The herald., 1898-08-20
New York,s Bond Sale

New York Is having trouble over it's bond
sale. True, the amount is only thirteen mil
lions, which is big enough for the small
fry, but not SO much for a large city like
New York. Bids have been submitted In
which the bidders were actually audacious
enough to say that the price offered was
only good In case the legality Of the bonds
was approved by counsel. Respectable au-
thorities stand aghast-in New York at
such daring effrontery.
1t Is all very we'll when an ordinary per-
son Is selling piece of property for a
buyer to say he will give certain price
provided the title be proved good. But for
any person to question for a moment the
absolute legality Of all the steps taken by
New York officials in the issuance Of a
little matter of thirteen million dollars
worth of bonds Is absolutely discourteous
and should be frowned down accordingly.
As the New York Bond Buyer says:
New York city bonds like United States
bonds have been sold heretofore on their
recognized value as securities; never upon
the opinion of any individual counsel or the
decision of any court as to their validity
The question Of the legality of New York
city bonds has never heretofore been raised.
The other side Of the question Is pre-
scented editorially by the New York Evening
Post, which says:
The complications which have arisen in
the attempted sale OF nearly $1,000 900 of
rs bonds by the city of New York are dis
creditable, but are unfortunately what
may be expected under such rulers as the
city now has. For long time the corpora
ton counsel was busily employed in render
ing opinions to the effect in the first place
that no bonds could be legally issued, and
In the second place that some bonds might
be legal, but just how many no one could
tell Finally It was decided to ask for
bids for bonds to the amount of between
sl2.O00.Otp and $13.000.000, and the result is
what might have been expected. The city
having dsparaged Its own credit by Ques-
tioning the legality of its securities, some
Of the bankers very naturally made their
bids conditional on the establishment of
this legality. Naturally, also, these con-
ditIonal bids were the highest, and very
naturally the other bidders, who had made
no conditions, claimed that conditional
bids were not admissible If the comptrol-
Ter accepts the conditional bids, he will
very likely be sued by the unconditional
bidders; and If he accepts the unconditional
bids, the conditional bidders will assail
him. Legal proceedings have. in fact, al
ready begun. 1t Is asserted that the syn
dictate of unconditional bidders was got up
by the influence of the comptroller, In Of
der to punish the bankers who he learned
were going 10 make condltlOnal DldS; out,
however this may be, the assistant cor
poration counsel has given an opinion in
favor of the conditional bidders. Now, II
els said, the comptroller proposes to throw
out all the bids and invite new ones; in
which event some of the present bidders
may claim that no new bids can be called
for, and resort to legal proceedings to en-
force their rights. The whole affair is
characteristic of the kind Of municipal
government that our party Organizations
give us.