A Bad Record

New York, 1895

Partial Review of Vacheron's Albany Work.

COUNTY BILLS HELD UP.

Corporations More Influential Than Supervisors.

A $150,000 BRIDGE JOB.

Other Things Which Menace Tax-Payers.

READ AND REFLECT.

Ruffian Eugene F. Vacheron and all other ruffians of his stamp may as well understand that THE FARMER is a newspaper that cannot be swerved from its course of serving the people fearlessly and honestly by assault upon its editor or threats to take his life. The ruffian and blackguard respects no law and has recourse to brutal means to answer a criticism as naturally as a fly takes to molasses. If THE FARMER ever did Mr. Vacheron a wrong of any kind, these columns were open to him to correct it, and we would be glad to correct an error in his case or the case of any person. If a guilty conscience be a man's best accuser, making a coward of him, then Mr. Vacheron's silence under criticism is perfectly understood. He has complained of no wrong done him by THE FARMER. He thinks that we have no right to criticise his public acts, but that, of course, is ridiculous, unAmerican, and in conflict with law, which guarantees to every citizen the right of criticism of a public officer within the facts and within reason. And THE FARMER has kept itself well within the law.

Mr. Vacheron took umbrage at THE FARMER several months ago because it published as news, and without any comment whatever, the fact that Mr. Haywood, of Woodhaven, had brought an action in the Supreme Court against the Assemblyman to recover money that the plaintiff had loaned him. Mr. Vacheron put in an answer denying that he owed the money. The plaintiff produced his check in proof of the indebtedness with Mr. Vacheron's indorsement on it. When the trial could be staved off no longer Mr. Vacheron paid the money, thereby confessing the falsity of his defense. This news came direct from the court room and was published just as all news is published. There was no reason why we should suppress news affecting Mr. Vacheron any more than we should suppress news respecting any other man. To hide one man's offense while exposing another's would be dishonest journalism. THE FARMER is not that kind of a newspaper.

THE FARMER took Mr. Vacheron to task for sitting idly by while the people of Binghamton were trying to steal the Normal School from Jamaica. A great wrong was attempted to be done. Our citizens had labored for years to secure this educational advantage. The town of Jamaica had given $10,000 for a site and deeded it to the state. The loss of the normal school under the circumstances, and in a general way, would have been a gross outrage. The bill to steal the school had been progressed to second reading in the Assembly without any opposition from Mr. Vacheron. Either he was ignorant of it or he wilfully permitted it. In either case he had no valid excuse to make to his constituents, and he made none. What THE FARMER said and felt about it every citizen must have thought and felt.

In the public interest we were obliged to take Mr. Vacheron to task for his attitude toward the tax arrears bill. At home he denounced the bill as a job. At Albany he declared that he would kill the bill if he were not allowed to increase the number of commissioners, so that if the bill was a job he was perfectly willing to get into the job for patronage. But the bill was an honest bill, having the approval of the board of Supervisors, and being intended to relieve the tax-payers of the heavy burden of unpaid taxes. There were already three persons named in the bill as commissioners who reside in Mr. Vacheron's district, therefore he could not complain that his district was slighted. The man he wanted to put in the commission lives in Flushing, which is Mr. Fairbrother's district, with what motive, or for what purpose, the people may judge for themselves. The addition of another commissioner meant an increase of $4,500 in the expense, but that was too insignificant a thing to bother Mr. Vacheron, who is so good a citizen that he lets his small property be advertised for sale rather than pay his taxes. The Long Island City Herald says that Mr. Vacheron desired to increase the commission to make a place for a political friend of Boss Youngs, and the Herald is a Republican paper. If this be true it makes the attempted wrong all the greater, for there never can be invented an excuse for making the people pay to uphold a political boss. Mr. Vacheron held this bill in the Assembly so long that Senator Childs came to the conclusion that he meant to kill it, and knowing the importance of the measure to the public welfare the Senator went over to the Assembly and had the bill favorably reported over Mr. Vachcron's head without the name of Boss Youngs' political lieutenant getting into it. This job the public can digest to their own satisfaction.

We have had occasion to disagree with Mr. Vacheron over a bill to put $20,000 of the people's money in the pocket of Lucien Knapp of Long Island City. Mr. Knapp had not warmed his seat as City Treasurer before he sent to Albany a bill to make the city pay him $10,000 a year for two years for settling some back tax accounts. The grab bill was not sent to the representative of Long Island City, but to Mr. Vacheron, who introduced it, and is supporting it. Senator Childs spurned it. The selfishness of the thing is apparent from the fact that the law was to be operative during Mr. Knapp's term of office only. The people of Long Island City rose up against it, public meetings were held to denounce it, and every newspaper in the city spoke against it. These things make no difference to Mr. Vacheron.

A recent occasion for adverse comment was the alteration of a bill in the Assembly which had been approved by the board of Supervisors and passed by the Senate in its original form. For years Brooklyn politicians and others have been trying to compel the Supervisors to build a bridge over Newtown creek at Maspeth avenue. The expense would be $150,000 at least. These plotters tried to force the building of a bridge by an action at law. The Supervisors have been fighting against it in the courts, and have been to the Court of Appeals twice, and the case is now just where it started. The Supervisors had an act drafted giving them discretionary power as to building bridges, which is right, and Mr. Childs passed it through the Senate. In the Assembly the bill has been amended to compel the Supervisors to build the bridge. In addition to the politicians who want the bridge a railroad company wants to cross the creek and prefers that the county should provide a way. So in this matter the taxpayers are confronted with a possible addition of $150,000 to their burdens without any good reason whatever, and Vacheron does not care.

The Supervisors sent to Albany still another bill. It was intended to improve the method of assessing property. One clause provided that all contractors should file with the board of Assessors a statement as to all new buildings erected and their cost. The purpose was to furnish reliable figures from which the assessors could fix the percentage of assessments. It was an essentially just provision. The bill went through the Senate all right, but in the Assembly it was held up and this provision was stricken from it. The only reason for cutting it out is that speculators did not want it in. It would prevent them from getting low assessments by misrepresentation or a worse offense.

There is still another bill that has been held up in Assembly. The Brooklyn City railroad company induced the authorities of Flushing, to provide for an improvement of Strong's Causeway, including the erection of a bridge, at an estimated expense of $25,000, one half of the sum to be a charge upon the county at large. The railroad company has a franchise to lay tracks on the causeway when it shall be completed, and some of the railroad people have started a cemetery close by, and the improvement is really in the interest or these two corporations. Supervisor Pople fought against it, but he was overruled. The board of Supervisors protested that it would be an outrage to compel the property owners of the whole county to pay one-half the expense of what is really a private improvement over in Flushing, and they sent a bill to Albany to prevent the wrong. The railroad company appeared at Albany in opposition to it. Nevertheless, it passed the Senate. From the time it reached the Assembly until now it has slumbered. The contract for the work has been let and the outlook is that the county will have to foot half of the expense. It is not a pleasant reflection for tax-payers in these hard times.

The Supervisors have worried and fretted under this miserable condition of things. They have passed resolutions urging action on these bills in Assembly, and they have sent committees to Albany to see Mr. Vacheron, but the bills do not move. Politicians and rings have more influence than the Supervisors.

Vacheron's conduct has been such that the Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn Times, New York Herald, New York World, New York Sun have made editorial protests, and the Albany correspondents of many daily newspapers have felt justified in flaying him.

For printing these statements and apprising the public of the character of the man who represents them in the Legislature, a brutal assault has been made upon the editor of this paper and threats have been made to kick his head off. We were fully aware of the risks we run when we denounced ruffians and scoundrels. We have taken them before and will not shrink from taking them again. This late act of ruffianism will not swerve us for one moment from the exposure of Vacheron's acts.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, April 5, 1895, p. 1.