Tilden Enters office of New York Governor 1895

When Mr. Tilden entered upon the duties of his office as Governor, the Republicans had a majority in the Senate and the Democrats a majority in the Assembly. This embarrassing division of the powers of the government continued through the two years of his administration. His first Message was looked for with unusual interest, for several reasons.

Elected distinctly upon reform issues, in what way, by what recommendations would he respond to the expectations of those who had given him an unprecedented majority ? In what way would his earnest and radical views on questions of municipal government find expression ? How would he treat the then burning problems of currency and finance, as to which there was no higher authority in the country, and in which no State in our Union had such a vital interest as New York ? Upon all these questions public curiosity was destined to be fully satisfied. His first Message was communicated to the Legislature- on the 5th of January, and enjoyed the unexampled distinction of being widely republishcd throughout the Union. The portion devoted to the currency and finance would add to the value of any work on political economy that has yet been published ; while its great truths are likely to penetrate and inform all works of any authority on economical science likely to be published for generations to come. The portion devoted to what he terms " the Erie Canal trust" is only less remarkable for the value of its information, the wisdom of its suggestions, and the compact vigor with which both are presented, because they relate to a subject of less, though not of inconsiderable, national concern.

FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE.

Executive Chamber, Albany, Jan. 5, 1875. To the Legislature.

At the advent of a new year, when the public bodies assemble to consult in respect to the affairs and to transact the business of the State, our first thought should be to offer up devout thanksgiving to the Supreme Disposer of events, for the blessings which we have enjoyed during the year now closed. Our great commonwealth comprises a population of more than four and a half millions, largely exceeding that of the whole United States at the formation of the Federal Government, and embracing vastly more extensive and diversified interests and activities. Our sense of duty ought to be commensurate with the magnitude of the trust conferred upon us by the people. Forming, as our State does, so important a part of the American Union, the benefits of an improved polity, of wise legislation, and of good administration are not confined to our own citizens, but are felt directly and by their example in our sister States and in our national reputation throughout the world. Mindful, with you, of these considerations, I proceed to perform the duty enjoined by the Constitution upon the Governor, to " communicate, by message to the Legislature," " the condition of the State," and to " recommend such matters to them as he shall deem expedient."

The receipts into and payments from the treasury on ac- Receiptsand count of all the funds, except the Canal and expenditures. Common School Funds, for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30,1874, were as follows: —

Receipts $26,465,370.43

Payments 19,636,308.36

Balance in the Treasury Sept. 30,1874 . . $6,829,062.07
The available balance amounted to .... 6,494,881.44

The difference is made up by the defalcation in the State
Treasury, in 1873, of $304,957.91, and the sum of $29,222.72
is an old balance due from the Bank of Sing Sing.
On the 20th September, 1873, the total funded


State debt.

debt was $36,530,406.40, classified as follows: —

General fund $3,988,526.40

Contingent (stock issued to the Long Island Hail- road Company) 68,000.00

Canal 11,352,880.00

Bounty 21,121,000.00

$36,530,406.40

During the months of August and September, 1873, stocks of the Bounty Loan were purchased to the amount of $306,000, but not cancelled until after Sept. 30, 1873. Deducting this sum, the Bounty Debt amounted to $20,815,000, and the total debt to $36,224,406.40.

On the 30th of September, 1874, the total funded debt was 830,199,456.40, classified as follows: —

General fund $3,988,526.40

Contingent 68,000.00

Canal 10,230,430.00

Bounty 15,912,500.00

$30,199,456.40

The actual reduction of the State debt during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30,1874, by cancellation of matured stocks and by the purchase of $4,902,500 of Bounty Loan 7's of 1877 for the Bounty Debt Sinking Fund, is $6,024,950.

In addition to the $4,902,500 of Bounty Stock purchased for the Bounty Debt Sinking Fund during the last fiscal year and cancelled, there have been investments for that sinking fund, since the date of the last report to the present time, in State securities and Government registered bonds to the amount of $4,381,500, at a cost of $4,972,091.35; add $327,283.88 premium and $3,210 commissions on Bounty Loan Stock purchased and cancelled, and $1,421,584 interest on Bounty Debt, making a total of $11,626,667.23 paid on account of this sinking fund since the date of last report to the present time. The securities now held in trust for this sinking fund amount, at their par value, to $6,802,944.09, which could be disposed of, at the present market rates, at an average premium of over 12 per cent.

The following statement shows the amount of the State debt on the 30th of September, 1874, after deducting the unapplied balances of the sinking funds at that date : —

Debt on Sept. 30, 1874. Balance of Sinking Funds on Sept. 30, 1871. Balance of Debt after applying Sinking Funds.
$3,988,526.40
$4,142,698.84
68,000.00
32,823.49
835,176.51
Canal
10 230 430.00
1 561,018.99
8669,411.01
15 012 500.00
* 7,125,278.20
8 787 221.80
$30,199,456.40
§12,861,814.52
$17,491,809.32

The State debt on the 30th of September, 1873, after deducting the unapplied balances of the sinking funds, amounted to $21,191,379.34

On the 30th of September, 1874, to 17,491,809.32

Showing a reduction of $3,699,570.02

Taxes.

The State tax levy for the current year amounted to seven and a quarter mills. The total amount of the tax will be $15,727,482.08; about $900,000 in excess of the amount levied during the preceding fiscal year.

» Deducting interest accrued to Oct. 1, 1874, payable Jan. 1, 1875.

Summary statements in respect to the banks, savings-banks, trust, loan, and indemnity companies, insurance Other depart. companies, quarantine, the Emigration Commis- ments of the State> sion, common schools, colleges, and academies, the State Library and Museum, the National Guard, the soldiers of the war of 1812, the war claims against the United States, the salt springs, and the State prisons are appended. The full reports of the public officers and boards charged with the special care of these subjects will be transmitted as soon as their preparation is completed. Your attention is invited to them, and especially to the report of the comptroller, which will be submitted at the opening of the session.

The Constitution provides that an enumeration of the inhabitants of the State shall be taken, under the direction of the Legislature, in the year 1855 and at the end of every ten years thereafter.

State census.

Chapters 64 and 181 of the Laws of 1855, and Chapter 34 of the Laws of 1865, which remain in full force, prescribe the manner of taking the enumeration.

These Acts require the Secretary of State to prepare uniform blank returns and abstracts for the purpose of taking the enumeration and obtaining statistical information as to population and social statistics, the resources and interests of the State, individual and associated industry, agriculture, the mechanic arts, commerce and manufactures, education, and other information of great value to the statistician and to all classes of citizens, and will probably require little or no modification.

It will be necessary for the Legislature to make an appropriation to enable the Secretary of State to carry into effect the provisions of the Constitution and of the statutes above referred to. A sum equal to the amount appropriated in 1865 for that purpose, by Chapter 598 of the Laws of that year, will probably be sufficient.

The Secretary of State has taken preliminary steps toward the enumeration, and looks to the Legislature for an early appropriation to enable him to go forward with the work.

Pauperism
The Annual Report of the State Board of Charities will be laid before the Legislature, and I commend it to your attention. It will contain the results of a special examination in respect to the condition of children in the poor-houses, and the subjects of out-door relief and alien paupers. The laws relating to pauperism need revision and amendment. The growth of the State in wealth and population has brought with it more complex relations between capital and labor, which should be carefully studied, in order that legislation may be adapted to their requirements. I suggest whether it is not advisable that a commission be appointed to investigate and report upon the management and relief of the poor, and to propose such legislation as will tend to relieve the industry of the State from the evils which result from poor-laws vicious or inadequate in conception, or defective in execution.

The celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of American Centennial Exhi- Independence will occur in the year 1876. Un- bition. jgj. t-ne au8picea of the General Government an

international exhibition of arts, manufactures, and natural products will be held in the city of Philadelphia. Provision has already been made for the appointment of a board of five commissioners to represent this State, who are to serve without compensation. I recommend a moderate appropriation of money, which will be required to defray the necessary expenses of the commission, and enable this State to take such part in the exhibition as will testify our sense of the greatness of the event commemorated, and is suitable to the dignity of our Commonwealth.

The adoption of the recent amendments to the Constitution

Constitutional renders necessary some important legislation

amendments. m or(jer to carry them into full effect. The

changes made in Article II. require corresponding changes in

the election laws with respect to challenges and the oaths

thereupon, and the enactment at the present session of a law

" excluding from the right of suffrage all persons convicted of

bribery or of any infamous crime."

The amendment of Section 4 of Article VIII. of the Constitution requires the enactment of a " general law conforming all charters of savings-banks, or institutions for savings, to a uniformity of powers, rights, and liabilities."

The addition of Article XV. necessitates the passage of an act prescribing the punishment for the offence of bribery, created in Sections 1 and 2. Some legislation may be necessary in consequence of the change in the mode of compensating members of the Legislature, and in some other matters which will readily occur to you.

The section added to Article III. as Section 18 requires the passage of general laws providing for the cases in which special legislation is prohibited by that section. Many of these cases are within existing general laws, and with respect to several others no immediate legislation seems to be required. Doubtless, however, some legislation is expedient, either in the way of enacting statutes providing for the cases to which the existing statutes do not apply, or in the way of amendments to existing statutes.

The provision prohibiting special legislation in the cases specified is the amendment from which the largest benefits have been anticipated. In framing the general laws which are to provide for these cases, great caution will be necessary. The part I took in the Convention of 1846, and even before the enactment of the general banking law of 1838, in advocating the principle of general laws in its application to the creation of corporate bodies, which have been practical monopolies, and to other cases where it seemed to be safely applicable, may justify me in suggesting some qualification of the advantages to be derived from the change, unless it be accompanied by especial foresight and wisdom. It will doubtless be an unavoidable necessity to modify existing general laws and to shape new ones to be enacted with reference to special and peculiar cases. It is quite possible to give a general form to the phraseology of every enactment intended to apply to a special case and to operate as a special grant of powers. The benefit intended to be secured by the prohibition may thus be defeated. Even greater mischiefs than those which existed under the old system may be created. The parties interested in promoting a law intended to obtain special powers for a particular case cannot be relied on to guard against the possible operation of the general provision in the other cases to which it may be applied. The legislators who could measure the whole consequences of an act limited in its terms to a special instance, cannot foresee the possible cases to which a general law, adapted to the instance present to his mind, may be found capable of applying, or what operation it may have. There will, therefore, be great danger of vague, loose, and hasty legislation in contemplation of one object, but capable of working in numerous cases results neither foreseen nor intended. The new legislation called for by this provision should be framed with more than ordinary care.

It will be the first and most imperative of our duties to revise Frauds and mai- the laws which are intended to provide criminal iicrofficers. y P" punishment and civil remedies for frauds by public officers, and by persons acting in complicity with them. The condition of our existing statutes and of our unwritten law, as its provisions for such cases have been construed and declared by recent decisions of the court of final resort, disclose grave defects. The practical evils resulting from these defects are greatly increased by the recent frequency and magnitude of violations of official trust.

The statutes punishing embezzlement are held not to apply fm erfection of *o 8uCb- offences when committed by public offi- criminai laws. cerSi rjij,e statutes relating to larcenies are deemed to be of questionable application to a fraudulent acquisition of public funds existing in the form of credits inscribed on the books of a bank, and known in the language of commerce as deposits. The statutes in regard to obtaining money or property by false pretences are not free from technical embarrassments in their application to public frauds. Without assenting to the conclusion that these statutes are wholly unavailable in such cases, it cannot be doubted that they are inadequate, and unfit for the exigencies of the times, and that they abound in needless technical questions which tend to the defeat of public justice.

No illustration of these defects can be so impressive as certain facts of recent experience. A public officer, designated by statute of the State, and authorized, with two others, to audit the then existing liabilities against the County of New York, fraudulently made an audit, or certified to an audit not made, of fictitious claims to the amount of six millions of dollars, and instantly received a million and a half of the money paid on such audits, through a common agent between himself and the pretended owners of the claims. For this flagrant crime, accompanied by many circumstances of aggravation, the eminent counsel who represented the people deemed it prudent to seek convictions only for misdemeanors in neglect of official duty, the punishment for each of which is imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding one year, and a fine not exceeding two hundred and fifty dollars. When we consider that a person who, under the temptation of pressing want, steals property of the value of over twenty-five dollars is liable to imprisonment in the State prison for a term of five years, and that the other offences against private property are punishable with corresponding severity, the inadequacy of the law applicable to great public delinquents, betraying the highest trusts and plundering the people on a grand scale, is revolting to all just notions of morality and justice.

I recommend the enactment of a statute which shall clearly embrace such offences, and impose penalties upon them proportionate to their moral turpitude and to the mischief which they inflict upon society. It can apply only to future cases ; but it may be expected to do something toward preventing a recurrence of such evils.

The existing civil remedies applicable to such cases are no less inadequate. For the last three years the spectacle has been exhibited on the conspicuous theatre of our great metropolis

of fraudulent officials remaining in quiet possession and making unobstructed dispositions of great wealth

Civil remedies. ,.-,

which we are morally certain was derived from their spoliation of public trusts, notwithstanding legal proof of the most conclusive nature exists of their guilt. In the mean time, civil actions have been dragging their slow length along, as in ordinary cases of disputed rights, while the " law's delay" has been maintained by the use of the vast fund abstracted from the public, and no process has been found in our laws by which it could be attached and preserved pending the litigation, or its disposition interfered with before final judgment.

A Bill to extend to such cases the remedy of attachment as

in case of foreign corporations, or non-resident,

absconding, or concealed defendants, has been

heretofore submitted to the Legislature. I trust that such a

measure will be speedily adopted. I recommend further that

preference be given to such cases in the courts, whoever may

be the party plaintiff.

A still more serious defect exists in our jurisprudence. A great defect in Where a wrong is committed which affects the our jurisprudence. treasurv of a city, county, town, or village, the

officers who would be the proper plaintiffs in any suit for redress, or who possess exclusively the power to institute or conduct such suits, may be themselves the wrong-doers, or be in complicity with the wrong-doers. In every such case the remedy must, of course, be very much embarrassed, if not wholly unavailing. The unfaithful incumbents may be entitled to serve for a long term, or they may possess great facilities for gaining the favor of their successors. While the remedy is thus delayed — perhaps for years — the proofs may be lost; or the depredators may make away with their property and withdraw their persons from the reach of process; or they may, through the lapse of time, become discharged from liability by the Statute of Limitations. As the offence becomes stale, the public sentiment which inspires voluntary efforts of...click on the link below to read on Google Books...also - review charts in strutured format.

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