New-York tribune., 1908-05-02
REFORM IN QUEENS.

1t is hard to tell whether the defeat OF Mr.
Joseph Cassidy, who aspired to succeed Mr.
Joseph Bermel, fed TO Europe, is a blow TO
form in Queens not. 1t is true that Mr.. Cas-
sidy is the head and front of the great moral
uplft that has made ii so uncomfortable il
Queens for Mr.. Bermel that, it Is said, he is
even prepared TO spend the rest of his days in
Europe rather than go back to his own baili-
wick. He is the accelerator of hosts of civic
organizations which have strlven nightly to
drive the Bermel gang out of Office. AS the
prime mover and fnancier of the great effort
for the publication of Queens his claims to
reward entitled to consideration. But then
Mr.. Lawrence Gresser, who defeated this nota-
bic reformer, was the choice of all parties
without regard TO partisanship, his support com
prising one Democratic alderman one Repu1-
lican and Independence Lacquer, and we
always accustomed to think of nOn-pa:-
tisan victory a victory for reform. There
fore, at this distance and in the opacity which
characterzeS Queens affairs, it is impossible to
tell whether the election of the acceleratOr OF
civic uprisings or the election of the man 10
whom all parties seem instinctively to turn us
worthy of the best traditions of the borough
was most TO be desired as harbinger of -
form. Moreover, it does not help at all to con-
slider that Mr.. GresSer the chief of Mr..
Bermel's staff, his Commissioner of Public
into office on Of those great moral waves
which happen so often in Queens, defeating Mr.
Cassidy, now the head of the civic uprising?
There are other things about Queens which
Opaque TO the mere outsider. The Queens
jail, for instance is reported to be of such n
character that prisoners spend only their nights
in it. One of them, 1t will be remembered Il
bgamist, was caught up in The Bronx trying 10
retrieve a pair of trousers, formerly his, in
which TO make himself attractive to one OF
the young women prisoners in the Queens jail.
When the Jail is so attractive as that, why are
many people kept out Of it? The diligence
with which Queens grand juries pursue the
facts curiOusly corresponds to the rigOrs of pun
ishment in the Queens Jail.
The Kissena Park scandal has been familiar
for a long time, but, although Queens grand
jures have gone into 1t, nothing particular has
been discovered. The present jury is delving
away, and. it is reported. is going TO be partc-
ularly relentless in finding out whether the pre-
vous grand jury got rich out of its inquiry into
Kssena. No as far away as this
derstand the ways of Queens grand iures any
more than he can pretend to fathom the delight
of Queens, without regard 10 party, in hOnOriIg
Mr.. Bermel's right hand man in preference 10
the reformer to whom ii owes its present civic
awakening Elsewhere a grand jury, having
got Mr.. Bermel before it in the morning when
he was advertised to sail at noon, would have
kept him in hand until 1t was through with him.
But that is not the way in Queens. There he is
excused in the morning and told TO come back
two hours after his sailing hour. Such zeal
to get TO the bottom of things is past cOmpre-
hension 1t is perhaps idle to predict the out
come of Mr.. Bermes trip. but guess is that
he will stay in Europe fer while and then
turn 10 lead great moral uprising against Mr..
Cassidy. The borough will surely need another
delverer soon.