The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-01-16
MAZET REPORT FARCE
Majority Document Scores Croker and
Minority Abuses Platt


Minority Abuses Platt-
Albany. N. Y, Jan 1.-THE reports
of the majority and minority members
of the Mazet investigation committee
were presented last night to the assem-
bly, The majority report says:
In many of the offices and depart
ments in New York city grave evils
We're disclosed. For such as were adj
ministrative in their nature, the rem
edy must be sought at the ballot boxes,
not at the hands Of the legislature. The
one clear and distinct fact brought out
by this investigation is that we have
in this great city the most perfect in
stance of centralized party government
yet known
1t declares that we see the central
power not the man who sits in the
mayors chair, but the man who stands
behind it. We see the same arbitrary
power debating appointments. direct
ing officials, controlling boards, lectur-
ing members of the legislature and the
municipal assembly. We see an enor-
nous and ever increasing crowd OF
office holders with ever increasing SAL
aries We see the powers Of govern
ment proStituted to protect criminals,
to demoralize the police, to debauch the
public conscience and to turn govern
vate gain. The proof is conclusive, not
that the public treasury has been di-
rectly robbed, but that great opportu-
mites have been given by manipulation
of public offices, to enable favored in
dividuals to work for, their own per-
sonal benefit
1.-The conduct of the present police de-
partment of the city of New York IS
laws against pool rooms, gaming
houses, policy shops, excise violations,
dance halls and wicked resorts of all
kinds not enforced or enforced in such
a way as to be ridiculoUsly ineffective,
but the general discipline is lax, grave
offenses of personal dereliction in the
way of drunkenness, absence from post,
inattention to duty, etc, go unpun-
iShed or are visited with such small
fines as almost to be an encouragement
and not a deterrent from wrong doing.
"Robberies, bunco games, deceits,
frauds, thefts, have increased in an
alarming degree, and the detection or
these crimes and the recovery of prop
erty has steadily decreased during the
last two years.
The majority presented eight bills for
the consideration of the legislature. The
most important provides for the APP
pointment of a commission by the gov
ernor to revise the New York city char
ter.
The minority report says:
LAS to the report of the majority in
that it is grossly unfair, conspicuously
partisan, coarse in language vitupera-
tive in temper and absolutely unjust1-
fed except by the reckless disregard
and perversion of the proof adduced be-
fore your committee. The committee
was from the beginning discredited be-
fore the people. The partisan purpose
of its creation was universally recog-
niZed. A most striking illustration OF
the partisan arrogance and hypocrisy
which has dominated the committee
from it's very inception is to be found
in the paragraphs in the report, where
in the majority give expression to the
Pharisaical indignation with which their
souls are filed upon discovering that
there is a boss system associated with
our politics. But even in this the ma
jority of the committee lack both the
courage and the candor to point at the
typical though easy boss. They may
try to mask and conceal him in quite
the same Subservient manner that they
protected him from the subpoena of the
committee, and refused our insistent de-
mand that he should be called to the
stand as most unique, necessary and
desirable exhibit"
Here follows a bitter attack upon
Senator Platt and upon the majority
of the committee for not calling him to
the witness stand.
The minority protests against the
recommendation by the majority of the
creation of a commission to revise the
city charter to be appointed by the gov
ernor, and insists that any commission
of this character should be appointed
by the mayor of the city of New York.
In conclusion the minority says that
it has but a single recommendation to
make and that is that the people of
New York city be permitted to govern
themselves.