Our Double Faced Assemblyman

New York, 1895

Assemblyman Vacheron came home last Friday and was present at the meeting of the Town Board in Jamaica. He was in an exceedingly "Frenchy" state of bad humor. His neglect of duty at Albany, his complicity in bad bills pending in the legislature, and his opposition to some very good bills for personal and improper reasons, had been so thoroughly exposed by Republican and Democratic newspapers, and by the caustic speech of persons who have come in contact with him, that his frenzy was not to be wondered at. There was no epithet too offensive for him to hurl at the newspapers and the citizens who exposed him, and though these venomous discharges may have lessened the pressure on his brain, the decent persons who were obliged to listen to him could have but felt humiliated by the association.

The Assemblyman pitched into the tax arrears bill introduced by Senator Childs and denounced it as "a job to provide places for politicians." He was opposed to the bill, not because he considered it "a job," but because it would "increase taxation." Those who recall the red-handed record he made as a tax increaser when he was a justice of the peace of this town will smile broadly and deeply at his sudden spasm of conscience. The reason he gave for opposition to the bill was nothing if not hypocritical, and the figures he gave were as false as he could well make them. The bill has been in the Senate more than a month. During all this time Mr. Vacheron has been stating publicly that he would increase the number of commissioners to five, and if he was opposed in this he would see that the bill was killed. The bill as it stands provides for three commissioners whose aggregate pay will be $4,500. Mr. Vacheron's desire to increase the commission to five means an increase of $3,000 in salaries. Therefore it must be plain to all that his sudden spasm of virtue, and his newly formed affection for the tax-payers, are but a sham and a pretense. He knows that Senator Childs will not consent to increase the commissioners to five because of the expense, and this refusal blocks his game effectually. So he becomes an economist!

Mr. Vacheron's charge that the bill is a job to provide offices for politicians is absurdly false. The ideas embodied in the bill have from the first had the strong approval of Congressman McCormick! The bill received the approval of the board of Supervisors before being despatched to Albany, and it was a direct insult to Supervisor Everitt for Mr. Vacheron to stigmatize the measure as a "job". The provisions of the bill are excellent, and the county has got to have just such a law at some time or other, and the sooner the better. There are $500,000 of unpaid taxes in the county. Every year the sum increases. Every year the county is obliged to borrow the money to meet the deficiency, and the next year the sum borrowed is assessed back on the property generally. In this way all punctual tax-payers are compelled to pay the taxes of the delinquents, and a penalty of five per cent. besides. This is a great injustice, and the purpose of the arrears bill is to put an end to it. Every man who pays his taxes as an act of good citizenship favors the law. The men who never pay their taxes are against the bill, and it is quite fitting that Mr. Vacheron should be their mouthpiece, for the little property that he owns is advertised to be sold for nonpayment of the tax. His position is discreditable from any point of view.

An arrears commission could gather in at least $250,000 of this back tax in three years, and the cost to the county would not exceed $20,000. Much of the back tax is represented by property that cannot be found, that is, in fact, mythical, due entirely to the careless and erroneous work of Assessors. It would be the duty of the commissioners to remove these fictitious assessments from the books, and by so much as this fictitious tax amounted to the sum in arrears would be reduced, and in time only the actual arrears on definable property would exist, and instead of borrowing $500,000 to make good a deficiency, the sum needed would not exceed $60,000 in any one year, and the sales for back taxes would annually pay off the loan. Just as long as this fictitious property remains on the assessment roll the useless sale of it will continue. It is a monstrous wrong to every bona fide tax-payer, and Mr. Vacheron by his conduct says the wrong shall go on.


Vacheron In Brief

Editorially the Brooklyn Eagle assumes that Assemblyman Vacheron was "asleep" when the bill to steal the Normal School from Jamaica was being pushed along. The Eagle is by far too charitable. Vacheron couldn't have slept for six days.

Why did the Standard suppress the facts about the attempt to steal the Normal School from Jamaica? Oh, just to screen Assemblyman Vacheron.

Assemblyman Vacheron no doubt wishes there were neither taxes to pay nor laws to compel their payment. The law has had to lay hold of him and advertise his property for sale, and it is the more discreditable since he owns so little. Perhaps this accounts in a measure for his opposition to the tax arrears bill introduced by Senator Childs.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 8, 1895, p. 4.