man
or prudent corporation would trust with the
management of the most ordinary affairs.
Peculation, fraud, and downright theft are
not the exception, but the rule. The city
officials, as Mr.. Parton says, do nothing but
steal. BE describes many of the open and
barefaced ways in which the city is plundered
of thousands and tens of thousands of dollars
every year. Corruption reigns supreme. Even
the positions of schookteachers in the public
schools are sold, so that many poor girl
whose salary as teacher is only $500 year,
is obliged to pay fifty or seventy-fve dollars
Of that sum to get employed. The expenses
OF the city have increased out of all ratio to
the increase of the population, until the
aggregate tax budget is now some forty mil
lions year, or forty dollars to each in
habitant. Rascality has become chronic and
unblushing, so that every man who has any
ooffn nxuffI, osAx
as a taxpayer or private citizen, expects to
steal himself rich from it.
The causes of this condition of things
are discussed in the article in question at
some length. First and foremost is the char
acter OF the population itself. New York is
the great rendezvous of emigration from all
the nations OF the earth. The better portions
of this great influx OF foreign material float
on to other cities and to the countryside
sediment remains there. Seven-t weltths of
her voters are of foreign birth, and while her
total number of voters is something over one
hundred thousand, only about one in seven of
them are real property-holders. In brief her
affairs have fallen into the control of the ele-
ments of vice, ignorance, and anarchy, and
there seems to be no way of getting them
out. The rOgues and the villains, the thieves
and the robbers, the law-brea kers and the
public plunderers control more votes than the
honest people do. They have seized the
reins, and are driving the community to de-
structi0n at most fearful rate. Ordinary
protection to life and property are as yet
secured solely by depriving the city of the
connrol of its police, and conflding their ap-
pontmens and management to the authorities
of the State. But new long this barrier will
last no one can tell, for every year the
immense city majorities threaten to over
whelm the rest of the State.
MIR. Parton's proposed remedy for this real
social anarchy, though as yet under the forms
of law, is nothing less than restriction of
the right OF suffrage on the part of all future
citizens to those who can read, and the
imposition OF poll-tax on every voter of a
certainper centage of the annual levy tor
taxes.
We do not care, at the present time, to dis
cuss these proposed remedial measures.
What we wish to do is to call the attention
OF our leaders to the palpable and startling
aace that, in the largest and most wealthy
city of our country, the system of selfgov-
ernment has broken down before our eyes.
1t is a conceded failure, We have here the
demonstration that our republican system
cannot be maintained in connection with the
general Generalization of the community.
Ignorance, vice, and crime cannot govern
themselves. New York city has larger
population, and far more wealth. than
most of our States. Let anv one of
them fall into the same condition of
degradation, as to the masses of its peo-
pie, as prevails i'll New York. and
similar loss of the capacity Of self-governmant
would inevitably follow. Sel. government
assumes, as an essential condition oi1s exist-
ence, the general enlightenment and O..ne
of the people. If this condition cannot be
maintained, the experiment must prove a
failure. And in this connection the moral
condition of our cities becomes subject of
great interest. They exercise a powerful
influence upon the States of which they form
q part, and all our more populous States have
now each some great city. New York has
New York; Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Massachusetts, Boston; Maryland, Balti-
more; Ohio, Cincinnati; Illinois, Chicago;
Missouri, st. Louis; Louisiana, New Orleans
and California, San Francisco. If all these
great cities shall follow the downward career
Of New York, what win become of the
countrys 5,rtT - ya
Our system OF government Is, as yet, but an