New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1868-06-05


in the present and in the future, shall not be
defeated. The apology of The World may well
confirm our intelligent tax payers in their regrets
that the Governor has been compelled to sign
a City Levy where items the most shameful in
their extravaganza, and amounting to more than
twenty millions, are followed by a clause en-
powering the Controller to add unnumbered
millions to our next years taxes. 1t is whispered
there are certain Republicans who haveas strong
q personal interest as some Democrats in in
ducing the Governor to leave to the people of
our city this large legacy of debt-one that
would recall him to the memory of our bur-
dened payers for long years to come and
The Herald, in a recent article on the subject
of the city levies, took this phlosophic view of
the subject, which is far more to the point
than the feeble reasoning of The World:
The expenses of the Government have increased
enormously for the past five or six years but the people,
they not anxious for change and that they care
nothing about economy. From the m9orities of last
November and December IT is evident that they rather
like beng robbed on magnificent scale"
That is the theory and the only theory on
which the infamies of the Tax Levies passed
by the late Legislature can be justified and
maintained. And even if the immense foreign
fact that they pay no direct taxes themselves,
or that they do not realize that they do pay
them indirectly in high rents and the Increased
cost Of the necessaries of life, are indifferent
TO the reckless extravaganza and wholesale
plunder perpetrated by Democratic officials,
and are ready to reflect them by increased
maiorities. is that a reason why the taxpayers,
from whose property and earnings are wrenched
tbe growing millions that enrich the plum
derers, should not be protected by the Gov
ernOr of the State cOnstitutionally empowered
| for that purposes The unconstitutionality Is
palpable both in letter and in spirit OF the
clause in Section 10, depriving the people OF
| this city of all protection from the Courts ana
| constituting the Controller the sole arblter be-
| tween them and the hungry crowd bringing
claims against the city, combining III hiS per-
son all the powers of judge and jury, to decide
the law. determine the facts, award the
amounts. and instanter to borrow money, issue
bonds. and pay the claimant fixing it as a
debt upon the taxpayers without possibility
of redress.
No matter how fraudulent the claim, nor
how much of collision there may have been
in its adjustment" the taxpayers are without
|
dent in The World, instead of attempting to
Justify or extenuate the excessive wickedness
of such an act to rely simply on the fact re-
ferred TO by The TRIBUNE, that similar pro-
vision had seven years ago been adopted
giving the like powers to Controller Halves,
Whatever extenuatng circumstances any one
| NAV find i'm the fact that entire confidence was
felt in Mr. Hawess integrity, and that he was
surrounded by city officials not affiliated with
himself in politics, we pronounce the provision
utterly wrong, and we do not hold that two
wrongs make a right.
Whether the devotion of the present Con-
troller to the rights and interests of the tax
payers is so singularly stern as to justify Gov
| Fenton in placing them completely at his mercy
in violation of all constitutional guarantees Is
a question which we care not to discuss, and
those who do may find in his City and County
Budgets for 1868 matter for interesting reflection
There they will learn how the schemes of plum
der that pass under the names of Tax Leyles
are swollen by Extra Services" by "Contin-
"gencesn in every department. Mr.. OGorman
who during the last two years paid TO one extra
counsel $2l ,727, understands this branch az
thoroughly as he does his duties in the matter
of Mr.. Woods leases, and by such moderate
charges rs this in the bill for fitting up armo
res and drill-roOms:
To A. black walnut chairs. at
Which curiously indicates the ease with which
the Levy can be increased to any amount that
our city Democratic rulers may find convenient
The economy they practice in regard to mat
tiers that really concern the health and comfort
of the people may be seen by comparing the
millions nominally awarded to that huge swlndle
the Court House, and the hundreds of thousands
awarded on contingencies and extras, with The
following item that concerns the Masses
To public drinking hydrans and urnas. so
There is one other clause in the City Tax
Levy which we regret did not more especially
receive Gov. FentOns attention. 1t is the
eleventh and last and provides that "this act
"shall take effect Immediately, and shall re-
"peal the provisions of all laws relating 70
"the raising and expenditure of city revenue:
"(commonly called tax levies), excepting those
provisions by this act declared in effect and
reGnacted, or any provision affecting tenure
"and compensation Of office, vested rights
"and all rights of property" What extent OF
checks and guards imposed by former Legis-
latures, for the protection of the taxpayers OF
New York, this sweeping clause wipes from
our statute book We cannot tell. The Gov
ernor, of course, will scrutinize the subject
most thoroughly, for it looks as if the last
Legislature had intended to place us, bound
hand and foot in the power Of our City Gov
eminent. Some fifteen years ago, one OF the
ablest and wealthiest Democratic lawyers in