Normal School Fund

New York, 1895

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS IN THE SUPPLY BILL.

The Thirty-fourth Street Ferry Bill Killed in the Assembly — Another Black Mark Against Vacheron's Record — Bills Passed and Signed by the Governor.

(Special Correspondence of the Farmer.)

ALBANY, May 9.

The Supply bill has passed and is now receiving Governor Morton's attention. The bill contains the $100,000 appropriation for the Jamaica normal school.

Quite a little stir over the Long Island Ferry Fare bill enlivened the morning in the Assembly on Tuesday. Mr. Higbie made the ingenuous statement that the effort to reduce the fare from three cents to one took off two-thirds of the ferry income, and the Long Island railroad company would never allow such a bill to pass the legislature. Mr. Vacheron added his assurance that there was a prospect that the Senate would pass a two-cent fare bill, but were not likely to pass the one-cent bill. Mr. Madden fought sturdily for the bill and denounced the specious arguments of the Republican Long Islanders as intended to kill the bill by subterfuge. Of course, no Long Islander dared to vote against the bill, but when it became apparent that the count would be close, Mr. Vacheron was as active in trying to hurry up the call and kill the bill as Mr. Madden was in trying to delay it, so that he could get some more favorable votes. Only 59 votes was finally secured, and the bill was lost.

The present legislature has made various strenuous efforts to divert public attention from its own unsavory record to matters of national politics on which there is a difference of popular opinion. There is no difference of popular opinion as to the legislature of 1895, which is an aggregation of strikers and pocket-book statesmen and highwaymen.

The Assembly passed Senator Childs' bill, providing for the improvement of certain Streets in Long Island City.

The Greater New York bill is dead for this year. It was tabled in the Senate and recounted in the Assembly on Wednesday. Senator Childs voted in favor of the bill.

The Senate passed Mr. Madden's bill to regulate the price of gas in Long Island City.

The Mayor of Long Island City sent to the house with his disapproval the bill to omit taxes on property in Long Island City which is owned by Union College of Schenectady. This bill was, on motion of Mr. Ainsworth, passed over the Mayor's veto.

The Governor has signed Mr. Fairbrother's bill, empowering Whitestone to pay certain indebtedness.

The following Queens county bills were reported favorably in the Assembly:

Mr. Madden's, legalizing the payment of certain claims against Long Island City.

Senator Childs's, providing for certain street improvements in Long Island City. The Governor has signed the following Long Island bills:

Chapter 478 — Senator Childs's, extending until 1997 the charter of the Glen Cove mutual insurance company.

Chapter 490 — Senator Childs's, releasing the real estate of the exempt firemen's association of Long Island City from taxation.

The Assembly passed Mr. Higbie's bill, providing for repairing a sea wall at Southold.

The Assembly passed Mr. Vacheron's bill, prohibiting railroads on Lefferts' avenue, Richmond Hill, without the consent of a majority of the property owners. The Assembly cities committee reported favorably the Greater New York bill.

The bill to construct a ship-canal connecting Newtown creek and Flushing bay, was knocked out in the Assembly on Thursday night. It was opposed by Assemblymen Fairbrother and Vacheron and ex-Speaker Malby. Assemblyman F. F. Shultz, who introduced the bill, and Assemblyman Wray, both of Brooklyn, urged the passage of the bill, but it was beaten by a large majority.

Senator Lexow introduced another lunacy commission bill. It is understood that this bill, which adds two new commissioners to the present amply large commission, is to be pushed in place of the one which created such a storm of protest by legislating out entirely the present commission. The new scheme is, however, practically quite as obnoxious as the previous one introduced by Lexow. It increases materially the expense of this commission and changes its character, which has been kept thoroughly and very properly non-partisan throughout the Democratic regime, to a partisan complexion. Even the unfortunate mentally are not to be safe from these political plunderers.

Although fully a month ago it was predicted in this correspondence that no excise legislation would be enacted at the present session, not until within a few days past has this been openly admitted to be a fact by the majority leaders. That nothing at all in that direction will be even attempted is now no longer denied. It was easy enough to foresee that such must be the outcome with a party in power which has successively pledged itself, within the short space of a dozen years, to out-and-out prohibition, to high licenses, to discriminating liquor taxes with the license feature abandoned, and to Sunday opening. It was impossible to reconcile all these utterly conflicting views in any statute and hence the Republican party has taken the humiliating alternative of doing nothing — which is a confession that it dare not and cannot touch the great problem of excise, and that, after years of mud-slinging and defamation, it has no improvements to suggest to the Democratic excise laws. So much for Republican pretense and Republican performances on the liquor question.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, May 10, 1895, p. 1.