The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1892-04-08
just a Few Qualifications.

ITfOUII6 OSNOtSS W A1o doOdOh, w PoAhO
out all the falsehoods and fallacies in
it. They begin in almost the first
paragraph, and they pervade every
line. Let us only consider one or two.
There is that absurd discussion-ab-
surd to anyone who will analYze it, but
misleading to the casual rea~der-about
the city debt. An elaborate series of
deductions is made on the assumption
that there is q net bonded debt of
over eighteen millions OF dollars.
Now Comptroller Hough's report
which the writer had before him, for he
Quotes from it-shows that the net debt
is only a fraction of that amount.
There are offsets in the shape of I'M
paid taxes, adjusted and unadjusted,
unpaid assessments, securities and
cash in the sinking fund, cash in the
general fund not appropriated, real
estate bought in by the city at tax
sales, and various other items, all
amounting to many millions of dol
lars, which are q fair, unquestionable,
legal Offset to the bonded debt, before
one dollar becomes an encumbrance
upon private property. The Tribune,
of course, coolly ignores all this.
Next, in calculating the annual ex-
penditure of the city, the writer
counts in the total, 1924, 900 OF tempo
rary loans. He tries to give the i'm
preston that this is spent over and
above the regular income of the city.
He is too clever a man and too well
informed not to know that he lies
egregiously in this statement. The
loans in anticipation of taxes in this
city as in New York and elsewhere
are made to pay current expenses, and
are paid as soon as the taxes come in.
The money is only spent once, Sup
pose q man with a salary of fifty dol
lars a week borrows ten dollars on
Wednesday to meet a bill, and repays
it Saturday when he receives his sal
airy. Would you say his income or
his expenditure for that week was
sixty dollars? Yet that is precisely
how the Tribune writer argues
In discussing the debt question, it
is needless to say he makes no refer
once to the fact that yer ten millions
of the face of the debt was imposed on
the city by Republicans in seven
years, nor that the enormous drain on
the tax levy today is caused by the
exorbitant rate of seven per cent.
which that party tied around the
necks of the people until 1918.
But we have not space to review
these ~falsiications in detail. We pass
on to one or two assaults on personal
character. What a gross libel, for in
stance is the statement that the law
yers who defended the ballot box
suffers were paid with public offices.
What office has Judge Garretson re-
ceived? Was he not their leading
counsel2 Why has the Tribune moth
ing to say about the Republicans who
figured in these cases as defendants?
And why is that excellent Republican,
Mr.. Vredenburgh, who helped to de-
fend all the accused, dropped out of
sight? OF cours it is no reproach to
Mr., Vredenburgh to have defended
any accused persons. 1t was his bus
mess and his duty. But why assail
the Democratic lawyers rabidly, and
leave him out ?
OF course the browning efforts of
abuse are reserved for Allan L.. Nc
Dermott. 1t seems to be a fearful
crime that he was once a law student
especially in Leon Abbett's office.
1t was wicked in him, too, to be tenn
porary chairman of a Democratic Con-
vention, and to have been Assembly
man and Clerk in Chancery is simply
to be guilty of the objectionable sin.
His prosperity is the thing the writer
seems to be unable to forgive. The ma
ligner seems to be some poor devil, eaten
up with envy, for wherever it appears
that any man has made a decent
competence, a peculiar venom enters
into the ISLANDERS levelled at him.
The writer makes the bold assertion
that Mr.. McDermott's promises are
made to be broken. 1t is of no
quence that even he cannot show
where MI. McDermott has broken "a
promise in the past, or failed to fulfill
the functions OF any Office he held,
with honesty and efficiency. 1t does
not matter that Colonel Wanser is
open, at least as much, to a charge of
making campaign promises which he
will never realize. For our part, we
will be more generous than the Iri-
6une. We will say hat Colonel
Wanser probably thinks he means to
keep his pledges. But we most emphat-
ically say that, if elected, he would
not because he could not do it.
TO the impartial mind there is
every indication that the Democracy
earnestly means reform. 1t has nomi-
mated a man far above the ordinary
plane, q man whose word is as good
as his bond, and who gives his word
that he will improve the city govern
ment. 1t is equally plain that the
Da,~., Il;a,n ,1ovfy io inuinaara nTanu