The Supervisors Should Fight

New York, 1895

The Flushing Journal tries to make it appear that Supervisor Pople favors the improvement of Strong's Causeway under the conditions which surround the question, but it is not true, for no honest man could do that, and Supervisor Pople is honest all the way through. This proposed improvement is a conspiracy against all the people, for it is proposed to make the whole county pay for it. All the facts indicate that it is a most scandalous job. The only reason for making the improvement on the scale proposed is that the Brooklyn City railroad company wants it. Now any one would say that the company ought to pay for it. But the company proposes that the people shall pay for it, and there are public officers in the conspiracy to help put the burden on the people. It seems to us that the Grand Jury in the March term of the Court of Sessions cannot do better than investigate this business. Perhaps the Flushing Journal would not be pleased with the result.

In the efforts to impose the job on the public without awakening suspicion, fictitious figures were put forward to deceive the people as to the cost of the improvement, and make it appear a trivial affair. For example, it was asserted that 26,500 cubic yards of earth filling would be necessary. This was based on the misrepresentations of the railroad company's engineer. The fact is that 55,000 cubic yards of earth filling will be necessary, and this doubling of the work and expense is conceded by the jobbers, and adopted by them, not because they want to be right, but because they think the job has passed the stage where it can be interfered with. In this they are mistaken. The job can be attacked and beaten, and THE FARMER knows how, and it is the duty of the board of Supervisors to attack it and defeat it, and that duty, we believe, the board will discharge with a wholesome vim.

In cementing this job the officers who have had to do with it have been most magnanimous. The railroad company felt so much in need of the roadway and the bridge that it offered to give $5,000 outright toward the expense. This would have been a benefit all around by reducing the expense to $15,000, $7,500 of which would fall upon Flushing and Newtown, and $7,500 upon the county. The Flushing officers protested that this would not do at all. It would be enough if the company paid half of the expense that would fall upon that town, which would be $5,000 of the $20,000, thus making the company's share of the expense $2,500, and making the company a present of the other $2,500 it had offered to give. Newtown was not taken into this part of the deal. The company ought to have a high appreciation of the liberality of Flushing's officers. What opinion those same officers have of the pleasant qualities of the corporation we may but guess.

If this were a matter that concerned only Flushing and Newtown we might leave it there, particularly in the case of Newtown, which is used to being jilted in every manner of way. But it concerns the whole county, for fifty per cent. of the cost of the improvement is to fall upon the county, be what it may. We need not multiply words to prove what a wrong it would be to impose such a burden upon Jamaica, Hempstead, Oyster Bay, and North Hempstead for the benefit of a private corporation solely. It is highly creditable to Supervisor Pople that he recognizes the injustice of it and is opposed to it. The Supervisors as a body have expressed antagonism to the job, and have sought to disrupt it by legislation. Senator Childs has actively co-operated with the Supervisors, and has passed through the Senate a bill to make the job an impossibility. That bill is now pending in the Assembly. There is another bill there, too, one introduced by Mr. Fairbrother, which is intended to perpetuate the job and eventually to consummate the wrong. The Supervisors asked Mr. Fairbrother to withdraw his bill and support the bill pushed along by the Senator. Mr. Fairbrother's bill is the product of the railroad company and the combination of jobbers. Just how Mr. Fairbrother received the Supervisors' request, and just how he stands toward this job, is clearly indicated in the following letter:

ALBANY, Feb'y. 4, 1895.

Mr. Robert Seabury:

MY DEAR SIR — I cannot withdraw my bill. Supervisor Siebs is in favor of the bill which I introduced, therefore I disagree with the document which you have sent me with the approval of the board of Supervisors. I do not agree with the Supervisors "on the grounds that the same is against the interest of the tax-payers."
Yours truly,
JAS. S. FAIRBROTHER.

Now let Mr. Fairbrother pass his bill, or kill the Senator's bill, which is the same thing. The Supervisors should not lay a straw in his way. The time for the Supervisors to assert themselves heroically will come when they are asked to give their sanction to this imposition. They can, and no doubt will, refuse to become accessories to the job, and the jobbers will be driven to the courts to carry their point. In this open field the people will get fair play, and they will win. THE FARMER knows what it is talking about. We are so firm in our opinion that this job can be beaten at law that we would undertake to win the case or pay the expenses.

The Supervisors must fight.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Feb. 22, 1895, p. 4.