Year: 1873

At last the portly potentate is fallen. The
mighty man Of municipal politics is down;
surely at the lowest ebb of his fortunes,
sounding very legtimately all the depths and
shoals OF dishonor; an object of pity even to
the paltry wretches who but short time since
reioiced in gathering up the crumbs of his
plnnder. 1T is like the sound of the. fall of
q mighty oak in the stiffness of the forest :
an occurrence that has its impressive side,
and in that direction may easily run into mis-
taken sympathy and pity; and its moral side,
as it tells well for the public sense Of recti-
tude that punishment was possible. 1t is in
the constitution Of the human mind that the
fall Of whatever has any attribute of great
ness, and is not altogether horrible shall be
regarded with mingled emotions of surprise,
pity and regret. And all these in varying de-
gree will be excited by Tweed's fate, even with
persons who can have no possible sympathy
with his crimes; for there was an attractive
splendor in the magnitude of his misdoings,
there was kind Of rotten glory about
him that made him loom as a Seventh
ward Rob Roy. In contemplating the un-
finished side Of that new Court House one
cannot but fancy that the audacious avarice
that grasped million on the contracts would,
on another field, have divided laurels with
Warren Hastings, or belittled the story Of
that Roman Varres who lives in Cicero's
amber But they were magnates when they
began, and this was only mender Of old
chairs. That is the little addition our repub-
ican system makes to the universal story of
official theft-an equal chance to become an
illustrious rogue is open to all, and the
humblest cannot complain that even this pos
sibility is closed against him. But is official
robbery in any way peculiar to republican
systems? Is such corruption found only or
mainly where the people endeavor to govern
themselves? Is it just to use such facts as
especial arguments against government like
ours? Assuredly not Our opinion is that
such occurrences are only possible in proper
ton as a government has ceased to be repub-
lican. In proportion as the people of city,
State or county have reached that point
where they no longer actively concern them
selves in their public affairs where they do
not care what becomes Of the body polite, in
just that proportion it will fall into
the hands of thieving oligarchs, who
may do what they will with the public purse.
1t is because every republican principle has
been knocked out of our city rule by laws con-
trived not for our good government, but to
secure party supremacy, that Tweeds are pos
sible. But tho promising sign is that we can
punish our rogues. We can revert to ele-
mentary republicanism as occasion requires
upon the spontaneous impulse of the whole:
and that Tweed with all his power to browbea.
justice-with all his plunder to purchase i'm
munity for his crimes-that such an offender
goes to Blackwell's s Island for twelve years is
an irrefutable evidence that at the core we are
still politically sound. And this we take to be
the true moral Of this great event Although
our people have suffered from political dis
gust although laws framed at Albany have
crippled an honest community and given
power to the worser sort, there is a people
here that means to make its upright purposes
felt as it gets q chance, and that by falling
back upon the primitive and simple machinery
of justice can and will resolutely punish its
criminals however politically great or rich OF
meretriciously important they may be-