Childs vs. Vacheron

New York, 1895

THE SENATOR PUT THE ASSEMBLYMAN UNDER THE TABLE.

The Man With French Blood in His Veins Cannot Cope With the Yankee — County Bills Mutilated — A Highway Act that Has an Ugly Look — Vacheron's Bad Work.

(Correspondence of THE FARMER.)

ALBANY, March 28.

Senator Childs has a way of "getting there." He has won a signal victory over Assemblyman Vacheron and the "man with French blood in his veins" feels badly cut up. Mr. Vacheron considered himself invincible in the Assembly. He has been holding up all of Senator Childs' bills, and the Senator got tired of waiting for action by the Assembly.

Senator Childs went over to the Assembly and, ignoring Mr. Vacheron entirely, succeeded in having a favorable report made on the bill to establish a tax arrears bureau in Queens County. Mr. Vacheron had pretended that he could not get the committee to act on the bill. Mr. Childs did not find it at all difficult to get action by the committee.

Mr. Vacheron did not want the committee to report the tax arrears bill. He was having it held in committee so that late in the session he could add another commissioner and then compel Senator Childs to accept the increased commission or kill the bill by refusing. Speaker Fish, Mr. Nixon, Mr. Ainsworth and others took the side of Senator Childs in the matter and Mr. Vacheron was sent to the bottom of the heap with a rush.

A fact that will strike the people as peculiar in this matter is that Mr. Vacheron was desirous of forcing into the commission John Doty Van Nostrand of Flushing. Mr. Van Nostrand is a respectable man and a good blacksmith, but without the qualifications necessary in a commissioner. The suspicious thing about it is that Mr. Van Nostrand does not live in Mr. Vacheron's district, but in Mr. Fairbrother's district, and why Mr. Vacheron should go into the Second district, or be induced to go there, to find a man for commissioner, the public may judge for themselves. Mr. Fairbrother did not want John Doty Van Nostrand of Flushing for a commissioner because ex-Supervisor John E. Van Nostrand of Newtown is a member of the commission. Three of the commissioners reside in Mr. Vacheron's district.

Mr. Vacheron's record is very bad in other particulars. Every bill sent to Albany by the board of Supervisors has been passed by the Senate just as received from the Supervisors. The board knew precisely what it wanted to accomplished by these bills in the matter of local government, and Senator Childs appreciated that fact and, supported by Mr. Van Vechten, he permitted no one to meddle with the bills. After the bills went to the Assembly, and George Wallace became counsel to the board of Supervisors, every bill was tampered with. Some persons blame Counsellor Wallace for this, but he disclaims responsibility for it. However, the fact is said by certain Supervisors to be that although Counselor Wallace knew of these changes he made no report of them to the county fathers.

The Supervisors sent to Albany a bridge bill which gave them discretionary power in the matter of building a bridge over Newtown Creek at Maspeth avenue. A railroad corporation and some politicians who are in it want to get across the creek at public expense. The Supervisors have been fighting the matter in the courts for three years. The bill went through the Senate as the Supervisors drafted it. In the Assembly the bill has been amended so as to compel the Supervisors to build the bridge. It will cost $150,000 of the people's money. Mr. Vacheron never reported this fact to any one. When Senator Childs found it out he made a big row. The bill will have to go back to the Senate to be concurred in, and Mr. Childs may be able to kill it.

The Assessors' bill has also been juggled with in the Assembly. The clause requiring all contractors to report to the assessors the number and value of all buildings erected by them has been stricken out in the interest of speculators, who want to keep actual knowledge away from the assessors and by falsehood and misrepresentation to get their property undervalued.

Supervisors Pople, Everitt and Koehler are here trying to get the bills restored to their original form.

Assemblyman Vacheron has introduced a most remarkable highway act. Some corporation or individual must have designs on the macadamized roads in Queens county. The bill has been kept secret. It was unearthed to-day by the Supervisors who are here. Following is the bill:

SECTION 1. Whenever the commissioners of highways of any town, in which during the past five years there has been expended the sum of three hundred thousand dollars or more, for the purpose of macadamizing the highways of such town, shall by a majority vote of such commissioners, determine that any portion of any highway or street, not within the limits of an incorporated village, which is the terminus of such street or highway, is unnecessary for highway purposes, the said commissioners may, by an order to be duly entered upon their minutes, order such highway to be discontinued and abandoned for public purposes. Provided, however, that no greater portion of such highway to be discontinued shall be more than five hundred feet of the terminus thereof, nor unless the consent of the owners of the land on both sides of such highway or street for the distance it is proposed to discontinue the same, shall, by written petition to such highway commissioners, request the discontinuance thereof.

No act pending before the present legislature is fraught with more vital importance to the life and limb of the citizens of this state than assembly bill No. 406, the grade crossing bill. The object of this bill is to cope with the evils and dangers of grade crossings, at which, during the year 1894, no less than 95 people were killed, while 95 were more or less injured. So large a mortality from a single cause, a single feature of the fatalities attendant upon railway operation, cannot but impress itself deeply upon the thoughtful observer as a disgrace to the civilization of the state and a reflection upon its care for the safeguarding of the lives of its citizens. It must not be overlooked, moreover, that while the chief agitation for the abolition of grade crossings has hitherto been in the large and populous cities of the state, nevertheless a very large percentage of these dangerous crossings are in sparsely settled rural neighborhoods, where, by reason of the lack of flagmen or gates, the danger is indeed relatively greater than in the cities. It is of especial interest to the rural districts of the state that this law has been prepared and introduced at the instance of the railroad commissioners.

The bill in the first place provides that all steam surface railroads, and that all new highways, crossing existing railroads hereafter built must be so constructed as to avoid crossings at grade unless otherwise authorized by the railroad commission. The railroad commission is given this discretionary power because in many instances the grade might not be a dangerous one at all, and it might be desirable, and involve no peril, to obviate the expense of overhead or underneath construction. Provision is made for ample notice, by publication, for public hearings to all interests affected, and for appeal to the courts in the usual manner for any persons or interests considering themselves aggrieved by the decision of the commission.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 29, 1895, p. 1.


Vacheron's Secret Way

Assemblyman Vacheron is using all possible secrecy in matters of legislation, and some important measures that he has under way have only just come to light. One is a highway bill the like of which was never heard of. It is a job, apparently, in the interest of some corporation that wants to close up some macadamized roads, and it opens up a way for dishonest highway commissioners to enrich themselves by accepting bribes from corporations or individuals who may be willing to put up boodle for favors. This bill is printed on the first page of to-day's FARMER and every citizen should read it.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 29, 1895, p. 4.