The Lying Standard Promptly and Emphatically Condemned

New York, 1895

(From Yesterday's Long Island City Herald, Republican:)

"The Standard has not discussed the legislative bill which proposes to create a Commissioner of Jurors in Queens County simply because it has not been favored with a copy of the measure.

"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. The Supervisors, not having seen the bill, appointed a committee to read it, with power to make recommendation in the name of the board.

"The promoters of the measure claim that the act is identical with a law which has for some time been in operation in the county of Westchester and which has been found to work well." — Jamaica Standard.

The relations existing between the Herald and the Jamaica Standard have always been of the most friendly and fraternal character, but we cannot permit an editorial so full of guile and so purposely misleading to pass without the severe criticism it deserves. The article from the Standard, which we have quoted above, is one of the rankest pieces of deception of which we have ever known any paper to be guilty.

The Standard is regarded as the personal organ of William J. Youngs and Assemblyman Vacheron, who in the darkness which the wicked loves better than light, concocted the Commissioner of Jurors bill for Queens County. It was surreptitiously introduced into the Assembly by them and passed by that body before the judges, the lawyers, or the people of Queens County knew that such a bill was in existence. If Senator Childs had been in league with the conspirators it would no doubt have been rushed through the Senate and been sent to the Governor for his signature.

This is no news to the editor of the Standard, though it may be to the people of Queens County. The editor of the Standard was in Albany last week and he could easily have procured a copy of the bill and made himself familiar with all its provisions. He knew what a rumpus the bill had raised in the county, that it was denounced by both Democrats and Republicans, and that the lawyers said that the powers conferred upon the person holding the office of Commissioner of Jurors made it a most dangerous bill.

We have not talked with a lawyer who has not been outspoken in his condemnation of the bill, which was conceived in iniquity and born in sin, as we will proceed to show. The JAMAICA FARMER says that a responsible and honest member of the Legislature has sent to the editor of that paper "a signed letter asserting that if the Commissioner of Jurors bill became a law, Assemblyman Eugene F. Vacheron is to be appointed to the office."

The Herald can confirm this report. It has been an open secret that Mr. Vacheron would be appointed Commissioner of Jurors if the bill became a law. Mr. Youngs has said so and Mr. Vacheron's appointment to the office has been almost common talk in the county. It is one of the most audacious and unscrupulous acts of legislation ever attempted at Albany. An Assemblyman attempts to create an office with a large salary and giving him the powers of a despot, for his own personal benefit, and in this he is aided and abetted by the chairman of the Republican county committee.

Who is this Mr. Vacheron, who represents the Third Assembly District of Queens County and is the side-partner of William J. Youngs at Albany? He is a man of inferior intellect, but with an abnormal amount of impudence and conceit.

When the Jamaica Standard declares that the report of the JAMAICA FARMER that the board of Supervisors at their last meeting, held at Barnum's Island on Tuesday of last week, passed a resolution condemning the Commissioner of Jurors bill, is false, we must take exception to the Standard's statement, because they Herald's report of the action of the Supervisors agreed substantially with that of THE FARMER. We are informed by a member of the board of Supervisors that a resolution was prepared condemning this bill and administering a stinging rebuke to Assemblyman Vacheron, but at the urgent solicitation of George Wallace, counsel to the board, it was not presented and one couched in more moderate language was substituted and passed by a unanimous vote. Mr. Wallace was afraid, we have been told, that Assemblyman Vacheron would be so enraged that he might obstruct other legislation affecting Queens County.

All the Supervisors, however, were of one opinion, namely, that the bill was both bad and dangerous and that no effort should be spared to have it killed in the Senate. A committee consisting of Supervisors Pople, Everett and Siebs was therefore appointed with the understanding that they fight the bill to the bitter end, and they were invested with full power to that effect. To say that the resolution of the Board of Supervisors was not hostile to the bill is an evasion of the truth.

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