Year: 1870

TIE Hfcneer.sso PrsS,,u as AIbany-Har-


nsay and Success or Dtvisiens and Do


feat. @t


The democratic party In our present Legis-
lature, with every incentive to union and
harmony, is threatened with divisions ana
defeat. For example, upon Mr.. Frears new
Charter bill for this city two or three Senators
from this quarter and one or two from the
interior appear to wish 1t to be- understood
that II put to the alternative of yea or nay ON
this bill they will ''smssh the machine" The
worst Of 1t is, in party view, that by joining
the republicans 1t Is within the power Of three
or four democratic Senators to throw to the
winds all the fruits OF the last November
election and to turn over tho State again into
the hands Of the republicans next fall. This.
should 1t come to pass, will be small matter
in the judgment of independent men, who
have lost all faith in the wirepullers Of both
parties; but to the people of this city, over
taxed and burdened as they have been, ~
they are and will continue to be under our
present incongruous and irresponsible city
government, the paramount question is this
question of new Charter, endangered by these
democratic mutineers.


A new Charter upon the popular idea Of
municipal rights, restoring to the city the
right the duty and the responsibility Of admin
istering its local affairs, without the existing
drawbacks and complications of State commits
sions, boards and bureaus, is what we have
been promised from this democratic Legisla-
ture, and is what this community expects and
demands. And what is there so monstrous in
Mr.. Frears bill that, rather than support it
there are certain democratic Senators who
would see this great object of new
Charter defeated and the party broken to
pieces and reduced to public contempt and
derision? Cannot the bill be amended 30 as
to remove all reasonable objections, even in
reference to the power Of the Supervisors and
the term of the Aldermen 1t can be. Unfor-
tunately, however, the objections to the bill
are but pretext for mutiny against the estab-
lished central organization Of the party in this
city.


Does any one conversant at all with the



pose that Senators Genet and Norton, in their
opposition to Frear's bill, are inspired solely
by patriotic considerations? No; they are
like other public men, planning to turn affairs
of State to their own advantage. They are
thus cooperating with an active clique of
ambitious outside politicians, who are simply
aiming to supersede the central author
ity Of Tammany Hall, or ''the ring"
if you please, Of which Messrs Sweeny, Hall,
Tweed and others are the recognized head
sschems. In opposition to this central junta,
to which the democracy are indebted for their
present Governor and Legislature, the active
rival clique referred to has entered the field at
Albany. Mr.. Samuel J. Tilden, q venerable
Bourbon, turned up again, is the chief engi-
neer Of this clique its special organ is the cop
perhead newspaper which sounded the trum-
pet blast Of retreat to the astonished demo-
cracy on the eve Of the last Presidential
battle, and its sappers and miners are drawn
from the dainty turtle soup gourmands Of the
Manhattan Club and the ''bloated bond
holders" of our democratic aristocracy; and
yet they are, strange as it may appear,
backed by the chief of corps of roughs and
repeaters.


Genet, Norton and the one or two others
inclined to drift in the same direction in the
State Senate may have no higher aspirations
than mere shuttle, cut and deal for the enor-
nous masses of spoils and plunder of this
rich island, awaiting new division; but the
chiefs Of the cliques behind them are scheming
for the higher game of the general control of
the State councils Of their party, looking to
the next Congress, the next vacancy in the
national Senate, the next Presidency, and the
probabilities and possibilities Of the next
democratic Cabinet. Hence the hitch upon
the new Charter. Mr.. Tldens bill, in his
Judgment no doubt, was the very thing
required for the city but the majority of the
party in the Legislature have thought other
wise, and so Mr.. Tilden and his clique and
their organ are reused into patriotic wrath
against ''the thieves of the ring"-the old
story Of the kettle calling the pot black.


All this would be very amusing but for the
fact that If we can have no agreement among
these belligerent politicians on the Charter we
shall have no new Charter, and 30, in looser
and more slipshod way than ever, the local
taxes drawn from this community and the
spoliations from the city treasury will still
increase. The public plunderers will say,
when no man can be held responsible why
should any man hesitate with the chance to
steal all that he can? Now If there is any
honesty in the patriotic professions Of these
Albany mutineers they will agree upon some
thing in the form of a new Charter, and as we
have meeting of the Legislature every winter
it is not necessary to be very particular about
secondary details. The failure to give us
Charter under which the city will govern itself
will involve such discords and squabbles in
1. 10 <ho DF