Year: 1876




ture should not be organized within an
hour lfter it assemblies tomorrow noon. 1t
is eready as good as decided that General
Eusted the Bald Eagle of Westchester, A"
will be Speaker Of the Assembly, and proba-
bly, another Westchester man, Mr. Robert
son, will be elected President pro te7npore
of the Senate, an Office Of some importance
/ when the Lieutenant Governor belongs to a
different political party from the majority
Of that body. The appointment Of the Sen
ate committees will deyolve on the President
pro tcmpore Senator Woodin is also
candidate for the place, but the con-
test between him and his rival
will be tiled in the caucus this evening,
and by one o'clock tomorrow a joint COM
mittee OF both houses will probably have
been appointed to wait on the Governor and
inform him that the Legislature has organ
lied and is ready to receive any communi-
cation he may have to make, when his An
nual Message will doubtless be sent in at
I once.


1t unfortunately happens this year at Al
bany as well as in Washington that the Chief
Magistrate is a candidate for the Presidential
nomination of his party In both cases per
sonal ambition is drawback to the useful
ness of the officer. Governor Tilden's well
4 eye is steadily fixed on an event which has
/ little connection with good government in
this State-namely, the appointment
of the New York delegates to the
Democratic National Convention. This is
the pole star which will guide his political
navigation throughout the session, and his
temptation to ''look one way and row
another is probably too strong for human ma
ture to resist He will try to bend every
thing to the promotion of his Presidential
chances.


The canal frauds will make a great figure
in the Message, because Governor Tlden re-
CARDS administrative reform as the trump
card in the Presidential game-a conclusion
which does no discredit to his political
sagacity. But, unluclily, he has hung his
reform lantern-or rather his powerful cal
cium light-at the stern instead of the bows
1t pours blaze of illumination on the foul
waters through which the ship has passed
but gives little aid for directing
its future course. There is a great
difference between retrospect and reform.
Most of the cases which Governor Tilden
has so relentlessly exposed are cases of ex-
ira compensation claimed by and paid to
canal contractors. He seems to have quite
ignored a provision of the amended State
constitution which came into force last year,
forbidding extra compensation to be paid
~ IN ri ~ 1aT, Of
the amendment is mo extra compensa-
tion shall be paid to any contractor, but if,
from any unforeseen cause the terms of any
contract shall prove to be unjust and OPP
pressive, the Canal Board may, upon the ap-
plication of the contractor, cancel such con-
tract This excellent provision shuts the
door and bolts it against the kind
of abuses which Governor Tilden has
expended so much zeal in exposing.
The method by which those obsolete
frauds were perpetrated was for contractors
to make deceptive bids and afterward
seek relief either in extra compensation or in
pay for extra materials enormously beyond
the quantities specified in their bids. The
amended constitution precludes such frauds





authorize any variation from the terms of a
contract. If proves unjust and oppressive
the Canal Board may annul the contract and
let out the work anew to the lowest bidder
but there is no longer any temptation to
make deusive bids with view to extra com
pensation. Governor Tilden has been sue
cessful in making exposures, but the credit of
hal 10 o51tl of
amendments to the constitution This pre-
ventive part of the work was completed be-
fore Governor Tilden came into office His
personal ambition has made him unjust to
the real reformers who preceded him.


There is an important subject on which he
might gather laures Of his own instead of
trying TO appropriate those of others. We
refer to municipal reform in this city,
wherein the whole work remains to be done.
The Governor SHES this task for obvious rea-
sons Genuine reform is what Tammany does
not want and Tammany will have too
potent a voice in choosing delegates to the
Democratic National Convention for Cover
nor Tilden to risk its dispeasure. But he
is so fully committed by his past record on
some of the cardinal measures of municipal
reform that he could not have the face to OPP
pose them if compelled to act. 1t is, ac-
cordingly, his settled purpose to fight off the
subject and carry it past the choice of
delegates to the National Convention. 1t is
a question of such urgency that it ought to
have been acted on by the last Legislature
but action was artfully obstructed by the
Governor. Late in the session he sent in
procastinating Message, of which the chief
aim was to prevent action by that Leg
slature. He recommended commission
Of capable men to digest a plan of
municipal government for all the large cities
of thn $50 In inr ..iLh IL 70