Year: 1869

THE MAYOPS MESSAGE.


Mayor Hall has postponed his annual mes
sage from January to June, and we understand
at last the reason for his perplexing delay.
His purpose has been to devote that document
to a defense of the City and County Tax Leves.
We have already explained pretty fully the
character and history of those measures, and
we presume that our readers have not forgotten
them It had long been the custom in this
ogue-ridden city for the Tammany Ring so to
manipulate affairs that the levies should be
called up at the very close of the session and
rushed through in the hurry of the last hours,
before honest men had time TO examine them.
This year, by strenuous exertions, they were
brought forward in better season. The Ciu-
zens' Association made an exhaustive analysis
of them, and showed how they could be
cut down at least one-third. The Con-
troller asked for about SG,OOO0O0 exclusive
of the $lf,OOOOOO already appropriated by
law, and not more than S4,00O00O of this was
really needed. Well, the advocates of economy
and honesty appeared by counsel before the
Legislature every item was discussed, and al
most the whole reduction demanded was
agreed upon in committee. Tammany took
alarm at the threatened loss of its annual cor
rupton fund. horde of city cormorants


locked to Albany, and at their head came
Mayor Hall. He had already complained in
letter to the newspapers that the Legislature
would not give the city all it wanted to spend.
He had shown what splendid jobs he could set
on foot if Albany would only vote him the
necessary funds He set up his headquarters
close to the State Capitol and, If common ru-
NOR and strong circumstantial evidence are not
unaccountably at fault, cOncOcted one of the
sllrewdest schemes of legislative chicanery ever
known even to the Albany lobby. A few hun
CRY Republicans were bought up, and at the
very last moment when the amended levies
were Oh their passage, a substitute, prepared,
il is said, by Mayor Hall himself, was sud
denly sprung upon the Legislature in the
form OF an amendment. IL nearly doubled the
original estimates. The Republicans made a
gallant fight but the Ring had done their work
wen, and we had to put up at last with COM
promise, which left the budgets very nearly as
Controller Connolly had originally reported them.
These compromise budgets were supported by
all the Democrats and by no Republicans ex-
cept the Shameless set who had been " in
" huenced" by Mayor Halls arguments. Yet
now Mayor Hall is not ashamed to say in his
message: We are not at all responsible for
"he City and County tar budgets of this year.
"The Mayor, Controller, Street Commissioner,
"and Chamberlain prepared, upon their local
responsibility, and properly presented to the
Legislature, tax levies as they considered
" them to be just, but they were rejected, and
"the task of cOncocting them assumed by
opponents of our local administration. OF
course, having had the power to fix these
"taX puzzles to suit themselves, they must nor
accept the entire responsibility Of the result"
We beg leave to assure Mr.. Hall that we shall
do no such thing. Had "the opponents of his
"local administration possessed the power
to fix these tax puzzles to suit themselves"
the rate of taxation in New-YOrk would have
been 1.GO. Under Mayor Halls plan it is 1.9j
The appropriations as passed are substantially
the same that the Tammany Controller asked
for They were passed entirely by Mayor
Halls own friends. They are not as bad as
Mayor Hall tried to make them, but they are
far worse than they would have been if he
had staid at home and minded his business.


The GOODNESS Of his proposal to shift his own
sins upon the shoulders of his victims is well
matched by the later portions of the message.
lie laments that he has no power TO control
the Croton Aqueduct Board and the various
Metropolitan Commissions, and turn them also
into the corruption fund, and complains TINT
the wharves and piers are left in q dsgraceful
condition, because the city has no power over
them-apparenty forgetting Mr.. Commissioner
McLean's extraordinary bill for making believe
repair them when they were under the control
Of the city, and forgetting also that IL ia the
city which has permitted them to fall into
decay. OF the many Improvements which he
suggests In our streets, sewers, methods of
lighting, ETC., we need only say that some of
them are theoretically attractive; but with the
unfinished Court House before us it will be
long before we vote to intrust the making of
them to the Common Council. Dir. Hall has
laid out jobs enough to make every member OF
the Tammany Ring a millionaire, and in the
creation of "City Improvement Fund" he
proposes perpetual fountain Of taxes at