Year: 1870




prehend what is our national policy with re-
gard to Cuba, 1t is to be hoped Congress will.
The Democratic Opening mt Aibany-Thc


Good Time Coming.


ooh! be joyful" ye long-waitinG and long
suffering democracy A full swing at Albany,
and the first full democratic swing for twenty
odd years! Legislature Governor, State
officers, judiciary, all right, and Tammany
master over everything, and Peter the ring
master of Tammany. The fashionable fall
opening of our pretty milliners Is lovely; the
social opening Of the New Year in Gotham is
delightful; the spring opening Of the st. Law
renee is magnificent, and the summer opening
Of the watering places is the opening Of q
glorious harvest to railways, steamboats,
hotels, hack drivers and baggage smashers !;
but all these openings are eclipsed in lowell
ness, dcliciousness, magnifcence and glory by
the grand and glorious opening of the demo-
cracy in full swing at Albany. 1t beats the
opening Of Congress, for 1t covers a margin of
five hundred millions of money In jobs and
spois; it casts into the shade the opening Of
the British Parliament or the French Cham
bers yea, it bangs ont the opening of the Suez
Canal.


Mayor Hall has only modestly limited at II,
because he felt, in broaching the subject that it
was beyond his power of language to do it JUS
tice Governor Hoffman, in his message, luxu-
rates in the charming prospects. Lieutenant
Governor Beach opens the State Senate in an
unctuous thanksgiving, and Speaker Hitchman,
in his congratulations to the Assembly, looms up
as terrific to his enemies as Goliath, the staff
OF whose spear was like weavers beam, or
like the jibboom of three-masted schooner,
and as the giant Of the Philistines defed the
armies Of Israel so Hitchman defes the pow
volution in New York, in an election which
went by default and the first manifestations
at Albany are very much like the preliminary
outgivings Of the French National Assembly
against Louis Sixteenth and his dynasty.


The first business motion In the Senate is
from Mr. Tweed, in the form of resolution
to repeal, rescind, annu, upset, abolish and re-
call the ratification of New York of the fifteenth
amendment. Wherefore? Because 1t ia ap-
pretended that the power given to Congress
in said amendment to enforce negro suffrage
''by appropriate legislation" means the power
to take the machinery of our elections out OF
the hands Of Tammany Hall-an invasion OF
State and democratic rights which would re-
verse the vote of the Empire State the first
pop and every time, in radical regulation Of
repeaters and in republican counting Of the
ballots. The issue is thus fairly joined
Tweed against Grant. On this fifteenth
amendment the balance of power seems to be
with Grant, but Tweed's is the voice of the
''unterriRed" New York democracy; and in
this motion he is striking for New York, Hoff-
man and the next Presidency, and peradven-
ture for the Collec tor.


But it is in Mr.. Crcamer's first proposition in
that we have the breaking Of the ground
towards the coming millennium of the faithful
on this blessed democratic island. The repeal
of the Excise law! A good beginning. We
had supposed it would be the repeal Of the
bothersoms Registry law; but that will come
in good time. Mr.. Dreamer knows what s
what Time was when ''free soil, free speech,
free labor and free men" was the winning
war cry. s'Free love" is somewhat now the
fashion, and is powerful idea among strong
minded women and weak-minded men; but
the legend of "free lager and free whiskey"
overtops them oil. The poetical excise officer,
Burns, tells how 'the dell" once came to
town


And ran away with the exciseman.


And among the ma sses in every land, from
that day to this, the exciseman has been a
nuisance. Mr.. Creamer knows how it is
among the rank and file of his bailiwick, and
that to them his bill will be second declara-
ton Of independence. No more spies or in
formers, no more stopping Of licenses, no
more slipping around the corner to the back
door on Sunday, and no more fears of the
police.


This is the beginning; but mark the glo-
rious programme. All the city boards and
commissions, police and all, under the Mayor,
and all the local legislation for them coming
from the City Councils and the Mayor; and
as there are henceforth to be no more bother
ing registrations of voters, and as everything
is to be democratic, it will be absurd to keep
up an opposition party. Therefore, all the
men Of this island, not employed by General
Grant, will become democrats, and they will
oil be made rich from the spoils. The demo-
cratic majority in this city next fall Gas there
will be vigorous republican fight in the rural
dstricts) will be about one hundred and fifty
thousand, and the tax levy will be perfectly
splendid. New York is to be made splendid
city, and it will take five hundred millions in
improvements to give 1t good start towards
the splendors Of Paris as it now stands from
the work Of Baron Haussmann But these fv
hundred millions drawn from the property