The Portland daily press., 1877-09-25
Our New York Letter.
Eweed's ohm Morrissey and
the "BOss''-The Government of Great
City-The Decade of Thieves-The New
York Republicans and their Policy.
NEW YORK, September 21, 1877.


was not ELECTED by any antecedent testimony.
The admission of this TRADE is unaccountable
on the hypothesis that the inquiry was insti-
tuted 10 good faith, and meant to inculpate
such persons and such only have at some
time or other participated in the populations
OF Tweed and his numerous accomplces
Every body knows what Mr. Morrissey's early
history and subsequent life have been. The
prize ring is not school in which a man could
have been expected to acquire education In the
| cardinal virtues. Mr. Morrissey was uudoubt-
| edly wild youth without moral training or
the advantages of edifying associations. The
pursuit he is popularity supposed to be engaged
IN since he left off his sporting life is neither
legal nor reputable. And yet when the con-
trast IS forced upon the community between
Tweed and Morrissey the immeasurable superi
ority of the latter in every quality that helps
to redeem character and avert condemnation
| appears in a striking light He has never
robbed the exchequer, no. broken his word.
His verbal promise is infinitely better than the
| bond of his defamer. His sense of honor is so
proverbially high that be has long commanded
| a certain degree of respect in spite of the
equivocal avocation which be is credited with
following. The Democratic party of New York
has not been habituaylcareful in selecting Its
candidates for office. 1t has sent men repeat
edly to the state legislature and to the national
congress who were conspicuous examples of
law-breaking and law-dsfying audacity But
Morrssey is by all odds the most creditable
specimen of the class who has ever reached
such preferment. There is a certain rugged
personal honesty about him which has operated
as condonation of his failings. He does
things ION the square," as the phrase goes
He has most contemptuous idea of fellows who
use public trusts for the purposes of plunder.
He will bet on an election, horse race or the
turn of card, pocket the money if he wins
and pay If he loses. But as for cheating, lying
or swindling he isn't mean enough or base
enough for anything of that sort.
1t may as well be admitted that it is an evil
dence of the degeneracy of our political system
on the Democratic side at any rate-that we
send men to enact statutes who are not at all
strict. in the observance of them, but it is an
enormous stride towards purification to have
ascended so far even as from Tweed to Nor
rissey, and to have shaken off convicted thief
and perurer will go far to reconcile the COM
munity to being represented by one upon
whom popular report has fastened the epithet
of gambler. Everything is relative in this
world.
1t must seem wellinigh incomprehensible to
people in Maine, where a single serious defect
OF character would operate as a bar to political
as well as social recognition, that not one but
many of the incumbents of office in New York
are transgressors in some sense or other against
laws they are commissioned to frame or exc
cute. 1t is the chief obstacle to good govern
ment In great city that so many of its inhabi-
tants are in state of chronic antagonism to
recognized authority. There are the keepers
OF unlicensed liquor stores, of policy shops, of
dance houses, of bagnios, of gambling dens,
constituting in the aggregate a formidable
power for evil. The worst of it is they make
common cause with each other, not 80 much
because there is any friendship between them
as for the reason that they are cut off from all
fellowship with better people. They naturally
| seek alliances with the dominant party and
| interfuse themselves into conventions and eau
| cuses, where their influence can be turned to
account in the conservation of their interests
they really dictate good many nominations,
taking care of course not to make their pur-
poses so palpsble as to defeat the object they
have in view, but showing just as much defer
ence to public opinion as the necessity of keep.
| ing up appearances compels. The consequence
| is that almost every general ticket is curious
admlxture of good aud bad, and the local can
| didates fall within the same range This is the
way the offices are filed, When the question
comes up of enforcing obedience to the legion
of statutes under which we live there is resist
ance alike among the governing and the gov
eIned. There is no rigid, impartial, thorough
| system of executive control. Things drift
along in loose, slipshod sort of fashion with
out reliable check or guidance. Occasionally
the police make raid upon some obscure
haunt of vice, and arraign or disperse its
wretched inmates At the same time they
| leave undisturbed hundreds of others that are
as bad or worse. Sach exceptions of severity
merely prove the rule of immunity and inten-
slfy the popular conviction that the govern.
ment is either Indifferent to, or incapable of, as
serting itself when confronted with defiant
class who iupudently spurn its authority.
During the fateful decade when Tweed and his
| followers were making havoc with the property
of the helpless tax payers of New York, there
was virtual suspension of all proceediuA
looking to the maintenance of law and order,
The vicious classes had every thing their own
way. The Ring had supreme control of the
criminal courts, and literally owned the District
Attorney. They had reckless fashion of re-
wardng their friends and furnishing their
enemies. Possibly there were some well mean
ing though fearfully misguided creatures
among their friends, but it is very certain that
every decent man in the city who had sense
enough to understand the height and depth Of
the malefactions they were perpetrsting before
his very eyes, was their natural and implacable
enemy Whenever they could strike blow at
anybody who manifested the slightest degree
of hostility to them they never hesitated to do
so. II his name was on the tax book, they in
creased his assessments. If not they exhausted
every effort of ingenious malice to contrve some
way of harassing him. 1T must be stated to
the credit of John Morrissey that he had the
| courage to enter the lists against them while
they were at the very zenith of their power.
He knew perfectly we'll that they could and
would send out their scouts to break up the es-
tablishment which, although not held under
his name, was believed to belong to him. He
nraved their vengeance and accepted the PEN
atty. 1t was plucky thing to do at that time.
There were hundreds of merchants, bankers
and leading citizens who in the same hour
were currying favor with the Tammany autocrat
i'll every way they could. What he courageously
refused to do to save himself from persecution
and prosecution they conse nted to do for the
sake of getting an abatement of the contribu-
tions they were legally bound to make for the
support of the corporation. 1t is impossible
for one who was in that forelorn hope at that
eventful crisis of our municipal history to FORE
go an expression of admiration for the courage
of John Morrissey who did bis duty as a citizen,
at great personal sacrifice, when SO many who
deemed him unworthy of association with them
were basely recreant to theirs. wish with all
my heart he was connected with some more
reputable financial institution than a Faro
bank, but it would have redounded to the
credit of all the rest of the Bankers OF the me-
tropOlis if they had followed his example when
he enlisted in the war against the old Tam
many cabal.
Our State Convention meets at Rochester on