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RECORD AND GUIDl
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PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS.
Pu6Hefted euery Saturday.
Telephone, Cortlandt 1370,
Com muni cations should be addressed to
C. "W. SWEE3T, 14-16 Veaey Street.
J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. __
"Entered at the Fost-Office ut New Tork, N. 7.. as second-class matter."
Vol. LXV.
APRIL 21, 1900.
No. 1675.
THE exhibition of speculative depravity to which Wall Street
has been treated this week does not improve the situation
at all or induce buyers to come ia. On the contrary, if the public
is told in one breath that enterprises, upon which large security
issues are predicated, are doing an enormous and profitable busi¬
ness and in the next that owing to slackening of demand it is
necessary to shut down mills, they naturally become suspicious
-and withdrawing their support, prices of securities, good as
well as bad, suffer. In the past two days the market has become
professional—very professional. However, it is not likely in
the present hopeful condition of the business world that an
extensive decline can be brought about; yesterday's rally
showed how quickly prices will turn and how attached the
public are to the fascinating amusement that Wall street pro¬
vides. It must be remarked, however, that we are reaching the
reason of conventions and of the political distractions that al¬
ways draw the mind away from speculation and create those
doubts and uncertainties of the popular will that always affect
business detrimentally. More than all, there is a tendency in for¬
eign exchange to rise sulSciently to create expectancy of gold ex¬
ports, and, although, we can very easily spare any amount of
yellow metal that is likely to be calle'd for by Europe, such a
^movement would be a good bear card in a time of public indif¬
ference to the Stock Market, and of little or much anxiety re¬
garding the probable results of the national election. The de-
•mand for gold arises through the stringent condition of money
abroad, not in London or Paris, but in Berlin and in Vienna and
other centres that depend upon It, and where the industrial
.development has been most pronounced along with limited cap¬
ital resources. '
NO one is likely to quarrel with the committee appointed by
Governor Roosevelt to examine into the tenement-house
â– question in "cities of the first-class," and to report a code of ten¬
ement-house laws to the next Legislature. The local men named
are all capable and practical in their various specialties, and we
take it for granted that the Buffalo men are equally good in their
way. Philanthropic men of the practical and non-hysterical or-
â– der is what the Governor says he desired to select, and, though
'this was taking wise guidance in bis choice, we cannot avoid re¬
marking that the intimation of the existence of a hysterical order
was rather unkind of the Governor after having used their bys-
'terics in his emergency message to force the Tenement-House
'Commission bill through a reluctant legislature. That, how¬
ever, is a small matter, and at any rate does not concern us, who
are entirely absorbed for the moment in the problem the
Committee has to solve. This, as we look at it, is to im¬
prove the domestic surroundings of the tenement population
without increasing the cost of their housing, or making them
more difficult to obtain. If the cost of construction is materially
increased the supply of the tenements will soon decline, and
rents will go up accordingly. This may be taken as a positive
certainty about which there can be no question whatever. The
rapidly increasing population of this city cannot depend upon
the commerco-philinthropic builder for the necessary increase of
their housing, but must look to the simply commercial builder
for it, unless the municipality will take the place of the latter.
The Committee should also consider the obligations of the ten¬
ement dweller, to his landlord and the community. Require¬
ments in this direction have hitherto been supposed to be wholly
involved in fan-lights, air-shafts and other peculiarly con¬
structional matters, and it has not been thought necessary to
place upon the tenants any personal responsibility or obligation
'whatever. It seemed to be assumed that he was a creature of
:hia landlord entirely, and that the latter was responsible for his
well-being, as well as for the sanitation and repairs of the teh'-
ement and that only through the punishment of the landlord
could the tenant be made to live decently and conduct himself
respectably. Now having a practical philanthropic committee
appointed by a strenuous governor it is reasonable to indulge the
hope that nothing will be recommended that will tend to create
a dearth of tenements, and that at least equal justice will be ex¬
tended to the landlord as to the tenant.
Charter Revision.
WHERE THE NEED OF AMENDMENT IS GREATEST.
IN a short time a commission for the examination of Chapter
378 of the Laws of 1897. otherwise known as the Charter of
Greater New York, will be holding sittings, and as yet little
preparation seems to have been made to impress upon the com¬
mission the direction where correction or revision is required.
It is true that the Governor only signed the bill empowering him
to appoint the commission this week, and it could hardly be ex-
i:ected that preparations would be made to meet a commission
whose legal authorization was not complete. But having signed
the bill and having previously had many names suggested to
him—said by some to number some hundreds—from which to
make suitable selection, it is not likely that the Governor will
delay long in naming his appointees, or that the Commission
when appointed wil! allow much time to elapse before organ¬
izing and settling down to work. It behooves, therefore, those
individuals and representative organizations, who see errors in
the charter and have remedies to offer, to get to work to put
their views into presentable shape, so that they will be in a po¬
sition to respond at once whenever the Commission intimate
their readiness to hear complaints and suggestions.
It could not happen, of course, that a bill to create machinery
for the revision of the charter could be discussed through a
whole session of the Legislature, without the defects of the in¬
strument being exposed in a general way. But so far, the dis¬
cussion has had reference to hitches in the governmental ma¬
chinery—the limitations on the powers of the Mayor to control
the heads of departments, the difficulty of making a bi-cameral
assembly run smoothly, obstructions to the working of several
departments of city government, the inutility of the district and
borough boards, etc. Nowhere have we seen exposed the great¬
est evil of all that arises fvom the uniting of resources with¬
out a corresponding common benefit to the several boroughs in
expenditures. The trouble with the charter governmental ma¬
chinery is that it is composed of two ill-fitting parts, the one
representative and the other bureaucratic. While not daring to
overlook the principle of popular representation, the Legislature
of 1897 and their advisers the Charter Commission, apparently
had little faith in the competency or honesty of any representa¬
tives the people might be expected to send to the Municipal As¬
sembly, and gave part of the initiative and all the finality of ex¬
penditures to the bureaus. That the result has been bad for the
public service is not surprising. The district and borough boards,
too, have failed simply because they had no powers to make
themselves useful. They could hear petitions on petty affairs
and make recommendations to certain other bodies, who alone
possessed the power to move. Consequently, the public found
that it was a waste of time to go, first to the powerless bodies
when there was nothing to prevent them going at once to those
that had power.
On this showing there is a demand that, with other changes to
make the government machinery work smoothly, the dis¬
trict and borough boards be abolished entirely. To the aboli¬
tion of the district boards we would offer no objection, but
through the retention of the borough boards, we think there
might be effected a reform not only in governmental machinery,
but also in the adjustment of the pecuniary burdens of the sev-
ei-al boroughs. These borough boards might be made elected
bodies and given the power to initiate and carry out purely local
works and improvements, such as lighting, street cleaning, pav¬
ing, sewering, etc., and to prevent danger of extravagance the
cost of these should be a direct charge upon the borough itself.
To complete this organization there should be a municipal as¬
sembly of a single chamber, composed of representatives from
each of the boroughs elected by the people, who should have
control of matters affecting the city as a whole, mainly the great
physical improvements, the bestowal of franchises and where
possible a veto in matters involving health and morals.
Whatever the value of the suggestion just made, it is clear that
the two great points to be aimed at in Charter revision are:
Simplification of the machinery of the municipal government
and a just distribution of the cost of local improvements among
the boroughs in proportion as each is benefited thereby. These
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