In a False Position

New York, 1895

MISLED BY COUNSEL — MISREPRESENTED BY TWO NEWSPAPERS.

The Board of Supervisors on the Commissioner of Jurors Bill — Who Forwarded the Resolution to Boss Youngs — George Wallace Suspected — A Politician Should Not be Counsel to the Board.

The Jamaica Standard said editorially on Saturday of the Commissioner of Jurors bill:

"The report of the Jamaica FARMER that the board of supervisors passed a resolution condemning the bill, is false, as will be seen by a perusal of the resolution itself, which appears in our report of the supervisors' meeting."

This statement places the board of Supervisors in a false position before the people. The Standard does so with malice. The Supervisors passed a resolution on Tuesday of last week as follows:

"Whereas, A bill has passed in the Assembly Providing for the appointment of a Commissioner of Jurors for Queens County, and

"Whereas, we have not the bill at hand, therefore

"Resolved, That a committee consisting of Supervisors Pople, Underhill and Everitt be appointed to examine the provisions of said bill, and with full power to represent the board in the matter, and to demand a hearing on the bill before the Senate Committee to which it may be referred."

Boss Youngs had a copy of this resolution in Albany on Wednesday morning. Unless George Wallace sent it to him, we cannot guess who did. B. Frank Wood of the Standard was in Albany at the time and both Youngs and Wood, in lobbying for the bill, represented that the Supervisors had expressed no opinion against the bill, and left the impression on Senators that the Supervisors were in favor of the bill.

At the board meeting every Supervisor expressed himself as opposed to the bill, and the omission of this statement from the report of the proceedings which George Wallace furnished to the Observer, his own newspaper, and also from the Standard, did an injustice to the Supervisors. It was George Wallace who led the Supervisors into the false position which they are maliciously made to occupy toward the bill. Supervisor Underhill had a resolution in his possession expressing strong protest against the bill, and here is a copy of it:

"WHEREAS, The Assembly of this state has passed an act introduced by the Hon. E. F. Vacheron, to create the office of Commissioner of Jurors in and for Queens County; and

"WHEREAS, There is no public necessity for the creation of this office, which would impose a heavy expense upon the people without in any way improving the public service; and

"WHEREAS, The powers it is proposed to confer upon the person who might be called to fill thls office are unusual and extraordinary, and

"WHEREAS, There is no limit to the expense that the officer may incur, and no discretion left with the Supervisors but to meet all his demands for expenses incurred; and

"WHEREAS, The bill is a gross violation of the principle of home rule in that the local authorities have been ignored, and the people have had no opportunity to be heard on the question, so great has been the haste and secrecy of action thereon, therefore

"Resolved, That we, the Board of Supervisors of Queens County, speaking for and in behalf of the people, do heartily oppose the enactment of this bill into law;

"Resolved, That the Hon. John Lewis Childs, Senator representing this district, be and is most earnestly requested to do all in his power to defeat the passage of said bill to the end that the people may be saved from the infliction of an unnecessary and unjust financial burden."

This resolution was read by every Supervisor prior to the organization of the board. The members talked very freely about the bill and all denounced it. At the noon recess George Wallace got the members of the board into a caucus and induced them not to adopt Mr. Underhill's resolutions, but to adopt one that he had prepared, and the one he prepared is the short one printed near the top of this article, which the Standard and Boss Youngs say does not express opposition to the bill. We knew that this claim would be made by these jobbers, and we knew that the Supervisors would be placed in a false position before the people, and we said editorially last week that Counselor Wallace had misled the board of Supervisors to serve a political purpose. This is the more apparent now for two reasons: First, some one's haste in sending Boss Youngs a copy of the resolution. Second, printing Mr. Wallace's non-committal resolution in the Observer and Standard and omitting therefrom the Supervisors' expressions of opposition to the bill. The adoption of Mr. Underhill's resolutions would have been a condemnation of Vacheron, Boss Youngs and the Republican county committee, and Counselor Wallace prevented that by leading the board into the adoption of his resolution, of which the jobbers have taken advantage to misrepresent the Supervisors and boom the bill.

Undoubtedly the Supervisors meant to condemn the bill by resolution as they had by their speech, but unfortunately for them the Standard and Observer suppress their speech and print only the resolution. It is not good public policy to have a politician as the adviser of an official body. After what has happened the Supervisors should be on their guard. Such a thing never happened before.

Can it be that Boss Youngs had a copy of George Wallace's resolution before the day the Supervisors met and adopted it?

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, April 26, 1895, p. 1.