Mayor Wood and His Defenders

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Mayor Wood and His Defenders

The Herald¹ this morning makes a very earnest but very lame defence of Fernando Wood.² It assumes that he was justified in refusing to surrender himself on the warrant of Judge Hoffman, because he did not acknowledge the right of the party bearing it to call himself a policeman. But the virtue and force of a warrant do not vest in its bearer, but in the instrument itself. If the authority lay in the server, and not in the process served, there would be no need of a warrant at all, and the mere invitation of a policeman, unbacked by a warrant, would be sufficient to deprive a citizen of his liberty. No matter by whom the warrant was served, it bore on its face an authority to its bearer to arrest the Mayor. His resistance was not therefore directed at the officer, but against the Court issuing the warrant. Nor is it any excuse for him to say that he felt himself unjustifiably arrested for political reasons. Few men are arrested but deem themselves hardly dealt with—but their remedy lies, not in resisting the execution of the warrant, but in defending themselves before the Courts.

By the way, the Herald again gives notice, in advance, that Mayor Wood will not submit to the decision of the Court of Appeals if it be adverse to his pretensions. It says:

"For instance, should the Court of Appeals decide that the Legislature may appoint such a police, and rest there in their decision, the conflict between the city and State authorities would be no nearer a settlement than it now is. Mayor Wood would not be justified in interpreting the decision of the Court as authorizing the substitution of the Metropolitan for the Municipal police; or in surrendering the city property to the Metropolitan Police Commissioners. Nor would the Comptroller be justified in paying any city money to such Metropolitan policemen. In fact, things would be left in precisely the condition in which they now are, and the benefit of the appeal to the judicial authority would be lost."

It is very doubtful whether the Mayor has not thrown off the mask and betrayed his ultimate designs too soon. He seems to aim at nothing less than the establishment of an imperium in imperio—a metropolitan city, of which he shall be the perpetual ruler, within the limits of the Empire State, but absolved from obedience to the State laws. His organ tells us on this point—

"We believe that under our new State constitution, the city of New York retains certain municipal rights and powers of supreme local jurisdiction, inherited from the government of England; that these rights and privileges have not since been abridged, but have been enlarged; and that neither State Governors nor State Legislatures can take them away.”

New York is a sufficiently delectable place at present; but if the schemes of its model Mayor be successfully carried out, it will become a Paradise indeed for rowdies and evil-doers. The ballot-box stuffers of San Francisco, the forgers of Paris, the garotters of London, having been driven from these places by Vigilance Committees and Police, will sit in New York “under their own vine and fig-tree, none daring to make them afraid.” To all such characters the Empire City, under the sway of a Mayor who is above and against all law, will proclaim, “come unto me, and I will give you rest.”³

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