New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-01-07
TIE MAJOR AND THE CORPORATION


Whatever may be thought of the tone of
Mayor Wickham's letter to the Corporation
Counsel no one can deny that it touches upon
very serious part of our municipal Difficult
ties and exposes the shortcomings of the
Reform movement with frankness in which
no other public official has allowed himself to
indulge. 1t is three years since the Tammany
Ring went out of Office, and look at the pitiful
result of all our labOrs to punish the criminals
who were then displaced from power. Two
or three of the old gang have absconded, and
live comfortably abroad on the proceeds of their
robberes. Ingersoll who was only a tool,
has indeed gene to Sing Sing and Tweed
has been an hOnOred guest at the Penitentiary,
where he seems to think he has now stayed
quite long enough. But not one dollar of the
stolen money has been returned to the City
Treasury. The chief still speculates in real
estate and issues orders from his prison for
the management of his property during his
temporary seclusion. Claims to the amount
of at least $7,0O0,0O0 have been preferred
against the city, and are now lying in the
Office of the Corporation Counsel as relics of
the great era of frauds and these we presume
do not include tho whole number of bills and
other charges handed down from that memoir
able period, which the Controller has refused to
pay. On the other hand the city has claims to the
amount of about s3O,O0O,00O growing out of
these same frauds, and thus f;:::- !: las been
baffled in all its efforts to collect them Suits
which ought to go before jury are submitted
to reference under more or less suspicious
circumstances, and the result in almost every
instance is loss to the city. Then CRY is
raised that the Controller is swelling the debt
by vexatious litigation, and the ignorant null
titude is taught to inquire whether an officer
who resists payment like Mr.. Green is not
worse after all than genial fellow like Con-
molly, who paid everybody and made no fuss.
1t is not wildly improbable that Tweed NAV
be released by the decision Of the Court of
Appeals, and under tho present administration
of our law affairs there seems to
be no reason to believe that in mcb
q case any further punishment would ever be
imposed upon him. What wonder if Reform
appear to have spent its force and the people
make up their minds that the worst penalty
ever inflicted upon an official thief-and that
only in very rare cases-is to turn him out of
Office.
Whether this accumulation OF failures i, 70
be attributed to the dishonesty Of the Cor.
poratiOn Counsel or his negligence, or His in
efficiency, or to defects in the laws, or to the
unexampled astuteness of the Ring criminals.
we shall not now attempt to decide. Mr.. Della
field Smith has yet to make his reply to the
Mayors long indictment, and it ia only
fair to suspend judgment until we hear
from him. But it is certain that he
has lamentably failed, and that the cir.
cumstances under which he was appointed
to Office forbade the expectation that he
would ever succeed. In his case Reform has
been attempting to do its most important work
through an agent selected by the old regime
whose wrongs it has to correct and avenge.
1t was when the Ring was just going to pieces
that Mr.. DAa6eld Smith was chosen out of
the ranks OF the Administration party by
Tweed's friends for the position of Counsel TO
the Corporation, giving him control Of whatever
suits might DO instituted by the city against