The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-01-03
The New Speaker of tho state Assem-
bly-A Good Be31nDing.

Speaker Smith is young and comparatively
inexperienced in political life. He has, prob
ably, yet to learn the extent of the influences
public officer who evinces a disposition to
occupy an independent position and to dis
charge his official duties as an honest man
rather than as partisan. He has made
good beginning ON assuming the Chair, to
which he has been elected by the better por-
ton of the republican members Of the Assem-
bly,, in expressing his determination to condne
his appointments to the limits prescribed by
law; and, if we now remind him that the prom
Uses of politicians are not always to be relied
upon, we do so only In the hope of strength
ening his resolution to initiate very desra-
BILE reform in our hitherto debauched halls of
legislation.
For the past eighteen years the evil of PEN
sioning small army of partisan pimps and
paupers upon the Stats daciag tae legislative
session has been steadily on the increase.
The clerks desks have been crowded with the
worst class of petit larceny lobbyists, under the
title of assistants, who have been obstructing,
instead of facilitating, the business Of leglsla-
ton, and whose most useful employment has
been to do small jobs for lobbyists or tainted
representatives at paltry pcices, tom i've
dollars upwards. For each conceivable door,
gate and passage way in both chambers stall
wart officer has been appointed as doorkeeper
or assistant doorkeeper, whose main business
has been to lounge about the lobbies doing
errands betweeu the members aud their agents
in tho third house or acting as messengers be-
tween the floor and the gallery: The floors
have been covered with pages, not unfrequenny
the sons Or other relatives Of members,
who have blocked up the alleys aud run
against each other, to The delay and confusion
of business, when quarter OF the number
would have been four times as efficient. In
fact, the Capitol has not only been made the
temporary refuge OF the worst political va
grants In the country, whose names have
swelled the Supply bill year after year. but
has been as much disgraced and debauched
through the agency Of these superauous clerks
aud doorkecpers as from auy other cause. As
an Albanian Speaker Smith is familiar with
this evil, and he has done well In announcing
his determination to suppress 1t. 1t he re-
mains firm and succeeds in his effort he will
have accomplished one important step in the
direction of legislative publication His pro-
gramme was declared In good time, for
the State Capitol has been swarming
for days past with the old leeches
who have been hanging on to the Legislature
in one capacity or another for the last fifteen
years. Five assistant clerks and as many
doorkeepers are all that are really needed for
the business of the session, and every add-
tonal appointment that may be made is a
fraud upon the State. Speaker Smith, il true
to his voluntary pledge, will speedily prove to
these political Migrants that their occupation
in Albany Is gone. When they shall have
taken their fight it will be well for the Speaker
to turn his attention to other reforms needed
In the Clerks desk. The expense OF legisla-
tive printing has Of late years reached an
cxorbitant sum. The items have been pnr-
posely scattered through different accounts and
under separate heads and appropriations
in order to conceal the aggregate amount.
There have been regular contracts for State
printing and legislative printing but an illegal
custom has prevailed Of allowing the clerks OF
the two houses to order jobs on their own ac-
count. The Clerks printing has been regarded
as sort of perquisite Of that officer and he
has made his own bargains and arrangements
in relation to it. Under the pretence of extra
bills for the use of Members and Senators, and
by means Of resolutions ordering digests Of
claims for the past twenty or thirty years, the
useless index business aud the worthless civil
lists, the Clerks of the Senate and Assembly
have been enabled, session after session. to
roll up extravagant amounts against the
State for extra printing until the
swindle has grown into gigantic proper
tons. The Speaker should at once put his
foot down upon this fraud, and as he has
made up his mind that no resolution to APP
point extra employees of the Assembly can be
In order, so long as the law restricts their
number, he must, in like manner, decide that
no extra printing accounts can be legal, even
tor single dollar, so long as a legal contract
covering all the legislative printing is in exist
ence. We purpose to show of how much the
State has been plundered under this head for
the past fifteen or twenty years. In the mean
time we call upon Speaker Smith to crush
with an unsparing hand the first attempt to
open the door for renewal Of this barsfaGed
robbery, az b has already indicated his in
tention to root out the gang of beggarly corr
rnpt and characterless hangers-on by which
the State Capitol has been so long infested.
I
| GOVERNOR HOFFMAN thinks that the Cover.