New-York tribune., 1869-06-01
OUR CITY AT ALBANY.

We decline to handy words with our rural
contemporaries who deprecate the plain terms
in which we reprehended the course of those
Republican members of our late Legislature
who voted to saddle our City with an enormous
and prohigate Tax-LevY. We prefer to re-
state the case and let the public pass judg-
ment upon it, The material facts are these:
! l. BY a law passed so long ago that we can
not say how long, it is made the duty of the
| Legislature of our State to review, scrutinize,
revise. and limit, the amounts of Taxes annually
levied upon the property-holders of our City
In other words: Such scrutiny and limitation
are and long have been among the chartered
rights of our City.
g. For years, our better citizens have main
tanned an Association devoted to the exposure
and defeat of the corrupt, prOfgate schemes
whereby our Municipal rulers habitually swell
our taxes beyond right or reason. We have
fought these schemes before the Legislature,
and generally succeeded in reducing consdcra-
bly, the amounts demanded by our local mag
mates.
3. Last year. they had us at this disadvantage:
The Assembly was Democratic; the Senate
barely and obviously Republican while the
ablest and cleverest of our Municipal spoilers
was among the Senator'S SO the Tax-Levies
were kept out of sight to the eleventh hour of
the session, then rushed through the Assembly
under the Previous Question, and thcreupon
driven through the Senate under the pleas of
"No time" "Want to adjourn" &c. Gov.
Fenton long hesitated to sign them, but finally
did so, since the Legislature had adjourned,
and a veto, it was represented, would surren-
der the City to anarchy. We wish he had
taken the risk.
A. With the money thus stolen from our
Taxpayers, the gigantic frauds in Naturaliza-
ton, Registration, and Illegal Voting, were
perpetrated whereby Grant and COlfax were
swindled out of the Electoral Vote of our
State and Hoffman g. Co. swindled into the
State Offices Though there was at no time
Fifty Thousand majority in this City and
Brooklyn against Grant, the two Counties were
made to return 72,709 majority against Grant
and "a, 400 for Hoffman. The frauds were not
confined to these Counties, but We could have
overborne all others had these been prevented
8. These frauds were rendered notorious and
undeniable by an investigation made by tbe
more popular branch of Congress g. the
memorial of the Union League Cl-l OF our
City. The investigation was qri1e thorough,
and the case made out ito the satisfaction of
every impartial reader
g. Our local rulers again held back their ap-
plicaton for Tax Levies TO a late hour of the
session; but when sthese were at length pre-
sented, they were promptly met at Albany by
memorial from the Citizens Association,
taking up the proposed Levies item by item,
and showing to what extent, and why, certain
of these should be reduced OF entirely struck
out. The memorial showed, point by point,
how several Millions asked for by our local
authorities ought to be refused them by the
| Legislature.
| z. The Senate (barely Republican, took up
the subject, considered, weighed sfted it, item
by item, and, after ample deiberation, passed
the Levies in a shape with which we were well
satisfied They did not adopt all the sugges-
| tions OF the Citizens Association, but they
struck off several Millions from the sums asked
for by the Municipas, and thus richly earned
| the thanks OF our tax x-payers.
8. We confidently expected. and had right