The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-09-21
TIE Alleged City Frauds-What is DEPUTY
Green DOiuGe

TIE Alleged City Frauds-What Is Deputy
Green Doings
It must now be clear to every man Of COM
mon sense in New York that the reform
clamor Of the past two months has been
nothing more than political job, designed to
affect the approaching State election and to
secure for new set of men the municipal
Offices out Of which some of the present pos
SCISSORS have made such ample and tempting
fortunes. The terrible developments that
were to drive from office the heads of all the
city departments are not forthcoming the only
public officer who has as yet been judicially
pronounced criminally neglectful of his duties,
and who has proved himself an unfit custodian
of the public property, has been taken into the
confidence and fellowship of tho pretended
reformers, and we are now told that the Com
mittee of Investigation find their labors so
arduous that they will no doubt remain in
session until after election. 1t Is true they
promise to-day report on the city debt,
and this they say will not show our
financial condition to be SO bad as was
supposed; but there is at present no indca-
ton of the forthcoming of those terrible proofs
ofcorruption, unearthed from the Comptroller's
Office, which were to overwhelm all our city
magnificent brown stone palaces to the white
stone cells of Sing Sing. Indeed, 1t would seem
as If the prime movers in the great investi-
eating machine were anxious to keep the devel-
opments precisely in their present position
until "after the election, and to afford the
people no more light than they at present
enjoy. While they have publicly declared
that they hold in their possession confession
of guilt from one important public officer, they
use their influence and their ingenuity to keep
him in office, instead Of placing him at the bar
Of justice, where the whole truth must come
to light. They denounce the Mayor and
the Corporation Counsel when those
officers propose to prosecute the men
who are supposed to have made fraudulent
claims upon the city, although such suits
would be the best and surest method Of ar
irving at the truth in regard to the alleged
plundering of the treasury. In short, they are
doing aud will do all in their power to keep
alive the recent excitement, and to hold out
promises of startling disclosures until election
day arrives and their several objects are duly
carried out at the polls.
Now the people of New York will not be
satisfied with this termination of their attempt
to discover the men who have defrauded them
out of their money and to remodel and reform
their municipal government. They will expect
Deputy Comptroller Green to make use of the
proofs of corruption and robbery which his
friends have publicly announced are In his
possession, and to bring the offenders promptly
TO justice. He holds now an official position
of great importance, and there can be
no good reason why he should hand
over to any outside, unauthorized body
calling itself committee or subcommittee
any documents belonging to the department of
which he is practically the head. 1t is his
duty, as acting Comptroller, to guard and pro-
tect the city treasury; and if, as his friends
have declared, he has discovered that the
treasury has been robbed, he should at once
make public the facts. At present it looks as
if the uuwieldy Committee of Seventy were to
be made the convenient instrument of mystify-
ing the people and of carrying on good
enough Morgan until after election.