The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-02-07
NEK YORK JUSTICE.

WE publish on an inside page, devoted to the
reproduction of editorials of leading journals
upon current topics, an article from the New
York Times, headed "Ought the press to be
silent?" which deserves careful perusal 1t
gives picture of New York life and of the
New York mode of sitting justice in the
Courts and in the Legislature, which may we'll
excite national alarm, and prompt all other
American communities to adopt timely pre-
cautions against the establishment among
them of such a supremely unjust aud in
famous system. 1t has long been suspected
that the New York bench contained corrupt
judges, but the Times assures us that this
fact is so notorious that not single lawyer
of eminence will venture to deny it, while
all prominent lawyers are familiar with
facts tending to prove this terrible
charge, yet at the same time so cowed down
by the omnipotence of corruption as to
shrink from the task of publicly denouncing
the judicial offenders or from attempting to
drag the judicial ermine from the venal shoul-
ders that habitually disgrace and dishonor it.
The appropriate legal remedy is the clumsy
machinery of impeachment and when the
lawyers are asked to invoke it, they answer,
in the language of the Times, ''that Tweed,
whose servants the corrupt judges are, aud
who controls the majority of the Legislature
absolutely, would not permit it; that it would
be impossible to get the Assembly to accuse,
or the Senate to convict, on any evidence
that could be submitted to them"
1t is not an uncommon thing for some por-
tions of political organization to be rotten;
af
politics rottenness is always perceptible in
some one or more quarters; but New York
alone, among American communities, has
sounded that profound abyss of corruption
which is never lightened by a faint
glimmer of justice and honesty, aud
which involves in an indistinguishable
compound of rascality her lawyers,
judges, leading politicians, and legislators.
In the early stages of civilization the rule
prevails that all may take who have the power,
and all may keep who can. AS civilization
progresses and Christianity exerts her benign
influence, justice and law gradually assert
their supremacy; but it is reserved for New
York to pervert the forms of law to the prac-
teal endorsement of a series of wrongs more
infamous than any marauding chieftain OF
fODDef Outlaw ever ut0anou OF perDetratln o:
to convert her legislators, lawyers, LEADING
politicians, and judges into consolidated
band of thieves, mutually sustaining, shield
ing, and assisting each other, as did the rob
Der bands of old, and recognizing Tweed
(who has gorged himself to repletion witt
the spoils of political emolumenD as domi-
nant chief whose behests demand implicit
obedience, when all regard for official oaths
and all sense of honor and duty have van
ished.
Philadelphia abounds with politicians whc
would gladly emulate the career of Tweed
and Tweed's favorite retainers. Their grea
object in life is to plunder the public by
perVersiOn of good laws or by the enactment
of bad laws. They regard with envy rathe
than adherence the ascendancy of corruption
in the city of New York, and long for the da,
when they, too, can enchain in thraldom to
generation of corrupt partisan ofice-holder
and partisan leaders the entire population
of the city of Philadelphia Already the
have, little by little, made some dangerou
strides towards the attainment of their ulti