New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-02-03
ENDED At List.

The Gisgraceful farce at Albany is ended at
last, after tying mp the Legislature for five
weeks and rendering it p0weresS to 90 any
thing but draw the peoples money out Of the
Treasury for the unearned pay of its members
Yesterday the two Democratic factions en-
braced and made up their quarrel. The Tam
many men, who had been denouncing Mr.. Pat
terson ever since the first of January, sud
denly discovered that he was quite an unob-
iectionable candidate for Speaker, and turned
their votes over to him with an alacrity that
suggested pleasing prospect of liberal com
pensauon in the nea. future.
So far as the surface movements at
Albany furnish an explanation Of this
outcome Of the deadlock, it would appear that
the Autobiography men brought about the
sudden collapse Of the opposition to Patter-
SON. This little body of political guerillas,
operating upon the Legislature from the out
SIDE got the Tammany faction committed to
their pretensons at the opening of the session.
The Tammanyites were badly in want of some
rag of principle to serve as a standard and
the Autobiography people supplied the want.
The Tammanyites did not venture to say,
1--WE are opposed to Patterson because he is
not one of our fellows" but pretended TO
fight him as a tool of the bloated corporations.
All at once the Autobiography schemers
declared that they had been mistaken;
Patterson was no such a man they had
talked with him, and he was all right.
This left the Tammany men in an awkward
fix Their allies had deserted them, and car
ried off their limited stock of principles. The
bottom was knocked out of their bucket. If
they kept up the fighti it would look as though
they were merely scrambhng after the offices.
Such high-minded and unseiliSh patriots could
not rest quiet under this suspicion. They sent
for Patterson and had quiet talk with him
in remote corner of hotel. The result was
that he got their votes in the caucus and in
the Assembly, and was elected Speaker This
is the account that comes to us from Albany.
We suspect that the story is only half told,
and that the sequel will be found to he the
most significant part. We shall get the con-
Guiding chapters when the subordinate
Offices of the Assembly are filed
to-day and when the Speaker names the COM
mittees. That the Tamnany men are TO 20
without a substantial reward nobody who
knows the ways Of Democratic politicians iii
this city and State will believe.
As the whole business OF organizing the
Legislature was well understood from the first
TO be a matter OF bargain between the two
Democratic factions, the people will ask why
the trade was not consummated month ago.
What was the need Of putting the taxpayers
to the expense of ali these wasted weeks OF
fruitless caucusing and Dalloting 1t was
perfectly plain all along that Tammanyitcs
and Iildcnites were making mouths at each
other to 10 purpose, and that in the
end they would embrace and divide the spoils.
They might just as well have made their dicker
early III January, if they had not been utterly
reckless of the interests of the taxpayers and
of the legislative needs OF the State. For this