The Common Council
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THE COMMON COUNCIL.
Each newly formed Board of Aldermen of the city of Brooklyn is in the habit of introducing itself to the public by a scene of uproarious disorder or disgraceful party trickery; and then it spends the rest of the year in trying to cleanse its sullied character. The first night of meeting, when the loaves and fishes are distributed, or rather are scrambled for, is the Saturnalia, the Carnival of the Board. The lazzaroni of the lobby are then in high glee, and decent people blush at a caricature of representative government.
Last night the old scenes were reenacted, with accessories There was the foul insinuation covertly launched from one member to the other, the dirty epithets bandied; the abortive motions made; the long strong of applicants for places which are held but for one year, and most of them at a salary which any able bodied man could more than earn in perpetuity by honest labor. But there was also a new feature. Some of the Aldermen, not brave enough to vote independently and openly, not able to trust one another to vote secretly, compromised the matter by binding each other to the use of marked ballots, the proffer of which to an honest man was an insult, implying that he could not be relied on to redeem his pledges.
Some people prefer open voting, especially when the voter is a representative, voting on behalf of others; some prefer secret voting which shields the voter from all personal influences; but we have yet to hear an apology for this miserable spy system of marked ballots, which neither makes the alderman's vote open, and himself responsible to the people; nor shields him from the rage and revenge of unfit party candidates whom he may be honestly disposed to repudiate.
One thing is clear—representative functions, exercised under this party terrorism and mean eaves-dropping, are positively worthless. And the parties most to be blamed are not the aldermen who consent to be so bullied, nor the hungry office seekers who domineer over them; but the "respectable" people, who go the regular nominations blindly, and thus rivet the clanking chains of party upon every public man, until none dares to be free, or call his conscience his own.