The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-01-06

Revelations nom tho Park Depart
ment-An Original SALARY Grsbber.
From communication published else
where in to-day's HERALD it would appear
that we are on the eve of St Andrews Day
not the anniversary of St. Andrew the Apos-
tie, who was crucifed in the year 95, but of
St Andrew the fnancier, who was canonized
in the councils of municipal reform as the only
honest man in New York, and whom the late
candidate for Chamberlain, Deputy Chamber
lain, Commissioner Of Jurors and Sheriff,
John Foley, seems bent upon mailing to the
cross. The enJdnt terrible, whose injunctions
have long been the dread of office-holders,
turning up his nose at the odor of sanctity
that should surround saint and warn off
the irreverent, has been rummaging among
| the musty records of the Park Depart
ment with the object of showing that the
present head of the Finance Department of
| the city of New York is in reality con-
| irmed sinner of the sssalary grab
| stripe. The people have for many years
INDUCED the belief that the Central Park
Commission has been from its creation up to
the present time an unselfish, honest, patriotic
body of heightened gentlemen, who have been
willing to give their services to their fellow
citizens gratis, and to be oontented with the
honor of the positions they have filed with
out asking for the enormous salaries, perqui-
sites and pickings that pertain to less dignifed
city departments. The laws that have been
enacted in regard to the Park Commissioners
have justified this belief; for they have all
prohibited the members of the Board from re-
ceiving any remuneration, except in the case
of the Treasurer, who might be paid small
compensation for his extra services, and ex-
cept also trifing amount, not to exceed
three hundred dollars, which Commissioners
might claim, if he should choose to
do SO, ''for his personal expenses
in visiting and experimenting the Park
during the year. Comptroller Green has,
however, in his capacity of Park Commits
sioner, managed to SO evade the spirit of
this law as to make the Office pecuniarily valu-
able, and has, besides, according to Foley's
showing, distinguished himself in the s'salary
grab or back pay business.
The Park Department has always been
sort of secret institution. It has not been
required to keep its accounts as the accounts
of other departments are kept, and it has had
great deal of license and almost entire ire
spensibiity in any expenditures it might
choose to make. The receipts now unearthed
do not by any means represent the whole
amount Commissioner Green has received
from the treasury of the department during
his long term Of Office. They are only few
stray items which have come into the posses
sion of busy, active investigator but they
serve to illustrate the manner in which
public officer who is vigilant and I'M
sparing in his scrutiny of the &C
counts Of scrub-women, ofice-cleaners,
watchmen and laborers in the employment of
the city, can stretch his own arms shoulder
deep into the municipal money bags when he
is drawing out compensation for his own
services. Commissioner Green, it appears,
has received from the Park Department gener-
ally salary of ten thousand dollars year as
the Treasurer of the Board. We believe that
all right-minded citizens will pronounce this
a most extravagant and unjustifable amount
| for the services rendered. When the law pro-
vided that the position Of Park Commissioner
should be an honorary one, but that the men,
Der acting as treasurer might, notwithstand-
ing, be paid a remuneration for his extra
trouble, it could not have contemplated that
this one Commissioner should receive salary
larger than that of our highest judges or than
xcor,horc ~ NorOrocc az Nop,vc;cc;< ono,
Green managed to draw this amount from
the public treasury for number of years
without considering that he was doing an
injustice to our taxpayers. Nor do we learn
that he relinquished any portion of it or &C
count of absence from his post through sick
ness or otherwise, although, as Comptroller
of New York, he is ready to denounce as o
fraud the claim of poor scrub-woman for q
few days work which accident or illness has
prevented her from fully performing.
| But the unearthed accounts and resolutions
of the Park Department show that Commits
sioner Green has been an original 'sgrabber''
of ''back pay" or, more correctly speaking,
of extra pay, above the amounts agreed upon,
for services already performed. Thus, in
| 1866, we find that Andrew Il Green received
| five thousand dollars as additional salary"
for the two preceding years. 1868 and 1864,
| or at the rate of two thousand five hundred
dollars a year. Again, in July, 1885, we
find him taking out of the Central
Park treasury seven thousand five
hundred dollars for additional salary"
for the three preceding years, 1865, 1866
and 1867, and further sum of one thou
sand eight hundred and seventy-fve dollars
for extra pay for the following six months
of 1868 In 1870 there was q change in the
personnel of the commission, and one of the
last acts of Mr. Green in the old commission
was to introduce very singular and extrava-
CANT claim of nearly three thousand dollars for
| an ALLEGED halanca of the statutory allowance