New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-08-08

" WHAT AXE YOU GOING ~ ~ IbOUI
IT?'
Up TO this time, we have waited in daily
expectation that the Controllers account of
receipts and expenditures for the last thirty
months would very soon be given to the public.
We await and expect no longer. IL is now
clear that no genuine exhibit is to be made at
all. The Mayor has assumed the responsibility
of this, and thereby inculpated himself; but
this by no means exculpatcs the Controller.
The law plainly requires him to make an
annual exhibit: he has made no exhibit at
all of his payments for the thirty months
commencing with 1859 and ending with
the earlier half of 1871; and the fair in
ference is that he dare not make any
chat his disbursements have been such that
he prefers pleading guilty by Withholding his
accounts to displaying his guilt by publish
| ing them.
Meantime, the public cannot fail to note
| that his new statement of the City and
| County Debts is inconsistent with that he
made only two months ago, and more glar-
ingly inconsistent with that which he induced
Messrs. Moses Taylor, j. j. AstOr, and others,
TO certify as correct last October. And each
reinstatement makes the aggregate larger than
its predecessor.
If an account shall by-and-by be published,
il will be a blind" windows to shut ont the
eight, and passages that lead to nothing"
We shall evidently have no Report that tells
us who has pocketed the City's money, how
much has gone to each, and what the City has
to show therefor. Millions have been paid out
for work that was never done and goods that
were never delivered; and those who are re-
IL IL, @ln hp
were elected or appointed and heavily salaried
expressly to take care that such robbery should
not be perpetrated-will not even tell to whom
they paid the money. They virtually say,
1--WE will not print our accounts. We are
"masters of the law which we defy, and the
People, whom we rule but do not serve. If
"you don't like this help yourselves"
This is the point which has now been
reached The exhibit, so long awaited, is not
to be made if there should be show of
making one it will be no real expose, but
blind.
What then2
The promised City Meeting will soon be
held. Though this is the season when most of
our business men are taking their Summer va
cation, it will doubtless be most wOrthily
differed and largely attended.
What then3
We trust this meeting will consider and
adopt practical measures. Merely resolving
and denOunciDg> will amount to very little.
They are but the smoke which predicts fire.
Those who are gorged with the City's treasure
will only laugh at them.
Merely as our contribution to the aggregate
of suggestions, we submit that suits should be
brought for the recovery of the stolen money.
If, as The Albany Argus virtually aflirms, the
money. paid out by the Controller in satsfac-
ton of the monstrous bills of Ingersoll a. Co..
Garvey, &c, has in good part been used to
buy votes in Senate and Assembly for our
monstrous Tax-Levies, that money is still the
property of the City and can be followed. No
value has been received for it by the tax
payers 1t should be sued for III their behalf
and recovered. No Court will say that they
are not entitled to it.
Such suits will bring out all the facts. Let
bribers and bribed, payers and payees, be
alike subjected to the most searching exami-
nation. If some of them shall swear falsely,
others will not. They cannot succeed in
hiding the truth.
This is one way. If there are others that
promise good results let them all be tried
But let all who have paid or received the pub
lie money be examined under oath, and made
to tell what they know. There will be a
shaking Of the dry bones ere one such trial is
concluded. Let us have the facts developed
under the penalties of perjury, and lesson
will be taught that cannot soon be forgotten.
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