New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-10-24
A DEMOCRATIC CITY IN TROUBLE.

1t is not known to those who read none
but Dem ocratic newspapers that the city
of New York, like that of New Orleans,
is, and has for years been, governed by
the Democracy. The debt of New York
is even larger in proportion to property or
population than that of New Orleans,
while the rate of taxation is the same,
though those who defend the superior
economy of New Orleans, say that the
real estate OF New York is not assessed at
its full m arket value.
Our Democratic press is clamoring for
change in the State government to
effect economy in municipal expenditures.
1t complains that an excess of some ten
or twenty per cent in the cost of the
police and schools is the true cause of our
burdens. All this money of the schools
and police is expended in the city and
goes to the landlords and corner gro
ceries The complaint that such COMPARE
tive trihes have caused such commercial
embarrassment is the explanation of the
inebriate:
1t was not the whisky that drank but
the cheese that eat that made me sick.
But Democratic New York suffers, it
would seem, from the same infirmity
with Democratic New Orleans, and the
real estate owners of the one are as much
disturbed as those of the other
Here is what the New York Times says
on the subject:
Matters have come to a pretty pass in this
city when the owners of property to the
value of millions of dollars are asking
themselves whether it would not be better
to abandon it to the tax collector instead OF
continuing to pay the ruinOus amount OF
taxes and assessments which are yearly
levied upon it. To this class it can not be
too often repeated that their only safety lies
in sending men to the Legislature pledged
to pass such laws as will imperatively put
an end to the growth of the city debt and
in electing representatives to the Board of
Aldermen who will refuse to sanction any
work on new streets unless petitioned for
by the msi ,rity of those who have to pay
for it.
The Times then revives some reminis-
cences of the Tweed regime, when that
Democratic leader audited accounts with
out foundation, and took twenty-five pei
cent commission upon them.
Here is the specific Democratic resist.
ance to reform and economy:
1t should be remembered that every etior,
made in the last Legislature to repeal the
nlt ring OF unHaY xuhinh in do
partments can contract debt at discret ion,
and to devise new laws under which a
gradual reduction of the debt should be
provided for, were defeated by the efforts
of the Democrats in the Assembly. Had
the bills relating to this city, which were
passed by the Republican Senate last year,
been allowed to become law, they would
already have made difference of a million
or two in the amount OF the dept. 1t was
through the agency of Mayor Wickham
aud John Kelly that these bills were de.
feated, and before the taxpayers of New
York can have the slightest chance of relief
from Albany there must be Republican
majority in both houses Of the Legislature
If these charges be true, the Louisiana
Democracy would find very little advan.
tage in committing the federal govern.
ment to such hands.
No Democratic paper will, Of course,
divulge' the iniqui.ies of its political asso.
clates, and not one Democratic bench.
man in a thousand knows or believes thai
Tweed, the Democratic leader, has beer
sent to the State prison as convicted rob
Der, and that his band of Genet and Other
Democrats have fed to foreign parts te
escape the penalty of their crimes.