The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-08-03
Tn. riremon,s Pay.


We have now entered the month of August,
and the fremen of the city are still without
their pay for the month of June Comptroller
Green, who has been an office-holder for
some seventeen years, and who obtained
every dollar he owns out of the city treasury
divides his time between his residence on
Fifth avenue and his country seat IN Massa-
chusetts-a pocket edition of the Central
Park-pays himself his liberal salary with
regularity and wants for nothing Mayor
Wickham devotes three or four hours day 10
the executive chamber, receives his salary OF
one thousand dollars month as soon as 1t is
due, and when three O'Clock arrives hurries OIL
to his pleasant mansion on Long Island with
the glee of a released schoolboy on a half
holiday. The hard working fremen, on duty
night and day, pass the summer months in
the sweltering city. are kept out of their hard
earned one hundred dollars a month for two
months, and are driven to the necessity OF liv-
ing on credit and paying heavily for the accom-
mediation. Comptroller Green, when Treasurer
of the Park Department, found no difficulty
in drawing his own warrants to pay himself
some ten thousand dollars q year, with the
aid of the notorious "Ring" Commissioner,
Tom Fields, and sometimes without the sane
ton of law. AS Comptroller he throws no
distractions in the way of promptly paying
himself his present monthly salary; but he
raises all manner of difficulties in settling
with the iremen, and keeps them out of their
salary through his stubborn determination to
fight and annoy the Mayor on every possible
opportunity Mayor Wickham, with equal
obstinacy, refuses to yield to the Comp
trollers vagaries in the matter of the firemen's
warrants and so between the two nearly one
thousand employees OF the city are put to IN
necessary inconvenience and suffering.
This unseemly squabble between the Mayor
and the Comptroller is becoming an unbearable
nuisance. 1t is disgraceful to the city and
threatens the Generalization of one Of the
most important departments of the municipal
government. The omptroller-perverse
self-opinionatAd and insolent, forced the fight
upon the Mayor without the slightest neces-
sity. The law provides the most convenient
method of paying the school teachers, the fire.
men anu OIAer enpioyeS WHoSe Huhoci
renders the separate warrant system in
convenient and obstructive to the public
business. This method was in practice
and working we'll when Mr.. Green, to spite
the Mayor, chose arbitrarily to change it and
to pay the fremen separately instead of by
companies rolls. He claims that the right to
decide in what manner they shall be paid is
given to him by the charter. But he has no
business to needlessly disturb, obstruct and
embarrass the city government because he
finds that the charter does not prohibit him
from so doing. The Mayor obstinately re-
fuses to yield to the Comptroller, although he
does not pretend that the power claimed by
that officer is not possessed by him under the
law. His better way would be to sign the
separate warrants and endeavor to get the law
changed as soon as the next Legislature meets.
Under any circumstances the fremen ought
to receive their pay without further delay,
and the two wrangling officials should be
made to understand that they must no longer
disgrace the city and disorganize the govern
ment by their personal squabbles.