The evening world., 1911-10-30

pleted It. spent the summer here, in
place of going away on vacation, helping
in the drafting and perfecting Of the
charter. l scrutinixed all parts Of it.
Not a thing was allowed in it Of a dis
honest nature. To do the politicians JUS
tice, non of them tried to get anything
in it. Only some good" men tried to
get some bad things into il, a. is usual,
and fell to in abuse of it when they
failed. Some have shouted that it was
a "Tammany" charter or a Murphy"
charter. Mr.. Murphy never tried to get
a thing into it, nor did any other polit-
zeal leader. The only interest which Mr..
Murphy revealed in It wa to COMMUNE
cate that he did not think well Of chang
ing the Board of Education. Other false
cries were raised about the charter. Some
said that it gave the Mayor powers in
respect of franchises which he did not
heretofore have. This was easily shown
not to be 20. No franchises under either
the present charter or the Rapid Transit
Act can be granted without the consent
of the Mayor. That has been 90 for a
generation. It was exactly preserved in
the new charter. Nothing was added to
It. There was q great cry also against
the section in the charter which allowed
the Mayor to appoint a city official of his
own choice to act as Mayor in his alb
sence, instead of turning his room and
desk over to one bent on wronginR him
in some way or another. This was called
despotic power, and the like. How silly
It all sounds in face Of the fact that every
head of department in the city Is en-
powered by the. charter to appoint a dep
uty to take his place during his absence.
When the Comptroller went away this
umrne for two months to Europe, for
instance, he appointed some one to act
in his place. and 80 with the other de-
partment heads. How people will exag-
gerate for partisan and mean reasons.
Other like things were said. It would
serve no purpose fot me to enumerate
them. All kinds of exaggerations were
INDUCED in. The question whether the
Board of Education should be changed
from the present large unpaid board of
forty-six members into a small paid
board of seven was . fair question. Both
the Twins Commission and the Hammond
Commission had recommended that a
small board be substituted for the pres
~ JIG W inCo WoS iOt uCW Will tttC
present Legislature at ali. It simply
adopted the recommendations Of these
two former commissions. Nothing was
left except the question whether the
members of the small board should be
paid.
This proposed new charter is the best
so far prepared. Mere vituperation
about it will not 60 with intelligent peo-
pie. Let them put their finger on the
sections or provisions which they claim
are not right. I read a long article yes
terday of general abuse of the proposed
new charter, but it did not state a single
fact. What is it they object to? Let
them specifically state it. I. went to one
of their public charter meetings in
Brooklyn sone weeks ago to hear every
thing that could be said against the cliar-
ter, and the things mentioned above we're
all they could name. The rest of the
speaking was mere vulgar abuse. Every
chapter in its final form was resubnitted
to the head of the department covered by
it and approved by him. The statement
made last night BY a public official that
the auditing of claims was changed by
the new charter is rot so. No change
was made in that respect.
Sincerely YOURS,