New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-04-24
The Albany Record.

The well worn phrase, worse than
crine-a blunder," must be in many minds
as the legislative session Of 1915 closes.
Against the members Of the present Legis-
lature there is laid no such charge Of cor
ruption as decade ago marked the pass
ing of an Albany session. Nor can 1t be
Justly said that vicious bossism controlled
and dictated legislative action.
What will be said, what must be said,
is that the Republican leaders, legislators,
have been incredibly, inconceivably stupid
They have sacrificed q great opportunity;
let a splendid chance slip through their
fingers. Instead of doing well in large
things they have done i'll in small things.
In the main their worst offences have been
petty.
And what a chance there was for this
Republican Legislature last january A
state. weary. nauseated by Tammany rule,
by incapacity fortified by vicious and in
tolerable political methods, turned to the
Republicans with hope and with conf
dence that efficiency would be restored in
state administration, that the abomina-
tons Of the Sulzer time, the weak and I'M
certain purposes of the Glynn administra-
ton. would be superseded by honest and
economical party government.
How completely the hope has been de-
stroyed can no longer be debated. No
sooner were they in the saddle than the
Republican legislators directed their ef-
forts. their energy, their whole attention,
not to undoing the evils Of the last two
administrations-an there were enough
Of them-but to destroying such good legis-
lation as had been wrung from Tammany
Legislature already facing the pros
pect Of disaster.
To catalogue the list Of attacks upon
humane and progressive laws which were
made by the present Legislature is almost
impossible. the list is so long. So far as
it was able it deprived the women Of the
canning factories Of the modest meas
ure Of protection provided by law after
there had been revealed by investigation
condition shameful in the present time.
1t attacked the tenement house law of this
city; it assailed the labor laws and the
workmen's compensation law.
And at the same time, when popular in
dignation was rapidly and decisively turn
ing the moral issue against the Republican
leadership it undertook to deal with this
town as conQueror with city taken by
storm. To clean rural frog ponds, to
pave village streets, to provide jobs for
deserving Republicans and patronage for
hungry upstate leaders, the total of state
appropriations was raised beyond any
thing in state history.
Protest, argument, statistics of the
Fusion Mayor and President Of the Board
of Aldermen of this town were thrown
aside with contempt. On the specious plea
that a preceding Democratic state admin
istration had failed to provide adequate
appropriations, it was decided to levy a
direct tax of SO 100000, and in the same
y breath that the plea was made money
was appropriated for score of purposes
which could be Of no other benefit than
to those who clamored for patronage as
the promise of Republican victory in 1916.
A single idea patiently possessed the
minds Of the Republican majority. In the
contemporary weakness Of the Wilson adj
ministration they saw guarantee of Re
publican victory in 1916. They saw an
easy immunity from all penalty for their
own actions. They discerned a license
to destroy legislation that represented
gains for humanity and protection for the
less fortunate, and am opportunity to
plumber the great City of New York.
Thus it has happened that what was a
local disgrace has become national party
peril. What the Republican Legislature Of
New York has done has been accepted
as an expression Of the spirit of the Re-
publican party in the nation. 1t has been
accepted as the promise or the threat
of what Republican success in the nation
next year would mean.
TO the failure Of the Legislature there
has been added that of the Governor. In
q generation no man in this state has
had the opportunity that came to Charles
S. Whitman. Roosevelt never had it
Hughes never had it. What they did for
themselves circumstances did for Gov
ernor Whitman. But what these men did
for themselves he has been totally unable
10 do for himself.
All over the state thousands of young
men, Republicans and Progressives alike,