New-York tribune., 1871-12-26
THE PROPOSED CHR TER.

several projects OF MnnlcIpal REFORM by
Charter Amendment (or substitution) will be
submitted to our new Legislature on its organi-
! zation next week. We suggest that they bc
sevcrally presented on the very first day of
the session, Immediately referred to the Com
mittee of the Whole in either House, taken up
next morning for consideration, and pressed to
a final vote by the close of the week There
can be no need of long speeches, since there
is no serious difference as to principles, and
the differences as to methods cannot need
elaborate discussion. We plead that the good
work be finished before personal interests and
factious "Rngs" can have gained strength or
coherence to interfere with it. We deem the
Legislature more likely to do this work accept
ably the first week of the session than later
and this will interfere with no other business.
as the first week is usually wasted in struggles
for the more desirable places on Committees.
Let the draft of the Committee of Seventy be
made the groundwork, and let the rival sections
and suggestions of other Committees be moved
by way of amendment when they shall sever
ally he in order.
The good points of the Scventy's Charter.
as they strike us, are these:
|. Complete severance of the Municipality
from any State control save such as is exer-
cscd everywhere else. We want no more
Albany Boards, or Commissions or tutelagc
of any kind Experience has proved that, in
stead of the State correcting the abuses of
our City misrule, the City's profigacy infcsts
and cOrrupts the States legislation. No afro
cious Tax-Levy concocted here has been
properly scaled at Albany: our Ring" has
only been constrained, when it's Tax-Levy was
plainly too outrageous to swell it by few
hundreds of thousands more wherewith to
bribe the Legislature to pass it. Let us throw
the City entirely upon herself for good gov
crnment. "IIelp yourself, and God will help
"you," is the sound, old maxim. We shall
not improve upon it. On this head, the Sew
cnty's Charter has our hearty approval.
III. Complete Improperly termed Minority
Representation is also provided for. This is
wholly unlike the construction of our old
Board of Supervisors, whereby the minority
was accorded equal power with the majority
an unrepubican arrangement. Complete Rep.
resentation provides that each party or interest
shall be represented in proportion to its strength;
80 that, if there be $4,000 Democrats and $1,000
Republicans in our City, and we choose forty
Aldermen, the former will choose twenty-five,
the latter fifteen OF them, very nearly. The
majority rule /; but the minority is heard and
felt. We hail this as a decided advance OH
the existing rule, whereby the majority not
only rules but smothcrs the minority.
Ill. Our two Boards of Aldermen are reduced
to one by the proposed Charter. That is sound,
wise, and economical.
". The Mayor is conceded a very consider
able power of appointment and removal, which
is lacking in our present Charter.
V. The Municipal is separated from the State
Election, and the People enabled to change
their Municipal rulers annually if they shall
see fit.
Such are what seem to us the good points
of the Seventy's Charter; the following We
regard as its main defects
!. Its machinery for securing Complete Rep
resfntation is very CLUMSY. Here are nine
Aldermen tsay> TO he chosen IN q district :-ist
each legal vvter put ip ballot wher0n arc
printed tho nome- Of nine distinct candidates,