New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-05-04
BLEEDING NEW- YORK,

The Legislature Of 1892 would have been
incomparably bad if it had passed only those
political measures which stand out most con-
spicrousIy upon its record. But as if to make
its memory completely odious it put through a
bewidering variety of jobs having no connec-
ton whatever with its original bald theft of
power or its main schemes for thwarting the
popular will hereafter Except for the vgi-
lance and determination of the Republican mi
nority in both branches taxpayers would have
been plundered without mercy, and nOtwlth-
standing all the opposition which ii was pos
sible to muster the majority succeeded in i'm
posing many and heavy burdens upon the peo-
pie in spirit of utterly reckless extravaganza
Not few of these jobs are now first coming
to popular notice as the Governor complacently
signs Them How many more await his sig
nature nobody knows who has not made a
laborious study of the records.
NewYork City, as usual, has the most gall
ing load to carry. Consider for moment two
of the jobs which Governor Flower has just
approved and hear what Controller Myers says
about one of them. The Register has hitherto
performed without complaint the simple task
of supervising the ndeyng of property under
the recently adopted block system. Hereafter
three commissioners on salaries of Sc, a
piece are to oversee this work. They are to
be appointed for term of five yeaE, but the
Mayor in his infinite wisdom may extend the
term to ten years. The fate of Tammany
Manor who should decline to make the extern
sion would be awful to contemplate. This law
therefore with which the Governor is presum-
ably delighted, since he ntimates nothing to
the contrary, will cost the city S1S0,0OO in the
single item of commissioners salaries and the
total cost will not be less than half a million, in
the opinion of Controller Myers. This is what
the law will take. What will it give? Moth
ing whatever which the city would not have
had without it. There is absolutely 10 need
for such Board says the Controller, and he
is right 1t is in evidence that various opera
tions performed in times past upon the public
records of Now-YOrk have been worth huge
sums to the lazy officials empowered to finger
them but this, we believe is the most impudcnt
piece of patronage conferred upon the local
Democratic machine in recent years.
The other job to which we have referred is
that which increases the number of our Alder
men by six and gives them two years in Office.
What in the name of everything except sheer
idiocy docs NewYollS want Of more Alder
men? 1t is scarcely possible to live in the
same town with these we now have There is
some conceivable Use for almost every object
in nature and art but ingenuity staggcrs AT the
prospect of extra Aldermen. A lively and in
if not absolutely conclusive argument
could be produced in favor of painting the City
Hall sky-bluc and fcstooning il with dcsiccated
monkeys. II might he difficult TO prove that
there is not strong popular demand for a
Mayors body guard OF one thousand Scncgam
bians riding backwards stark naked on giraflcs
But the man who should undertake seriously
TO justify an increase in the Aldermanic force
would be in Bloomngdale before he could say
Doodle.
This and the records job and all the other
big and little drafts upon the treasury which
the Legislature drew and the Governor coun-
tersgned are nothing more nor less than SO
many devices of Tammany Hall to satisfy the
clamor of its hungry and thirsty ones. Nobody
pretends that they are anything else. But the
drafts must be paid all the same, because
Tammany prcscribes, and legislators vote and
the Governor subscribes his name. And then
il and they and he rant about the grand old
Democratic party and the rights of the people,
and Hill and Murphy and every other scamp
join in to swell the chorus while the virtuOus
mourn over the bottOmless infamy of mid
winter convention and refuse to be comfortcd.