The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-02-12


polled in the annals of the American Institute.
The City Charter and the Fra
lent Pretenccs of the Politicians
What the Legislature Is Expected
To DO.
have some interest in the municipal charter
now under discussion at the State capital. For
| six or eight years past they have been made
the sport or the prey of politicians. who have
gambled with the interests of the metrop-
| oils as men gamble with stacks of counters
on q faro table. Prior to the now famous
charter election of 1871 we were governed by
a ''ring" of INSCRIPTIONS adventures, who,
while they did a great deal to improve and
beautify the city, robbed the treasury in so
disgraceful manner as to overshadow and in
great measure nullify their enterprise.
Since the overthrow of these plunderers there
has been such an indecent scramble for the
spoils among those who have hoped to be
their successors that the municipal govern
| ment has been paralyzed and the wheels of
progress have been effectually blocked. Some
of those who succeeded to Office on the down.
fall of Tammany under the cry of reform,
have pulled one way and some another,
and what with pickering and fighting
| between the public departments, and bar
gaining, intrigue and squabbling among
the ofice-seekers, the real interests Of the city
have suffered but little less under the new
rule of honesty than under the old rule of cor
ruption The men who so shamelessly robbed
the taxpayers up to year and half since
made the Central Park what it now is gave
us the magnificent system of Boulevards in the
upper part of the city conceived the improve
ments stretching into Westchester county, and
beautifed our once unseemly parks and places
from the Battery to Harlem River. If they
had been honest they might have made New
York in ten years the finest capital in the
! world. The men who have locked up the
treasury and protected the taxpayers from
| plumber have checked all progress, suffered
our great public improvements to remain
stagnant and set their faces with iron deter
mination against enterprise of every descrip-
ton involving a dollars outlay If they
should remain in authority for ten years the
city would save up money as miser hordes
his gold, and die, as miser dies, in rags and
filth. Hence the citizens Of New York, as we
have said, are supposed to have some interest
in the charter work of the State Legislature,
and are entitled to demand that it shall be so
framed as to give the metropolis government
at once honest and enterprising-a govern
ment that shall neither be in the hands Of
thieves nor under the control of crotchety OBJ
structionists.
From the tone of the partisan press one
might well believe that the only question in
volved in the future laws by which our
municipal affairs are to be regulated is as to
| which set of politicians, democratic or repub-
offices under the new dispensation. On one
side we find the purified democracy, under
Messrs. Green, Tilden John Kelly and John
Foley, backed up by their temporarily over
Swallowed allies of the liberal faith, Messrs.
John Cochrane, Rufus X. Andrews and Ethan
fence of Mayor Havemeyer, who desires the
power to distribute the city patronage among
his own particular friends without let or
hindrance. The Committee of Seventy, rein
forced from regenerated Tammany since its
original ranks became thinned by office-hold-
ing, throws its great weight into the same
scale and demands that the Mayor shall have
his rights and the committee its Offices On
the other side we have the republicans. who
were so disinterested and comparison before
election, making all sorts of excuses for sez-
ing upon the spoils for their own political as
sociates and shouting out lusty Qualifications
for doing the acts which, despite their fraudu-
lent pretences, they all the time contemplated
doing if they only got the opportunity. Here
is one organ, which during the campaign
abused and ridiculed the venerable Mr. Have
meyer, declaring now that the Mayor is the
only official fit to be entrusted with the ap-
pointing power or capable of selecting proper
persons to fill the public departments Here
is another organ, which was blatant about
reform and honesty and non-partisanship be-
fore election, and which never, no. never,
would sanction any attempt of its own party to
o@no Po'oiN"A "uN"hNsSo VI AIo ouSCcoo Ii IAo
city, now raking its wits to find some plausible
excuse for doing the bidding of its leaders
and working as gently in the party traces as
parsons cob. Democrats, liberals and
republicans are laboring for the same end
the possession of the city spoils; those of the
former two followings through the influence Of
Mayor Havemeyer and the non-partisan hum
bug; those of the latter through the power Of
the Albany Legislature. The Committee of
Seventy-tor never may those patriots be for
gotten while public pap has to be distrib-