Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/503

CITY.] N E VV exercised the functions of corresponding officers in the Dutch municipalities at home. This form of government continued until after the conquest of the colony by tho English, when the so-called " Duke s Laws " were proclaimed, and, on June 12, 1665, all the inhabitants of Manhattan Island were declared a body politic and corporate. The first formal charter, known as the Dougan charter, was bestowed on the city in 1686. The recorder, mayor, aldermen, and assistants were to constitute the body cor porate, but the mayor, recorder, sheriff, and other superior officers were to be appointed yearly by the lieutenant-governor of the pro vince, while the aldermen and assistants (who together with the mayor and recorder constituted the common council) and the petty constables were to be elected by a majority of the freemen and free holders of each ward. In 1730 the charter was again amended, and took the form known as the Montgomery charter, reserving the appointment of a mayor and recorder still to the crown, and pro viding for the annual election by the people of the aldermen and assistants, constables, assessors, and collectors. The freedom of the city was purchasable from the corporation for five pounds, and was necessary to the pursuit of any trade or handicraft within its limits. This charter continued in force for nearly a century. It was con firmed by the State constitution of 1777 adopted after the out break of the Revolution, and again by the revised constitution of 1821, and has furnished, in fact, the framework of the city govern ment down to the present day. The power which it gave the cor poration of fixing the price of all articles sold in the city market was exercised till the Revolution. It was not essentially altered until 1831, when among other minor changes the common council was divided into two boards. The appointment of the mayor re mained in the hands of the governor and council until the Revolu tion, when it was transferred by the State constitution to the governor and council of appointment which shared with him the appointing power. By the amended State constitution of 1821, the duty of electing the mayor annually was imposed on the common council, and so continued until 1834, when provision was made by statute for his election by a vote of the qualified city electors. This charter continued in force without material modifi cation until 1857. l The revised State constitution of 1846 introduced manhood suffrage, and its effect on the city government during the first ten years gave considerable dissatisfaction. It came into operation simultaneously with a great increase in the stream of foreign immigration, most of which passed through New York on its way westward, but not without leaving behind a sediment, composed of the poorest, the most ignorant, and the most vicious. The result was that a very inferior class of men began to find their way into the mayoralty and the common council. The liquor dealers and others of a similar stamp, whose occupations gave them access to, and influence over, the more ignorant voters, began to assume in creasing importance in municipal politics, becoming able to impose conditions on candidates for office and to exercise considerable control over the distribution of municipal patronage. The police force was gradually converted into a refuge of political partisans, and was employed without scruple in electioneering. Every political department of the city government suffered more or less from the same causes. The great political club known as the Tammany Society, which was formed in 1789 as a non-political patriotic organization, professedly to counteract the aristocratic tendencies of the Order of the Cincinnati, and which had long been the managing body of the Democratic party in the city, was much strengthened by the increase of the immigrant vote, and its government was also affected for the worse by the same influences to which the city government was exposed. During these years, however, the Republican party, as the opponent of slavery, was slowly rising into prominence in State and Federal politics on the ruins of the old Whig party. By the year 1857 it had gained a majority of the voters of the State outside of the city, secured the control of the State legislature, and elected a governor. It was not very long in power in the State at large before it determined to take the government of the city of New York, to a certain extent, out of the hands of the local majority by giving portions of it to commissions appointed by the governor. There was perhaps reason enough for the experiment to be found in the condition of the municipal administration, but it was unfortunate that it had to be made by a political party to which the local majority did not belong. This gave it an air of partisanship, and exposed it to the charge of being simply an attempt to put the Republican party in possession of a portion of the city patronage, which it could not get hold of in any other way, and to punish the city voters for being Democratic and standing by the South in the slavery con troversy. It was in reality, however, an effort on the part of the native-born and the property holders to escape the inevitable 1 The legal title of the corporation is now the " Mayor, Aldermen, and Com monalty of the City of New York," and the legislative branch consists of a board of twenty-four aldermen, who constitute the common council, and are elected by a majority vote, one from each electoral district, within the city limits, which sends a member tp the State assembly. Y O E K result of a sudden increase in the power of the ignorant and poor in a great commercial city. Accordingly, in the spring of 1857, the charter was so modified by the legislature as to give the construction of a park, known as the Central Park, for which provision had just been made, to a commission appointed by the governor. The police was in like manner taken out of the hands of the mayor and given to a similar commission. The mayor then in office, Fernando Wood, attempted forcible resistance to this change on the ground that the statute was unconstitutional. He barricaded himself in the city-hall sur rounded by his policemen, and had to be ousted and arrested by the aid of the militia. Ever since 1857 interference of the State in the city government has been frequent, and alterations of the charter have been made or attempted almost every year with the view mainly of effecting a new distribution of the city patronage, sometimes as the result of a change in the majority of the legis lature, and sometimes as the result of a bargain between the Republican leaders in the legislature and the Democratic leaders in the city. But the policy of withdrawing or withholding power from the common council has through all these changes been steadily adhered to on both sides, owing to distrust of the persons now usually elected to that body. During the war, and for several years afterwards, the art of managing the city voters of the Democratic party through the political club known as the Tammany Society was continually improved under the leadership of William M. Tweed, who had succeeded Fernando Wood as the municipal chief of his party. Before 1870 he had brought the city majority under his control through a very perfect organization, and had filled the mayoralty and all the leading administrative offices as well as the common council with his creatures. He thereupon began an elaborate system of plunder, of which the main feature was the presentation of enormous bills for work done on a new court-house then in process of erection by city tradesmen acting as his confederates. To these he paid a portion only of their demands, retaining the balance, which he divided in certain proportions with his principal followers. The total amount taken from the city treasury in this and similar ways was never clearly ascertained, but the city debt, which was apparently a little over 73,000,000 in 1870, was, when the liabilities were fully ascertained in 1876, found to be nearly 8117,000,000. These frauds, which had been long suspected, were finally brought to light by the treachery of one of the con spirators, who was dissatisfied with his share. But their success and the length of time which had elapsed before their detection were, considering the very large number of persons who had been made privy to them, and who had been admitted as partners in their results, a remarkable illustration of the perfection to which the system had been brought. The overthrow and punishment of the leading perpetrators of them greatly purified the municipal administration, and led to a watchfulness on the part of the public regarding municipal affairs which promises, as long as it lasts, to make a repetition of them impossible. In fact, they could not have been perpetrated without a combination which included all the chief city officers ; and this could not have been effected, and as a matter of fact was not effected, without many years of careful, and, to a certain extent, unobserved preparation. The great source of corruption in the city government is the practice of treating places in the municipal service as what are called party "spoils," or, in other words, as rewards for electioneering services. This practice, which has prevailed in the Federal as well as in the State service all over the country, is of older growth in the State of New York than elsewhere, having shown itself there very soon after the Revolution. It has been much weakened, however, in New York by an Act of the legislature, passed in 1873, which forbids the removal of any regular clerk or head of bureau in the service of the city government, except for cause, and after an informal trial. The police and fire departments are protected in a similar way ; but this does not relieve the elected officers from the necessity of purchasing their nominations by such promises as still remain in their power to carry out, such as contributions from their salaries, or the filling of vacancies occurring within their departments, or the employment of labourers in any public work of which they may have charge. A more receut Act of the legis lature (1883) prescribes competitive examination as a basis for appointment to all State offices, and forbids, under heavy penalties, all assessments on salaries for political purposes ; but its applica tion to the large cities as regards competitive examinations is left optional with the mayor, and with the heads of certain depart ments. As the charter stands at present, the legislative power of the board of aldermen is restricted to the regulation of the traffic in the streets, the granting of licences to street vendors, the opening of new streets, and similar matters. Their confirmation is, however, necessary to the mayor s appointment to office. The amount of taxes for each year is fixed by the board called the board of apportionment, composed of the mayor, the comptroller, the president of the board of aldermen, and the president of the department of taxes and assessments. The estimate so made is