[People who live in glass houses]

About This Item

Title: [People who live in glass houses]
Date: 1 May 1857
Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Whitman Archive ID: per.00859
Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 1 May 1857: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
Contributors to digital file: Samantha Gilmore Kaylen Michaelis Francesca Boston Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "[People who live in glass houses]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: per.00859.xml (TEI)

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☞People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. The Aldermen of New York city are the last persons who should denounce the State Legislature as criminal and so forth. It was their corruption, extravagance and incapacity, and the supreme contempt in which the public held them, that emboldened if it did not justify the Legislature in transferring much of their power to other hands. The following questions are asked of this immaculate Board by the Courier and Enquirer.

Is not one of your number under indictment for creating a riot on election day, in defiance of and opposition to the Police force whose power he now seeks to perpetuate? Has not another of your number three or more indictments pending over him, for acts of brutal violence—on one occasion, upon a female? Has not another of your number an untried charge of "bribery and corruption" standing against him? Is not another of your number interested in a printing contract with the Corporation, in violation of the spirit if not the letter of the Charter? Is not another of your number concerned in a newspaper, which has a contract with the Corporation for publication of the proceedings of the Common Council? If so, is not this in violation of the Charter? Is not another of your number interested contrary to law, in a contract for building an important sewer?

Yet these are the men who deplore the evils they profess to apprehend from the rule of Simeon Draper and his fellow commissioners, and endeavor to create popular sympathy for themselves as the champions of the constitution, against the law makers! Granting that all the New York city laws of 1857 are unconstitutional, there will still remain the necessity of placing the government of that city in purer hands than those who hold it now.

It has been charged by the opponents of the new laws that they were passed by the Legislature in order to punish New York city for its vote for Buchanan. We do not believe that the honest farmers of the rural districts are malicious enough to entertain any such motive; it is much more probable that they acted under a sense of duty in trying to rescue the city from its plunder-seeking Aldermen. Their having stretched their powers somewhat to pass the new apportionment, which according to the last census gives "the Metropolitan District" one extra Senator and six additional Assemblymen, shows that they were not guided solely by party motives, nor did they seek to "punish" the cities for holding a different political faith.