SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE
Special Correspondence A War on Bribery New York, April 16, 1910. NOT in the memory of living New Yorkers have the green leaves of April come out upon a world of political turmoil such as is...
...Quite a few people are thinking the climax will be a cataclysm...
...On April 11 the Governor sent a formal message to the Legislature urging an investigation...
...This means that the system of legislative bribery, which has been intrenched for years at Albany and every other state capital in the country, will be taken in hand and given the most thorough inquisition in the history of the country, for Governor Hughes will stand back of it all, inexorably.—P...
...Send one of the bribe takers properly branded through the State, so that he may be scorned by all honest men, and it will have an inestimable effect for good and wholesome things in the service of the State and of the people...
...Three days later the Senate voted unanimously for the appointment of a committee of the Legislature, authorized to investigate legislative corruption in every form, and also everything which may come to its notice affecting the business of State departments...
...r. d...
...The people are aroused...
...Nearly all the bosses and more important bosslets were at the dinner...
...It was delivered with the understanding that it was not to be reported in the newspapers...
...The people of the State have got the gist of the Governor's speech and it seems enough for them...
...I am convinced the time has come when this must stop...
...The Governor talked to them face to face...
...They will stand for nothing less than honesty and fair dealing in the public service...
...There was quietude for about ten weeks after the New York city election last fall, and then unusual happenings began...
...NOT in the memory of living New Yorkers have the green leaves of April come out upon a world of political turmoil such as is stirring the State this spring...
...According to one reliable paper, the governor said: "You know that for years we have not had a decent government in this State, but government that has been disreputable and indecent...
...Striking events have followed each other in the cumulative style, each bigger than the last, all moving toward the climax...
...Everybody went away from the dinner talking about that speech...
...Governor Hughes, at a gridiron dinner given by the Legislative Correspondents' Association in Albany on April 7, made a speech which is now generally considered the most remarkable of his career...
...For years votes have been shamelessly bought and sold at the Capitol...
...Get the crooks out of the State departments...
...Rip the cover off...
...Bits of it were printed in newspapers which had not been pledged to secrecy...
...The speech thrilled the Governor's friends and paralyzed his enemies, the bosses and bosslets...
...No one knows when the climax will come...
...In a few days the speech was the talk of the whole State, yet it was not printed between quotation marks...
...It was too big to be kept secret...
...Let in the light...
Vol. 2 • April 1910 • No. 16
