Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-12-18
GoTHAM'S "HONEST GRAFT"
Enormous Sums Wasted in Useless
Expendture-StoCk Exchange Seats.

I, OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES exchange SeatS.
| New York. Dec. 16.-Some facts have
| been brought out within the past few
days which go far to show why New
York is so much more expensive to run
than any other city in the world. These
facts show that it is not actual stealing
SO much as the honest graft which poll
ticians regard as their due that adds to
the cost of municipal government For
instance, commission appol nted thir-
| teen years ago to condemn land for
boulevard in the northern part Of the city
has just completed its work. The total
| value of the land appraised by the COM
| mission, which consisted of three men,
| bers, was placed at 1922, 651, ano the
| amount paid to the commissioners in fees
was $254,933 or nearly 10 per cent. of the
entire valuation. This represented me re
trifle of $4,000 to each member for giving
what probably would not average more
| than a few moments of his time each
! week to the city's business. This parti-
| cular body was created, however. in the
comparatively modest days when COM
| missioners were paid only at the rate of
ten dollars for each sitting. In the case
of the new Catskill aQueduct, on which
| the city is spending some hundreds of
millions for an additional water supply.
between forty and fifty commissions of
three members each, besides counsel and
special experts who have been employed
| in profusion, have been engaged in ap-
praising the land to be used at the rate
| of fifty dollars to each commissioner for
| each meeting. In a number of cases it
| has been found that men have been serv-
ing on two or three different commits
sions at one time and drawing yearly
amounts from the city in excess of the
salary of the mayor and other important
officials. Probably no other government
city, state or national-affords so many
| opportunities for rich pickings without
the violation of any law as does that of
Greater New ork with its enormous ex-
penditures. A careful estimate by men
familiar with the workings of the various
city departments places the cost to New
York of this honest graft" in the form
of useless or excessive expenditures at
$40, 100000 a year, or about II per cent of
the entire expenses of administration.
While the return of prosperity has been
announced with more or less flourish of
two years, at least there is unquestionable
| evidence that the conditions of full ac-
tivity in all lines of business which pre-
vailed up to the autumn of 1907 have been
restored This evidence is found in the
| sale of a seat on the New York Stock
| Exchange this week at the highest price
| ever recorded in the history of that insti-
tuition. 1t is only when general business
is brisk and prosperity widely diffused
| that financial operations rise to the nigh
water mark. Likewise the price obtain
able for the privilege of transacting bust
ness on the floor of the country's great
est security market rises with the volume
Of business handled there. A generation
ago seats on the exchange sold at $1,000
or $1,000. The price gradually increased
up to the early nineties when it had
| risen to $4,000 to $4,000. In the boom
| years following the Spanish-American
| war the demand for seats so far exceeded
the supply and the great increase in trad
| ing made the brokerage business so pro-
| fitable that prices rose to figures hitherto
| undreamed of and $4,000 more was
| freely paid for membership in the Ex-
! change. BY 1906 the cost of becoming a
| floor member had risen above 100000 and
| one seat was sold in that year for the re-
| cord-breaking price of $95, 900. This was
| the period when more than a million
shares of stock changed hands every
! day on the Stock Exchange floor. The
panic of 1907 cut the volume of transac-
| lions down to a fraction of what they
had been previously and the price of
seats fell off to about $4,000 During the
present year the price has been climbing
upward again. About the middle of No
vember one seat was sold for $4,000 and
| then came the establishment of the new
high record of $4,000 which from present
indications will soon be eclipsed. The
| New York Stock Exchange is sometimes
| referred to as 1.-The most expensive club
in the world In no other bourse, in
America or abroad, is the cost of mem
bership anything approaching the amount
required here.
J. Gothamites have not lost any sleep
thus far over the dire prediction of R. E.
Humphrey, a Philadelphia building ex-
pert that their city is doomed to undergo
conf1agration far more devastating than
those that swept Baltimore and San
Francisco. Mr.. Humphrey, who is Just
!, returning to this country after an extern
, sive investigation of building ana fire
protection methods in Europe, bases his