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April 26, 1884
The Record, and Guide.
THE RECORD AND GUIDE.
Published every Saturday/.
191 Broadway, N. Y.
TERMS:
ONE TElilR, in advance, 811 DOLLARS.
CommanicatioDS should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway.
J. T. LINDSEY, Buainess Manager.
APEIL 26, 1884.
Theodore Roosevelt heads the New York delegation to the
Chicago convention. How would he do to head the ticket nomin¬
ated at Chicago? His rpcord is a splendid one for a dark horse. Tlie
Democrats of this Slate piled up a tretuen(Jou=i majority for an ex-
mayor of Buffalo for Governor whose name had scarcely been men¬
tioned before the convention met. Theodore Roosevelt might be
equally uvailable as a presidential candidate although he has never
been more than a State Assemblyman,
the "Ticker" is stopped for the week. Points in a market such
a3 we have had for the last month are of little value. The situa¬
tion is dismal and the outlook of the stock market is not at all batit;-
factory. Some new and unexpected factor is needed to stop tlie
decline and inaugurate an advance in stock values. The probabil¬
ities are that some time within six weeks there will be a spell of
hopefulness, and consequent enhancement of values. The crops
all promise well and should grain and cotton shipments be renewed
and gold importations cease, prices will pick up aud general busi¬
ness become better. Bi:t outside of the real estate market the sit¬
uation is not satisfactory.
The Broadway Arcade Underground project has been endorsed
by the Slate Senate, only eight votes being cast against it. "N^e
trust the measure will also be endorsed by the Aasembly, as we
regard it as involving an improvement which will be of enormous
beneHt.to the metriipolis, and particularly to its great thorough¬
fare—Broadway. It is to be regretted that the amendment pro¬
posed levying a tax of five per cent, on the gross receipts of the
road should have been voted down. A corporation which secures
BO valuable a privilege ought to pay something into the city treas¬
ury. Indeed, this fax should be levied upon the gross receipts of
all ferries, gas, horse-car, elevated, cable and other companies,
which are granted exclusive privileges within our city limits. We
do not share the fears of the Astors, the Trinity Church corpora¬
tion or the representatives of the Broadway real estate owners who
apprehend some damage to their propeity by the construction of
an Arcade road. All capitalists and large real estate owners are
generally blind to their own interests when improvements of this
kind are projected. The Broadway property holders have been
their own worst enemies, for in putting a stop to the laying of rail¬
way tracks on, under or above ground, they have driven the retail
traffic from their own thoroughfare to Sixth auH other avenues.
The Arcade road prtsents no engineering difficulties which have
not been repeatedly overcome, and if ever completed will triple
the value ol real estate on Broadway. It will benefit every section
of the city, and help make New York in time the metropolis of
the world.
Although the House of Representatives is Democratic by a large
majority that body cannot resist the tendency of the age, and in
spite of its traditions is hard at work centralizing the authority of
the general government, Ifc has votfd to establish a Bureau of
Labor and a Bureau of Navigation. This action has greatly dis¬
tressed some newspapers hereabouts, who prophesy all sorts of
evil because government is about to pay some attention to the real
wants of the community. The present organization of our cabinet
is inadequate and faulty. Why should a peaceful nation like the
United States, without an army or a navy, have two of its cabinet
ministers representing those departments? The vital interests of
the country are transportation, agriculture, manufactured and
labor. EJucation should also be a matter of national concern,
and the passage of the Blair Bill will necessitate the organization
of a department having the care of educational matters throughout
the United States. Certain of our local papers are dismayed at the
prospe::t that the Bureau of Navigation may eventually become as
important and complex a machine as the British Board of Trade,
Bui why not ? If there is anything which has so far been neglected
by the nation it is our foreign commerce. One of the most hope¬
ful signs of the times is the effort to take our civil aervice out of
pbliticc, so that the new functions the governmout is uadeitokiug
may be efficiently carried out. Herbert Spencer's famous law of
evolution that all things develop from the homogeneous to the
heterogeneous is as true of governments as of vegetable and animal
life. Tlie head must become stronger as the b'jdy becomes larger,
and thij is why there are so many departments in oui government
now compaied with the period which preceded the civil war.
Tlie work of reform will not have been completed even if all the
Roosevelt bills become laws. The disorder in our city finances is
one of the giant evils connected with our municipal government.
As Bradntreefs very well says : " Everywhere local finance is con¬
fused and demoralized. In consequence the entire conduct of city
business is in a like condition. As we have often pointed out the
municipal problem so-called is primarily a question of practical
finance. Sj true is this that tliere is not mucti hope for a better
government of our large cities until the point comes to be generally
recognized. The ouly well defined exception to the demoralization
is in I he recent history of Philadelphia. There the general effects
of a reformed finance have been moat wholesome. New York has
about the worst financial accounting in existence." Time and
again has The Record and Guide pointed out a way for using
the taxpayers to straighten out our city finances and
bring a constant pressure, to bear to effect economy in
muuicipcl expenditures. We would have the lar e taxpayers of
New York charged with the duty of examining the history of every
bill presented to the Comptroller for payment. They should be
required to present frequent reports touching the workings of every
department in the city government ; in other woros, they who pay
out the money should know what becomes of it—how much la
expended on proper' city work, and what proportion is wasted on
sinecures and fraudulent charges agaiust the treasury. Were the
expert representatives of the taxpayers to be. aa it were, in per-
pEtual session, there would be no need of Commissioners of
Accounts or legislative investigations. We do not propose that the
taxpayers shall have any additional powers, but tiieir representa¬
tives should have authority to see every salary roll and every bill
charged against the city. This would be so simple a reform that it
will be a difficult one to adopt; yet it would be a very, very effect¬
ual one if tried.
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A revolution is impending in the iron business. It has now been
settled beyond all peradventure that the very best quality of pig
iion can be proi^uced in Northern Alabama for twelve and a-half
dollars per ton. Tbe cost per ton io Pennsylvania is eighteen dol¬
lars and seventy cents, a difference of six dollars and twenty cents
in favor of Alabama. This means that that State can produce iron
at a rate so low that no tariff is needed to keep foreign iron out of
the country. The consequences which necessarily follow this fact
will be most important. Pennsylvania cannot compete with Ala¬
bama. Its least profitable furnaces must soon close, never to be
reopened. For a time it will retain the making of steel, because
•he patents for the Bessemer and other processes are held by the
owners of the great plants in Pennsylvania; but in time the steel
production will be transplanted to Alabama, where iron can be so
cheaply mined. With the|fall of her iron industry Pennsylvania
has no longer any interest in a high tariff. It is the "Keystone
State" which has been the bulwark of the Protectionist party in
the United States. The New England manufacturers are slowly
but surely coming to the conclusion that free trade will give them
a better chance for making money than ever did protection. The
latter has built up a home competition in the South and West,
whicii is eating up the profits of the New England manufacturer,
Wilh free trade he could enter the markets of the world. The fact
that we can produce cheaper iron that England and Scotland is
destined to have a most important influence upon the pontics as
well as the business of the United States,
The Senate has passed a new Bankruptcy Act, but it is Slid its
chances (o get through the House are very doubtful. Bankruptcy
laws are beneficial to only two classes—debtors who wish to rid
themselves of their obligations, ai d the lawyers. Creditors arO
invariably robbed in all bankruptcy proceedings. Tom Benton
said in his day that insolvent estates never paid more than 1 per
cent., and this has been true of every bankruptcy act passed since
then. Ail thesenational enactments create a host of official harpiei
who, with tiie lawyers, see to it that the creditor gets nothing.
The winding up of estates in this country is a shameful chapter ia
the legal history of the country. Ic is simply organized plunder
from first lo last. What makes the record rhe more shameful is
that the swindling is done in the name of justice. We can never
have a proper bankruptcy law paased by Congress when nine-tenths
of that body are lawyers, and about all of its leading lights are
members of that profession.
While we heartily approve of the reform legislation so success'
lully conducted by Mr. Theodore Roosevelt there is one bill—tbat
rslatins to the public parka—which teems to ua unnecesaary. Th*