The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-04-15
The Eric Investigating Commtttee-Are
We to Have an Honest Report.


The Erie Investigating mmittee-Are
We to Have an Honest Report.
The Assembly Committee has been labor
ing faithfully at its work. It has examined
Mr.. Jay Gould and others in relation to the
alleged Legislative bribery and corruption in
years gone by, and has elected some very
interesting information. There is sort Of
magnifcence in the nonchalance with which
Mr. Gould has chattily told .the committee
how he threw about hundreds of thousands of
dollars on this side and on that side in his
Napoleonic management of political parties in
four States Of the Union, and how he paid
men of such ability as suited his purpose with
a princely iberality by means of the famous
'india-rubber account" which appears to
have possessed some of the qualities of Alad-
din's lamp. There is cool effrontery really
astonishing in the testimony of the lobby
agents, who advertise themselves as will
ing to brave the risk of perjury for
the sake of money, and who impudently
swear that they received their sixty thousand
dollar fees for walking up and down in the
halls of the Capitol at Albany. There is
something comical in the manner in which
that we'll known politician Boss Tweed
first baffled the committee and then slipped
through their fingers to Canadian soil
But, after all, what good end will be accom-
plished by these renewed revelations of o
license and corruption with which all men
are already familiarS The committee was
appointed for the purpose of ascertaining
whether the present management of the Erie
Railway corporation is any more honest than
the charge that the interests of the American
people in this abused road are sacrificed to
the greed and avarice of English stock jobbers
is true or false and whether any legislation is
needed to protect the people, as well as the
bona fde stockholders of Erie, in the rights
they possess in corporation chartered under
State laws and enjoying a valuable fran
chise bestowed upon them by the State?
There are ugly rumors abroad that
the old legislative corruption matters
have been brought. into prominence
with the cunning object of diverting public
attention from the real business of the COM
mittee, and that the Erie directors boast of
the certainty Of such report as will satisfy
them and leave their management unassailed.
Let us have full disclosure of all legislative
corruption by all means ; let US get the tainted
Senators and the fugitive Tweed before the
committee if it be possible, but do not let the
members Of the committee skulk behind this
legislative excitement to whitewash any NAL
administration of the present Erie directors
and thus prove themselves of piece with the
legislators whose corruptions they are pre-
tending to investigate
The committee must not eyade the dnty of
discovering whether any money has been or is
TO be paid out of tho funds Of the road to-
ward repaying the amounts expended in
buying up the old Board of Directors
and placing themselves in power; whether
the recent dividend on the stock was
honestly earned or was paid by increasing the
debt Of the company for the interest of Lon
don firm of stock jobbers whether any inten-
ton exists Of fastening upon Erie the dead
carcass of the Atlantic and Great Western cor
poration in order that English spectators
who we're swindled in the latter speculation
may recover their money at the expense of
Erie. These are the practical useful points to
which the committee should direct their atten-
ton and upon which they should base legsla-
ton. Their report will be looked upon with
grave and just suspicion unless it shall be
accompanied by bill which shall prohibit
under heavy penalties the payment directly
or indirectly, by the Erie directors, of any ex-
penses attending the change of management,
and which shall make it penal offence to pay
al unearned dividend OK to make any lease,