NEW YORK “CLEAN-UP”

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17108, 14 November 1929, Page 9

NEW YORK “CLEAN-UP”

GRAFT CHARGES TAMMANY HALL “PARASITES” NEW YORK, i'cj. 13. A “square deal movement” is being organised at New York to crush ianiniany Hall, which now controls the American metropolis, and to prevent the city government, .spending tlie taxpayers’ money “like druiiKen saiiofs.” Mr. Richard Enright, a Democrat, who was formerly Police Commissioner hi the Tammany administration, lias promised to lead distressed citizens inio a. new and better land, municipally speaking, and offers himself to run against Mr. James Walker, the present Tammany Mayor. Mr. Enright’s indictment of the present conditions seems very formidable. During the four years of the Walker administration, lie declares, tho city assessments have been increased by about £1,900,000,000, and Tammany Hall, “with its legion of political parasites and camp followers,” has been the chief beneficiary. He describes the crowded “twopenny tubes” as a disgrace to civilisation, and declares that graft and corruption are rampant. New York, he declares, literally reeks with “booze kennels” which pay for police protection. The latest estimate of the number of these “blind or speakeasies,” existing in New York is about 100,000. They furnish graft annually of. £22,0C0,C00. and tho gross profit taken is placed at £230,000,000. “MOST UNHAPPY CITY”

Thousands of “phantom employees,” petty ward politicians, are on the city’s pay-roll, while tho “highlights, sachems, and chiefs in the royal tepee of the Tammany wigwam” ride with their chauffeurs “in luxurious limousines at tho city’s expense.” Finally, the moral conditions in New York, Mr. Enright declares, are at their lowest ebb. Nothing but a strong force and an enlightened public opinion, says tho former police commissioner, can redeem this most unhappy of cities and secure tho appointment of able and experienced men to office, including places on the bench, without- prejudice or purchase.

Incidentally with Mr. Enright’s appeal to the voters, the public prosecutor of New' York is to-day investigating the death of a. city magistrate, Andrew McCreery. Mr. McCreery’s decease was reported by the city medical office to bo duo to heart disease, but the charge is made publicly that it followed a, beating administered when he failed to complete a payment of £6OOO for reappointment to the judicial bench, on which he had already comnleted 10 years. The American “Who’s Who” credits Mr. Enright witli having received 13 foreign decorations, including the Victorian 'Order, which he was given in connection with the visit of the Brince of Wales to New York.