What Was the Matter With the Supervisors' Counsel?

New York, 1895

That was an extraordinary story that Counselor Wallace told the board of Supervisors at Barnum Island about the Commissioner of Jurors bill. It was to this effect: He had no knowledge of the existence of the bill. He was in Albany the day it passed the Assembly. Vacheron never mentioned it to him. Very soon after it passed he heard about it. He went over to the Senate and spent some time with Mr. Childs, but never mentioned the bill to the Senator. He brought a copy of the bill home with him. When he attended the Supervisors' meeting he did not bring the bill there with him.

Thu FARMER would not and does not accuse Mr. Wallace of perverting the truth, but intelligent persons who read this statement will find it difficult not to believe that he is stupid and derelict in the discharge of his duty as the county's attorney.

The bill was an extraordinary one and would have startled any man who had the public welfare in his keeping. It proposed a burden of at least $10,000 a year on the people and created a brand new office for some political heeler, but neither fact made the slightest impression on Mr. Wallace. Any man representing the county, under the circumstances, would have hastened to Senator Childs and put in a protest against the passage of the bill, but Mr. Wallace forgot all about it in the short time it would take to walk a block. The secrecy with which Vacheron had sneaked the bill through the Assembly would have aroused the suspicion of an ordinarily dull mind, but Mr. Wallace's mind received no impression, if we are to believe him. He did not even see that Vacheron had tricked him by keeping him ignorant of the bill's existence.

How was it possible for Mr. Wallace to have remained in ignorance of this pernicious bill? Vacheron introduced it April 3rd, and passed it April 11th (quicker time than any other bill has made). Mr. Wallace was in Albany more than one day between the 3rd and the 11th. The only way to find new bills, and to keep track of old ones, is to consult the files. If Mr. Wallace did not consult the files he was unpardonably negligent and indifferent to the county's welfare, If he did consult the files he was either stupid or careless in not finding this bill. No matter what his course was, the county received a knock down blow right under his eye, and yet he took no step to prevent a repetition of the blow in the Senate. Perhaps Boss Youngs hypnotised him. We repeat, that it was most extraordinary that Mr. Wallace did not learn of the existence of this scandalous measure earlier than April 11th, and he in Albany, while THE FARMER received a copy of it from the Legislative News Syndicate on April 9th, and Mr. Van Vechten had a copy of it in his office in the Bank Building before that.

Did Mr. Wallace hasten home to consult the Supervisors and organize an opposition to the robber bill as the county's attorney? Not he. He allowed the days between the 11th and 16th to go idly by (time enough for a political bill like this to have been put through the Senate if the Senator had been in the job), and when he attended the meeting of the Supervisors on the 18th, the outrageous bill seems not to have yet made an impression on his mind, for he left it at home when he must have known that the Supervisors would be more than anxious to peruse it and formulate action either for or against it. As attorney for this county he should have had copies of the vicious bill forwarded to the respective Supervisors. He should have telegraphed the clerk of the board to take the necessary steps to convene the Supervisors in special session. But he did nothing in these five days, and every day was one of peril for the tax-payers. It must be remarked here, because it is pertinent (and we call the several Supervisors as witnesses of the fact), that while Mr. Wallace told the board about other legislative matters he ignored this viper commissioner bill, and Supervisor Everitt had to call upon him for information respecting it before he said a word, certainly an extraordinary and discrediting circumstance.

There are those who will believe that Mr. Wallace knew something about the corrupt bill because of his intimacy with Boss Youngs, its author, and that he played a part when he kept silence before Senator Childs, but THE FARMER is in fairness and courtesy bound to accept his word that he knew nothing about it, although it is our opinion that it would be a great deal more to his personal and professional credit were he to declare that he knew of and approved the bill, for all of his actions tend to that conclusion.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, April 26, 1895, p. 4.