THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1909. NEW YORK AND THE TIGER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9647, 12 November 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1909. NEW YORK AND THE TIGER.

Out of one of thoie rougb-ups that recall attention to American politics as distinguished among the phe> nomena of civilisation, Tammany has emerged as winner of the Mayoralty of New York, but is considered likely to lose many of the other executive positions. The cable has reported that control of the Board of Estimates and Apportionment is "particularly important" this year ] because there are immense sums to be expended; and this cynical intimation sums up the stake Tammany was fighting for, the handling of 185,000,000 dollars that appear in the budget of 1910, a fair round sum that must have made many a political mouth water. If the Mayor of New York is not given strong party support among the other elected officials, he cannot do much in the way of helping his friends and managers to personal slices of this money, ar.d might as well have been defeated, since the Tammany Tiger will have to go hungry while the Mayor and his hostile officials quarrel. For the office, as such, does not count with Tammany. Jt is a means to a golden end. Neither does its occupant count. The Boss puts him there, as in Mr Lewis' merciless, wonderful novel of New York politics Big Kennedy put in the respectable ( old gentleman or any other dummy who would serve his turn. The new Mayor was aclually called over from the other side by Boss Murphy, and has been scathingly described by Mr Jerome, the District Attorney and a reformer of sincerity and note, as "that most abhorrent product, a political judge. ... a political | charlatan, shown in the past to be totally destitute of political courage, and whose erratic ability is tinged with a morbidness which is almost akin to mental unsoundness." Thus Judge Gaynor, according to an enthusiast for good government, whose hopes of a cleansed Democratic party were cheated by the Boss" crafty strategy in pushing a nominee of his own ahead of any that a chastened party might have chosen. The wonderful thing is that New York politics apparently cannot be > reformed in earnest and anything like permanence. If the reformers capture office, before their term is up the people are ready to get the Tiger back. And what the riepredatiojis of that political beast wean to them i 3 indicated by the state-

ment made by General Bingham, a retired army officer who resigned the Police Coinmissionership recently, that the government of New York City cost 200,000.000 dollars a year, but the city also pays an ad ditional 100,000,000 dollars annually in "graft, blackmail and brokerage on crime.'' The methods are the same old methods as prevailed when ! Mr Lewis made his study and Mr Croker was Hos. j . When the masterful strategist appeared in Court the servile magi s tr<tte asked him what he wished done; General Bingham reports that the 32 magistrates mainly responsible for enforcing law an! scju-ginn lawlessresa in New York are appointed by the Mayor, and therefore do as he wishes. The old Ross corrupted the pells with "repeaters" imparted from Philadelphia, who recorded eight or ten votes per man during the eventful day; and although the ballot system has exploded that game, General Bingham says that men engaged in the "white slave traffic'' find Tammany "a sixth of the 30,000 to 50,000 illegal votes cast in close elections." Still the police force is the great stand by of the boodlers—its members paying so much per head for their billets and then collecting the blackmail which 'Helps to finance the party. General Bingham affirms that in the first year of his commipsionership he could Shave made a million dollars in bribes, and that the police do so well (or so ill) in that way that men in receipt of from £250 to £4OO afc the rate of not less than £I,OOO a year. Yet the New York people, who have to" pay the blackmail and the blackmailer as well—so that being a policeman is almost as good as being one of those who sit with the Boas at the receipt of custom —put ap with it. Every community gets the kind of government it wants, it has boen said,'but it 13 difficult to understand anyone wanting to be governed by Ei arauders.