Year: 1873

MIR. TWEEDS CASE


II ia about sixteen months since William NJ.
Tweed was reelected Senator from the IVth
District of New-YOrk. He has passed the in
terval sometimes in hiding from the officers
of the law, sometimes as a prisoner at the bar
of criminal court, sometimes c0ncerting with
his advisers and accOmplices how to put away
his plunder where the City cannot reach 1t.
He has never dared to show himself at Albany,
and of course he never will take his seat
under any circumstances. Nevertheless his
vacant chair remains continual disgrace to
the body of which he is legally member. IL
the Senate had been decently sOlicitOus for its
own honor, it would long ago have expelled
him for the accumulated infamies of his
notorious career. But every morning the
honorable gentlemen enjoy the privilege OF
hearing the clerk call the name OF Tweed as
he goes through the roll, and of knowing that
though lost to sight the great chief of the
Ring is still one with them in spirit and
according to law.


The appointment of Committee TO inves-
tigate Mr.. Tweed's alleged corrupt dealings
with the members of the Legislature has been
ACCOMPLISHED at last with difficulty, and, after
o severe quarrel. it is finally arranged that
the particular friends and associates of Mr.,
Tweed shall not have the control of the in
ouirv. We should like TO be told, however,
why certain Senators insisted upon so cOnsti-
tuting the Committee that 1t could do 10
harm, and why they flew into passion when
it was rearranged for the purpose of finding
out something. 1t is well known that five
members of the present body were Senators
in 1870, and helped in passing the Ring Char
ter of New-York under which Mr.. Tweed de-
veloped such extraordinary opportunities. 1t
is a common scandal in political circles that
some of those Senators received money for
their votes. 1t is notorious that Republicans
were bought in those days by the Tammany
Ring, and that Mr. Clerk TerwilligeT, who levied
toll upon the legislative printng-bills, was
not the only patriot who got rich by secret
WAYS. Senator James Wood has already suf
fered the pangs of investigation, and it has
been proved that he took money from Mr..
Tweed There are others to whose reputation
we forbear out of charity to make any pre-
mature allusons. But Mr.. Tweed is reported
to have said that "lf ths investigation goes
"on somebody will get hurt" We dare say
that is true. Let it go on, then, with all pos
sIble vigor. The ruling party i'll the Senate
will do well not to stand in the way. If there
arc Republicans who sold themselves when
the Charter of 1870 was passed. ii there are
any who have made compact for the new
scheme which is now held in the background;
if there have been corrupt dealings by Tweed
or his partner Murphy with the authors of
the legislation of the last two years; or If
there is any secret reason why Mh Tweed was
not long ago expelled, the people want the
truth to come out. no matter who may suffer.
SO many good men have "got hurt" lately,
that the public looks upon the agonies of
State Senators with an indifference that al
most amounts TO calOusDess.


The TRIBUNE calls for a relentless prosecu
ton of this inquiry, no matter who gets hurt.
1t arraigns this Senate for gross dereliction OF
duty, in permitting the name of a shameless
thief like Mr.. Tweed to remain unehallonged
on its roll, and a district of this city
TO remain without decent or honest represent
alton, and substantially without aBy repre-
sentation st ali. 1t submits that men who
have clamored for Mr.. Tweed's trial
in New-YOrk lin which demand we
heartily concur) have no excuse for
failing to bring him to trial that is wholly
within their own control. IL insists that every
day of Tweed's membership in the State
Senate has been another day of disgrace for
the State that every hour his case is
neglected is an hour of infamy for the majority
in whose hands he is. If he is a member,
he should be expelled. If he is not a
member, the seat should be declared vacant,
and a new election should be ordered,
to fill the vacancy. Ih, Senate has
done neither, because it dared not! Its
members at this hour tremble when the
notorious thief says, " If you push me, some
"body will get hurt" We demand that he be
pushed. If somebody gets hurt, so much
the better We call on the people of the
State TO watch henceforth every stage of
these proceedings, and to spot every man
who, under any pretense whatever, votes in
any way to screen the briber, or
the men he bribed. And if there
Is one man in the Senate who
is not afraid of Mr.. Tweed's hurting him,
on that man, in the name of an outraged
people, we call to raise the question of this
thefs right to membership in the Senate of
the State of New-York.