Rascally Law Making

New York, 1895

Secret legislation is rascally business. The hasty passage through the Assembly of the bill to create a Commissioner of Jurors for this county was rascally work. The bill proposes to make the people pay about $10,000 a year for a service that costs at present $96. That is rascally, too, for there is no popular demand and no good reason for the change.

Vacheron introduced this rascally bill April 3rd. It passed the Assembly April 10th. The introduction and passage were timed so as to prevent the board of Supervisors from taking any steps to oppose the bill. Not a citizen of the county knew that the bill was in existence earlier than the 9th of the month, except Boss Youngs and B. Frank Wood. The Standard in two issues suppressed all information as to the existence of the rascally bill. That was rascally journalism, but, then, the Standard is a criminal newspaper any way.

Boss Youngs has been accused of being the father of the bill, and he has not denied it.

It has always been the rule of honest legislators representing this county to transmit to the board of Supervisors every bill introduced,, and the Supervisors have been given time to approve or disapprove, as the measure seemed to them good or bad. Senator Childs has never departed from this rule. Vacheron has never observed it.

Now that the bill is in the Senate, we presume that Senator Childs will not soil his record by pushing it through under whip and spur. More than once the people have had to rely on Mr. Childs to save them from the enactment of pernicious laws, and the people look confidently to Mr. Childs in this crisis. Will he stand up against this wrong? Boss Youngs and the bone brigade will push Mr. Childs very hard, but they have done it before unsuccessfully.

As this is the greatest outrage these political jobbers have attempted, it affords all the more reason why Senator Childs should stand firmly by the people. If he does the people will surely stand by him.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, April 19, 1895, p. 2.