Should George Wallace be Trusted With Public Business?

New York, 1895

There is abundant evidence to prove that George Wallace, while counsel to the board of Supervisors, was in a caucus at Albany April 3rd or thereabouts which approved of Assemblyman Vacheron's corrupt Commissioner of Jurors bill, which would have imposed an annual burden of $10,000 a year on the tax-payers of Queens county, who were kept in ignorance of it by Mr. Wallace.

There is abundant evidence to prove that George Wallace, in his capacity as counsel to the board of Supervisors, told the board of Supervisors on April 16th that the first he knew of the Commissioner of Jurors bill was when Assemblyman Vacheron told him on April 10th, at Albany, that the bill had that day passed the Assembly. The moral conclusion is that Mr. Wallace told the Supervisors a deliberate falsehood.

The question of to-day, therefore, is, "Is George Wallace worthy to be trusted with the care of important public business as the county's counsel?" We do not see how the Supervisors can repose confidence in him, or how they can be sure that he is doing the best he can for the county's welfare. If he must be retained under the resolution appointing him, some lawyer who has the public confidence should be employed to look after the public business.

We are led to make these observations by reason of the Supervisors having passed a resolution directing counsel in the Maspeth avenue bridge case to turn all the papers over to Mr. Wallace, and instructing Mr. Wallace to take an appeal in the matter. This is an important litigation. The bridge that it is sought to compel the county to build will impose a burden of at least $200,000 on the people. The fight has been going on for three years, and the bridge has yet to be built. The last decision was against the county, and the expediency of letting Mr. Wallace have anything to do with the case would be questionable under favorable circumstances, but with his record on the Commissioner of Jurors bill a change of counsel to him is exceedingly hazardous. However, the Supervisors are the doctors, and let us hope that they will bring the county out all right.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, June 14, 1895, p. 4.