The sun., 1895-01-06
The Stupendous Impudence OF the
Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber of Commerce has had the
impudence to adopt a report of special
committee containing this passage:
The credit of this city. the State and the nation
suffering in the estimation OF foreign investors by
Of the maladmlnlstration that has for quar-.
ter of century characterized the government OF the
metropolis OF the United States. American honor is
jeercd and scored In the leading money markets
the world because of the revealed character Of our
municipal rulers"
These statements, in the first place, are
utterly and absolutely false. The credit of
the city Of New York, both at home and
abroad, during the period of which the re-
port speaks, has been unexcelled in the
world. No one of the signers of the report
has private credit SO high, or approaching
it in its supreme elevation; and the same is
true of every one Of the hundred members
of the Chamber Of Commerce who voted
unanimously to adopt and publish the lie, no
matter how great his financial standing
may be. These unworthy citizens of New
York came together on Thursday afternoon
to slander this city, and to cast false and
malicious reproach on it's credit as "jeered
at and scoffed at in tho leading markets of
the world" though, in truth, during the
sit years to which they referred specially,
rab has SpOOu HI Lne nlRneSU marx III Cn6
leading financial centres!
This Chamber of Commerce, which thus
ISLANDERS New York, is the body of citizens
that has done the most it could to lower and
debase the credit Of the city here and else
where, and to bring it actually into the dis
repute to which it falsely declares that
already it has been brought down by "our
municipal rulers"
The Chamber of Commerce is the associa-
tion which got up a bill for digging an un-
derground railroad at an enormous and in
Icalculable expense, to be met by straining
the credit of the city to it's extreme consti-
tutional limit, thus bringing about the
decadence which this report shamefully
declares had before occurred. Having
pushed the bill through the Legisla-
ture with an hysterical shrek, these
present maligners of the credit of New York
used deceit and false pretence to induce the
citizens to vote their approval of the destruc-
tive scheme. They had "jeered and scoffed
at" the project when it was first put be-
fore them as an investment for their
own private capital, well knowing that it
would be n proftless enterprise; yet
they openly and repeatedly and urgently
commended it to the people as absolutely
secure, and certain to return to them their
money, principal and interest. They had
the hardihood, they were constituencies
enough, to give advice to the public which
was directly contrary to their honest judg-
ment of the financial possibilities of the
enormously costly undertaking. They them
selves spurned the investment, following
the example OF "the leading money mar
kets of the world" but without qualifica-
tion and with absolutely unjustifable as
surances, they humbugged the citizens OF
New York with the illusion of their sa-
gacity as financial advisers, and tempted
them into voting two months ago to impair
and exhaust the credit of the city for the
leneft Of the hopeless enterprise
In plain words, it was downright swim
die. The Chamber Of Commerce went so
far as TO assure the public that by voting
for its scheme they would get rapid transit,
and get it forthwith; yet when it made this
false pretence not even the first plans for
the undertaking had been settled definitely
And now two months after the confding
people voted for the project at its
solicitation and on its false pledges,
the Commission empowered to carry
ths scheme into execution is con
fusedly and hopelessly seeking to make
practicable the impracticable undertaking!
After having struck at the credit Of the city
the ssyerest blow IL ever received, and at q
time when II had reached its highest mark at
home and abroad, that same hArum- -scarum