The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-01-12


State Legisiature.
The HERALD has always cheerfully awarded
to the Committee of Seventy the praise due to
them for their share in the work of rescuing
the city of New York from the grasp Of the
old Tammany Ring, and has never been dis
posed to find fault with them for their patriotic
desire to secure good men in Office by electing
themselves to the most lucrative and important
positions in the public service. As an indie
pendent journal the HERALD is supremacy
Indifferent as to the political Affiliations OF
candidate for Office, and cares not whether
nomination is made by democrats, republicans
or liberals, SO long as the nominee Is compe-
tent and honest We have not been willing
TO lend ourselves to the humbug of political
reform, which seeks to persuade the people
that the crusade against misrule is wholly I'M
selfish, and that the agitation in favor of official
publication does not contemplate the turning
out of one set of Office holders in order to make
fifteen months ago that before two years had
passed the people of New York would find the
public departments filed with the leading
champions Of municipal reform, and, in the
light of existing facts, our past predictions
read like prophecy. We then said, "Our
citizens may as well set about this reform
business with their eyes open, and understand
at once that the members of the Committee of
Seventy are willing to fill all the offices now
or recently filed by the terrible Tammany
Ring, and that they intend to offer their
services to the city at the proper time" We
added, mo doubt the Seventy and their i'm
mediate friends will prove more honest than
the officials who have so long enjoyed power,
at least for some time to come and there is
little question that the city will be benefited
by the change but we desire that the people
shall understand what the reform cry really
means, and shall not be humbugged by the
pretence of some of the political reform organs,
that the Committee of Seventy are all purely
disinterested patriots who would not take
Office if they could get it."
A glance at some of our leading Offices at
the present time will prove the correctness Of
our predictions. The Committee of Seventy
and their immediate friends are tolerably well
represented in the list Of public officials. That
respectable body has given us General Dix for
Governor of the State, Francis G. Barlow for
Attorney General, William F. Havemeyer for
Mayor, Judges Barrett, Van Worst and Curtis
on the bench of the Supreme and Superior
Courts, Franz Sigel for Register, Colonel
Mr.. Phelps for District Attorney Adolph
Kessler for Coroner, Joseph G. Pinckney,
cigar inspector in the Custom House, for
Clerk of the Board of Aldermen; Senators
Weismann and Tiemann in the State Senate,
Mr.. B. Gallagher, Secretary of the Seventy,
for private secretary of the Mayor, besides
| Comptroller Green and long list of Congress-
men, Assemblymen, Aldermen and Assistant
Aldermen. In addition to oil these valuable
| public officers, some of whom-such as the At
torney General, the District Attorney and the
Register-receive from fifty to hundred
thousand dollars q year for their services, we
have now the great champion of injunctons
and reform, John Foley, doing battle at the
city's expense for an Office worth tho snug sum
of ten thousand dollars year.
Of course, in the case of Governor Dix, the
character and services of the candidate pointed
him out as prominently the fit nominee of
any honest party for the Office of Chief Execu-
tive of the State. Indeed, in most instances
we have no doubt that the officials who have
stepped out of the Committee of Seventy into
snug positions at the public crib are compe-
tent to perform their duties acceptably, and
conscientious enough to discharge them hon.
estly. There are others still left on the COM
mittee who may be equally well qualified for
Office and equally willing to serve the people,
But we would suggest to Governor Dix, to
Mayor Havemeyer and to the Republican State
Legislature that this committee is, as we have
shown, already tolerably well represented in
the public departments, and that there may be
those not fortunate enough to be reckoned
among the Seventy who may yet have
good claim to recognition, both as reformers
and honest men. 1t will not benefit the cause
of reform to confne all the profitable Offices to
the members of body which has claimed to
act Independently of political parties, in the in
terest of good government alone for the peo-
pie may look upon them at last as intriguing
| pMce-uuuleIS, anu may iose couHuence IN Oil
reform movements. With one great reformer
grasping at the Deputy Chamberlainship, OF
the risk Of an expensive lawsuit, and with
dozen others persistent in their demands for
appointment at the hands Of the Governor
and the Mayor, while all the principal offices
are already in the hands of their associates,
there is some danger that the Committee Of
Seventy may be COMPOUNDED with the old Tam
many politicians who obstinately refused to
recognize any claim for public reward outside
the circle Of their own privileged ''ring" It
may, therefore, be as well for oil parties that
the amounting power whether Legislative or