HOW THE MONEY GOES. 
 
 LETTER FROM THE CITIZENS' ASSOCIATION 
 
 TO RICHARD O'GOEMAN, 
 EEL ATI VE TO HIS OFFICE, 
 
 Citizens' Association of New-York, [ 
 No. 813 Broadway, Nov. 12, 1867- \ 
 
 Richard 0' Gorman, Esq., Counsel to the Corporation of the 
 City of New- York. 
 
 Sir, — The Citizens' Association of the City of New- York 
 begs leave to direct your attention to the following letter 
 addressed by you to its Committee on Nominations, and 
 also to certain matters connected with your department and 
 the administration of your office : 
 
 " Nkw-York, Nov. 6, 1865. 
 
 " Gkntlimkn, — I have received your letter informing me that the Citi- 
 zens' Association of New- York have nominated me as their cand'date for 
 the office of Corporation Counsel at the coming Charter Election. 
 
 " I am very sensible of the honor thus conferred upon me. for I am 
 well assured that your choice would not have fallen upon me if you were 
 not satisfied that my election to this responsible office would subserve the 
 best interests of our noble city, and that I woxdd be as earnest a* yourselves 
 to defend its rights, assert its honor and protect its finances from adverse 
 influences, from whatever quarter, or in whatever shape they may assail it. 
 
 " The office of Corporation Counsel is a purely civic office, having no 
 
An 
 °IV27 
 
 2 
 
 necessary concern with political parties, or with the great political issues 
 which agitate society. It is au office of honor, indeed, but, at the same 
 time, of labor, care and responsibility. The lawyer who has the City of 
 New-York for his client, and endeavors, honestly and efficiently, to dis- 
 charge his duties to that client, will have his hands full and uo easy task. 
 
 " With these views of the importance of the office before you, you 
 have tendered me your nomination and pledged me your cordial support ; 
 and, with these views before me, I gratefully and proudly accept your 
 nomination and your promise ; and, in return, I pledge myself to you, if 
 elected to this office, to devote all the strength and energies I possess, and to 
 use all the powers the office may afford, to aid you in your desire to insure 
 for the city and its citizens, of whatever party, a future of progress and 
 improvement. 
 
 I am, very truly and respectfully yours, 
 
 RICHARD O'GORMAN." 
 
 You entered upon the duties of your office on January 1, 
 1866 — about one year and ten months ago. You are the 
 legal adviser, the "law} 7 er" of the Corporation of New-York 
 and the Board of Supervisors, and your duties may be 
 simply summed up thus : 
 
 1. To defend the Corporation and the County against illegal claims. 
 
 2. To commence suits on behalf of the City when directed by the 
 Common CoudciI. 
 
 3. To give opinions on the law when directed by the Common Council 
 or the Board of Supervisors. 
 
 As above stated, you have been in office for about twenty- 
 two months, and, in that time, the city and county has been 
 compelled to pay for the legal services above described the 
 sum of $152,974.32. 
 
 In order that you may understand why your attention 
 is called to the amount which the city has paid you, we 
 simply state that, in looking for the results of such a vast 
 outlay for lawyers' fees, we find that, during the twenty-two 
 months you have been in office, judgments have been re- 
 covered against the city to the amount of $474,589.78. 
 
 The Citizens' Association desires to present the following 
 
8 
 
 facts to you in relation to these judgments, in order that 
 you may explain them, if possible : 
 
 It appears from the records of the several Courts that the 
 sum of $194,004.20 was recovered duriug your term of 
 office by judgment against the city for advertising the pro- 
 ceedings and notices of the Common Council in certain 
 local papers. This vast amount was recovered in open 
 defiance of the law. 
 
 By the Act of May 4, 1866, the sum of $30,000 was appro- 
 priated for such advertising in 1866, and it was expressly 
 enacted that no greater sum should be expended for that 
 purpose, and that the city should not be liable, on any con- 
 tract, for any greater sum, and that no judgment should 
 be entered against the City of New- York for any sum for 
 such purpose after said $30,000 had been expended. 
 
 By the Act of April 23, 1867, the sum of $50,000 was 
 appropriated for such advertising ; and it was declared that 
 no greater sum should be expended for such purpose, and 
 that the city should not be liable, on any contract, for any 
 greater sum, and that no judgment should be entered 
 against the city for any sum for such purpose after said 
 §50,000 had been expended. 
 
 The sums so appropriated in 1866 and 1867 have been 
 duly expended by the Comptroller in paying for advertising 
 during the two years; and the amount, $194,004.20, re- 
 covered by judgment as above stated, was in excess of such 
 appropriation, and, therefore, illegal. 
 
 It is singular that you, the lawyer of the city, bound by 
 your oath of office to enforce those provisions of the laws of 
 1866 and 1867, which had been passed to protect the city, 
 permitted them to be openly violated and defied, and 
 allowed such judgments to be unlawfully entered. 
 
 Most of those judgments are entered in the Superior 
 Court and Court of Common Pleas. In the Supreme Court 
 some of such illegal claims were brought in the Spring and 
 
4 
 
 Summer of 1866, and you defended the city successfully 
 against them. The claimants appealed to the General 
 Term, and the General Term unanimously rejected all such 
 claims, declared the Acts above mentioned constitutional, 
 and saved the city from attempted plunder. 
 
 So far it was well. But the baffled claimants, thus shut 
 out from the Supreme Court, brought their illegal claims 
 in the Superior Court and the Court of Common Pleas. 
 Here it is surmised that you again appeared to defend the 
 city ; but how you did so will be inquired into further on. 
 Those Courts gave judgments against the city, and allowed 
 those claims in the face of the Acts of 1866 and 1867, passed 
 for the protection of the Corporation ; but you took no 
 appeal from these judgments to the Court of Appeals, 
 although, from the decisions of the Supreme Court, it was 
 probable that you could have had the decisions of the Su- 
 perior Court and the Common Pleas Judges reversed. 
 
 The Association leaves it as matter for inquiry why you 
 have neglected the interests of the city. It also deems it 
 interesting to examine the manner in which you defended 
 those illegal claims in the last-named Courts. It appears 
 from the records that the claimants in such suits (where 
 sometimes as much as $34,000 was involved in a single 
 case) gave no detailed statements of the items, prices, or 
 dates of the work for which they demanded judgment. It 
 also appears that instead of compelling such statements to 
 be produced and filed, or moving the Court to have the 
 complaints of such claimants made more definite, you 
 merely interposed an answer setting forth that there was no 
 appropriation to pay the claims. Owing to this want of 
 particulars,, either in your papers or the claimants', the 
 Court had no information as to whether the work alleged to 
 be done was done prior to or after the passage of the pro- 
 tective laws we have cited, and therefore could not know 
 that those laws applied to such claims, for it cannot be pre- 
 
5 
 
 suraed that those Courts would have permitted judgments 
 to be recovered against the city for those portions of the 
 claims that accrued subsequent to the passage of the pro- 
 tective laws. 
 
 It also appears that in several of such suits the answer 
 interposed by you was not even verified, and the claimants, 
 by reason of your neglect, had the right to, and did by 
 summary motion, according to the practice of the Courts, 
 demand and obtain judgment in their favor. 
 
 And the records of the Courts now show the singular 
 spectacle of judgments for such vast sums as $34,000, &c, 
 obtained against the city upon a record consisting of a 
 couple of half sheets of paper, wherein not a particular 
 date, nor item, nor specific charge of any kind appears. 
 
 The Association also asks for an explanation of the' ex- 
 traordinary neglect of a plain precaution, by which it hap- 
 pens that there is nothing now in the records of the Courts to 
 prevent the same claimant from bringing suits for the same 
 claims and obtaining a second judgment 
 
 The following are the judgments so obtained for adver- 
 tising the proceedings of the Common Council : 
 
 Four judgments of the New- York Transcript Si 02,191 89 
 
 Four judgments of the New- York Daily News 79.038 15 
 
 One judgment of the New- York Sun 6,880 10 
 
 One judgment of the Metropolitan Record 1,815 29 
 
 One judgment of the Journal of Commerce 2,771 16 
 
 Two judgments of the Sunday Atlas. 993 75 
 
 One judgment of the Sunday Times 313 86 
 
 Total 8194,004 20 
 
 And this amount of judgments is obtained in defiance of 
 the laws of 1866 and 1867. 
 
 There are also judgments obtained for alleged stationery, 
 blank books and printing work furnished to the Corporation, 
 which are equally unlawful. An appropriation for these 
 
6 
 
 expenses was made in the same Acts of the Legislature of 
 1866 and 1867. and a like prohibition was enacted against 
 an j judgments being entered for any claim therefor after 
 such appropriation was expended. Yet in the last twenty 
 months the following judgments for stationery, &c., over and 
 above the ample appropriations made by law, were obtained 
 in the same manner as those for advertising, viz. : 
 
 Judgment of E. Jones, of Dec. 17, 1866 $9,298 02 
 
 Judgment of E. Jones, of March 14, 1867 21,522 24 
 
 Judgment of E. Jones, of April 10, 1867 62,240 13 
 
 Total $93,060 39 
 
 The Association also asks your attention to the fact that 
 even if the laws of 1866 and 1867 were disregarded by the 
 Superior Court and Court of Common Pleas, there was and 
 is another law with which you are bound to be familiar, 
 that constitutes a bar to these claims. The Charter of the 
 City requires all work done for, or supplies furnished to the 
 city, amounting to more than $250, to be done by contract ; 
 and by the Corporation ordinances, "printing'' only is ex- 
 cepted from the operation of tbe provision. 
 
 There were no contracts made for this $194,004.20 worth 
 of advertising, nor for the stationery. 
 
 The parties commenced suit and obtained judgment, 
 while you failed to lay before the Court as a defence the 
 fact that the Charter of the City barred the recovery of all 
 such claims. 
 
 The Association also desires an explanation of the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 In the spring of this year, just after adjournment of the 
 Legislature, you addressed a communication to the Comp- 
 troller, in which you recommended him to pay all these 
 judgments. You argued at length that, notwithstanding 
 the Legislature expressly enacted in the Act of April 28, 
 
7 
 
 1867, that no such judgments should be paid, yet neverthe- 
 less the Comptroller ought to disregard the law aud pay out 
 the city money to satisfy the claimants. 
 
 Although you had defended the city against those claims 
 on the ground that they were unlawful, although the Su- 
 preme Court of the State had decided in accordance with 
 that view, yet you urged the Comptroller to pay them. 
 
 The Association is unable to reconcile your earnest en- 
 deavor to have these claims paid, when they had a right to 
 expect that you would have taken an appeal from the 
 judgments entered, instead of urging their payment by the 
 city. 
 
 The Association finds that during these twenty-two 
 months you have drawn from the city, for the expenses of 
 your Department, the sum of $152,974.32. 
 
 The items which make up that sum are briefly as follows : 
 
 Your salary as Counsel to the Corporation $18,333 33 
 
 Tour salary as Legal Adviser to the Board of Supervisors.. 3,666 66 
 
 Your salary as member of the Board of Revision 1,833 33 
 
 Your allowance for clerk hire 22,000 00 
 
 Your extra counsel fee in the suit to enforce taxation of 
 
 bank stockholders 10,000 00 
 
 Your bills for stationer}-, blank books, tape, sealing wax, ink, 
 pens, paper, envelopes, scissors, sponges, cups, diaries, files, 
 
 ink-stands, pencils, Ac 1,501 25 
 
 Your bills for coal, wood, labor, clock, soap, looking-glasses, 
 screens, porterage, shades, mats, Brussels carpet, matting, 
 oil-cloth, book cases, desks, signs, spittoons, Ac, (drawn 
 
 on the appropriations for cleaning and supplies) 1.504 54 
 
 Your bills for alterations and repairs to the office you oc- 
 cupy, lumber, plastering, painting, heaters, and for wood, 
 coal, labor, gas fixtures, gas pipes, tables, desks, chairs, 
 bookcases, racks, wardrobes, screens and carpeting, (drawn 
 from appropriation for construction of public buildings).. 2,642 79 
 Your bills for printing (drawn from appropriations for 
 
 "printing"] 85 00 
 
 Your bills for the pay of extra lawyers employed by you to 
 
 defend the city 44,61150 
 
8 
 
 Your bills for u contingent expenses of office," for which 
 
 you give no items S8.330 35 
 
 Your bills for costs paid, referees' fees, copies legislative 
 bills, searches, printing points, law books, reporting sur- 
 veys, serving subpoenas, witness' fees, sheriffs fees, Clerk's 
 fees, Register's fees, blanks and subscription to the 
 Albany Argus 13,334 31 
 
 Your bills for rent of your offices 5,131 26 
 
 Amounts certified by you as couusel fees for extra lawyers, 
 
 in the case of taxation of bank stockholders 20,000 00 
 
 Total $152,974 32 
 
 The Association desires to call your attention to the item 
 in the above account of $8,330.35 for "contingent expenses 
 of your office," for which you furnish no items whatever. 
 It appears from the other charges made by you that every 
 necessary expense would be met by the other sums, and 
 yet in twenty-two months you spend $3,330.35 for expenses 
 without a name. The following items are duly particular- 
 ized and charged by you, exclusive of the $8,330.35, and 
 seem to cover every imaginable " contingent expense." 
 
 Wrapping paper §87 
 
 Ink and inkstands 83 
 
 Rubber rings and bands.. . . 69 
 Writing paper, note paper, 
 
 cap paper, &c 657 
 
 Blank books, account books, 
 
 kc 200 
 
 Envelopes 109 
 
 Pens and penholders 108 
 
 Blotting paper 45 
 
 Red tape and silk 40 
 
 Pencils and holders 38 
 
 Shears 21 
 
 Sponges and cups 21 
 
 l^aw diaries 15 
 
 Newspaper and other files. 9 
 
 Pins 9 
 
 00 
 00 
 00 
 
 57 00 
 
 00 | 
 00 I 
 50 
 00 j 
 
 oo I 
 
 00 
 00 
 00 
 00 
 00 
 00 
 
 3 clothes racks 
 
 Gas fixtures 
 
 I book rack 
 
 Looking-glasses 
 
 Signs 
 
 Cases, with holes 
 
 Spittoons 
 
 Umbrella stands 
 
 New heating register 
 
 Screen 
 
 Taking down awnings.. . .. 
 
 Taking down stoves 
 
 42 tons of coal 
 
 35 loads of wood 
 
 99 yards of Brussels car- 
 pets 
 
 63 yards of matting 
 
 811 75 
 70 20 
 53 50 
 
 25 00 
 101 50 
 
 26 00 
 
 8 25 
 7 00 
 
 13 15 
 10 75 
 6 00 
 
 9 79 
 844 40 
 
 313 21 
 146 87 
 
9 
 
 Paper weights 
 
 S9 00 
 
 | Carpenters', masons', paint- 
 
 
 
 Mucilage 
 
 9 00 
 
 ers' and plasterers' work 
 
 
 
 Cash boxes 
 
 11 00 
 
 in Februarv, 1866 
 
 $56 
 
 G3 
 
 Envelope boxes 
 
 T 00 
 
 Carpenters', masons', paint- 
 
 Sealing wax. . 
 
 
 ers' and plasterers' work 
 
 
 
 Twine 
 
 
 in March, 1866 
 
 119 
 
 03 
 
 Paper cutters 
 
 4 00 
 
 Carpenters', masons', paint- 
 
 
 Blank cards 
 
 3 50 
 
 ers' ami plasterers' work 
 
 
 
 Eyelets 
 
 
 
 294 
 
 90 
 
 Bell 
 
 
 Carpenters', masons', paint- 
 
 Erasers 
 
 
 ers' and plasterers' work 
 
 
 
 Clips 
 
 
 in November, 1866. 
 
 518 
 
 88 
 
 Seals 
 
 
 Carpenters', masons', pain:- 
 
 
 Arm -rests 
 
 
 ers' and plasterers' work 
 
 
 
 28 cbairs 
 
 .... 250 00 
 
 in August. 1 867 
 
 203 
 
 10 
 
 3 desks 
 
 .... 419 75 
 
 Soap dish, screen, clock 
 
 
 
 3 tables 
 
 
 and cartage and labor on 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 47 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 Screen, coal hod, tire set 
 
 
 
 ... 57 50 
 
 and cartage on the sarae. 
 
 15 
 
 75 
 
 It is supposed that it would be difficult to name any 
 article necessary for the use of your office which does not 
 appear in the ample list above, and it is surprising that in 
 twenty-two months the sum of $8,330.35 should be absorbed 
 by you for other contingent expenses of office.'" 
 
 It also appears that you had charged in other accounts 
 for the fees you had paid to the Courts and Clerks' office 
 for reporting, referees, witnesses, subp<enas, law books, 
 blanks, certificates, &c. 
 
 The Association now proposes to direct your attention to 
 a most serious matter. 
 
 By the Charter of the City of New-York and other Acts 
 of the Legislature, you are constituted the legal adviser and 
 counsel in all suits by and against the City and County. 
 You are paid a salary of $13,000 per annum : you are also 
 allowed $12,000 per annum, with which to pay competent 
 clerks and assistants: and yet since you have been in office 
 o 
 
10 
 
 you have employed about fifteen extra lawyers, whose 
 charges are high, and paid them fees to the aggregate of 
 $41,611.50, of which amount one of these lawyers alone 
 received $21,727.50, and another of them $9,775. 
 
 Notwithstanding this immense outlay for extra lawyers, 
 judgments to the amount of $171,589.78 were entered 
 against the City, of which over $200,000 are in direct viola- 
 tion to the law. 
 
 But, in justice to the legal gentlemen emplo} r ed by you, 
 it ought to be stated that in those advertising and printing 
 claims which you advised the Comptroller to pay, you did 
 not employ any of them to defend the city. If you had 
 done so, it is probable they would have produced a different 
 result. If the fact that you did not retain eminent counsel 
 to defend the city against the illegal advertising and 
 stationery claims be taken in connection with the fact that 
 you afterwards urged the Comptroller to pay all those 
 claims, but one inference can be drawn — that you did not 
 wish those claims to be defeated. The Association now 
 presents a few of the instances in which you did employ 
 extra counsel, and pay them from the City Treasury. 
 
 Last summer this Association applied to Charles G. 
 Cornell, then Street Commissioner, for permission to ex- 
 amine some contracts on file in his Department; he refused, 
 and a mandamus was sued out to compel him ; the Supreme 
 Court, after hearing what he had to say, commanded him 
 to allow the examination. Now, although this refusal of 
 Mr. Cornell was a personal matter -which had nothing to do 
 with the rights of the city, yet you stepped forth without 
 authority and retained counsel for Mr. Cornell, and paid 
 such counsel a fee of $150 out of the City funds for trying 
 to prevent the examination of the papers in his office by 
 the citizens of New York. 
 
 In the year 1866, a certain Mr. O'Brien, who was 
 duly elected to the office of Councilman, was refused a 
 
11 
 
 seat in the Chamber by the other Councilmen. He 
 appeared at the Supreme Court and obtained a manda- 
 mus, requiring them to admit him. They disobeyed this 
 order, and the Court fined them all for contempt. Now, 
 although this criminal disobedience of the Councilmen was 
 a personal matter, and not an official duty, you engaged 
 counsel at the expense of the city to appear for the Coun 
 cilmen, and try to relieve them from the penalty they had 
 incurred in disregarding the mandate of the Court. 
 
 In 18G6, Mr. Pullman, a member of the Common Council, 
 in a laudable endeavor to save the city the expense of a con- 
 tract for lighting the city with gas, which the Common Coun- 
 cil were about to make for twenty years, at a vast outlay, 
 brought an action to restrain the consummation of the 
 wrong. Instead of assisting him in his honest effort, you 
 engaged two special counsel at extravagant fees, and paid 
 them out of the City Treasury, to try and dissolve the in- 
 junction, and allow the contract to be made. 
 
 In 1866 a suit was commenced by a member of the 
 Common Council to prevent the execution by the Comp- 
 troller of a certain lease of premises at Nos 115 and 117 
 Nassau street, from Fernando Wood, for ten years, at an 
 annual rent of $18,000, the same premises being worth only 
 $6,000 per year, as certified to by prominent real-estate 
 agents in this city. Instead of assisting in this suit, which 
 would have saved the city a vast expense, you interposed a 
 demurrer to the complaint, and retained eminent counsel to 
 press it, with the design of checking the action at the outset, 
 and preventing, if possible, any similar suit by any honest 
 member of the Common Council who desired to stop the 
 scheme of his colleagues. 
 
 In March, 1866, an application was made by a citizen of 
 this county to the Board of Supervisors to allow him to 
 inspect the papers, records and accounts pertaining to the 
 construction of the new Court-House. He could not sec 
 
L2 
 
 them, however, because they were not deposited in the office 
 of the Clerk of the Board as they are required to be by the 
 statutes of this State, but were kept in the private posses- 
 sion of the Court- House Committee. He therefore applied 
 to the Supreme Court for a mandamus to compel the 
 Supervisors to place such books, papers and accounts in 
 their Clerks office, to be there open to public inspection as 
 the law of the State directs. Although this was a just and 
 legal request, you retained eminent counsel at an expense 
 of $250, (which was paid out of the City Treasury,) to appear- 
 in the Court on behalf of the Supervisors in answer to this 
 mandamus. As, however, all that the eminent counsel did for 
 his $250 was to tell the Court that the Supervisors would 
 obey the mandamus and put the papers in their Clerk's 
 office, it is supposed that in this case there was no intention 
 to oppose the execution of the law, but that your custom 
 required you to retain and pay an extra lawyer on every 
 pretext. 
 
 The Association also directs your attention to the follow- 
 ing remarkable fact: That, in the last twenty months, you 
 employed William C. Trull (a partner in the law firm of 
 Develin, Miller & Trull), as counsel in behalf of the city in 
 various suits, and paid him the sum of $9,775, as fees, out 
 of the City Treasury. Also, that at the same time you 
 employed Mr. Miller (another partner in the law firm of 
 Develin, Miller & Trull), as counsel on behalf of the city, 
 and paid him $1,000 fees out of the City Treasury. It 
 appears by examination of the Court records that at this very 
 time Mr. Trull and Mr. Miller, and their firm of Develin, 
 Miller & Trull, were busily engaged in suing the city, and 
 recovering judgments against it for the advertising claims of 
 the New- York Transcript, and other claims of other persons, 
 and that they did tJius recover judgments against the city to the 
 amount of $102,484.88. 
 
 The question arises whether the facility with which 
 
13 
 
 Messrs. Develin, Miller & Trull recovered judgments for 
 $102,484.88 against the city impressed you with such high 
 sense of their ability that } r ou employed two of the firm to 
 defend the city against other claims brought by persons 
 who did not happen to be their clients. 
 
 It happens that Mr. Develin, of this same firm, was your 
 immediate predecessor in office, and Mr. Trull was his 
 assistant, and that when he was Corporation Counsel the 
 New- York Transcript obtained enormous judgments against 
 the city. Also, that immediately after their retirement 
 from the post you now hold they took offices in the same 
 building with your official rooms, and on the same floor, and 
 commenced to sue the city on the claims of the same persons 
 whom they should have defended it against when they were 
 in power; and it is these judgments which they obtained 
 against the city that you urged the Comptroller to pay. 
 
 The following is a statement of such judgments against 
 the city : 
 
 Judgment of the New-York Transcript (obtained by Develin. 
 
 Miller & Trull), June 12, 1866 832,508 40 
 
 Judgment of A. J. McCool (obtained by Develin, Miller & 
 
 Trull), October 27,1866 11,094 22 
 
 Judgment of the New-York Transcript (obtained by Develin. 
 
 Miller & Trull), January 3, 1867 34.710 G9 
 
 Judgment of E. B. Simmons (obtained by Develin. Miller & 
 
 Trull), January 11,1867 1,552 47 
 
 Judgment of the N tic-York Transcript (obtained by C. E. 
 
 Miller), April 19, 1867 21.749 50 
 
 The following is the statement of the fees paid by you to 
 those two lawyers in suits wherein you employed them on 
 behalf of the city : 
 
 Wm. C. Trull, counsel fees in twenty-eight suits $9,775 
 
 C. K. Miller in one suit 1.000 
 
 But it appears that not content with employing extra 
 counsel on so many occasions, and paying them from the 
 
14 
 
 City Treasury, you finally employed yourself as your own 
 extra assistant, and drew the sum of $10,000 in that capacity. 
 It appears in the county records that, in the present year 
 the case of the taxation of stockholders of city banks was 
 determined in the Supreme Court at Washington, and that 
 you certified to a bill of $30,000 for counsel fees, $10,000 
 of which you certified to as your own individual fee in the 
 case. And this $10,000 was paid to you. Now, the Citi- 
 zens' Association presents to you the following facts. By 
 the Charter of the City of New- York, and the subsequent 
 Acts of the Legislature, your compensation is provided for 
 
 as follows : 
 
 Salary as Counsel to Corporation $3,500 
 
 Salary in lieu of fees in street opening 6,500 
 
 Allowance for Clerks and Assistants 12,000 
 
 Salary as member of Board of Revision J ,000 
 
 Salary as legal adviser of the Board of Supervisors 2,000 
 
 Total $25,000 
 
 Of this sum $13,000 goes into your own purse every 
 year, and as much more as you can save in clerk hire. The 
 duties which you are required to perform for this pay are 
 as follows : 
 
 u To have charge of and conduct all the law business of the Corpora- 
 tion and of the departments thereof, and all other law business in which 
 the city shall be interested when so ordered by the Corporation, and 
 have charge of and conduct the legal proceedings necessary in opening, 
 widening or altering streets, and draw the leases, deeds and other papers 
 connected with the Finance Department.'' — (Charter of 1857, Sec. 16.) 
 
 " The Counsel to the Corporation of the City of New- York shall be 
 the legal adviser of the Board of Supervisors, and shall receive such com- 
 pensation for his services as shall be fixed by said Board. Not exceed- 
 ing the sum of 82,000 per annum.' '— (Laws of 1857, Chap. 590.) 
 
 It would seem that the foregoing enumeration of duties 
 which are paid for so well, embraced all possible legal ser- 
 vices you might be called on to render. You, however, 
 
15 
 
 thought differently. In the litigation as to the right to tax 
 the shares of stockholders of the banks by the county, 
 which was finally decided in favor of the latter by the Su- 
 preme Court at Washington, you assisted in conducting the 
 proceedings on behalf of the county, as it was your duty to 
 do, and in addition to certifying to a bill of $20,000 of two 
 able counsel, to the astonishment of the tax-payers you certified 
 to a bill made out by yourself for yourself for $10,000 for legal 
 services in this litigation ! The Association submits that this 
 was a wrong, perpetrated upon the community. 
 
 The city and county give you $13,000 a year for your- 
 self, $12,000 a year for your clerks, $5,000 a year for your 
 office rent, and $30,000 a year for every conceivable expense 
 besides, and yet you, for a matter which belongs plainly to 
 the scope of your duties, charge and take $10,000 more. 
 The sum of $142,974.32 was given to you to carry on the 
 law business of the City and County of New- York for 
 twenty months, and yet you demanded and received 
 $10,000 additional. 
 
 The Association is aware of the only excuse you have to 
 offer for this remarkable act. You have stated that in the 
 course of the stockholders' litigation you had to leave the 
 State of New-York and go to Washington ; that this was 
 an extra service, and that one of your predecessors in office 
 made a similar charge for such an extra service. 
 
 To this the Association states that the laws which pro- 
 vide for your duties and your pay make no discrimination 
 as to the place in which you are to perform those duties; 
 you are given the charge of all the law business, and this 
 excludes che idea of restrictions about that kind of law 
 business that can be performed in, and that which must 
 take you out, of the State. If the Corporation Counsel were 
 to conduct the legal affairs of the county only in this State, 
 then we must conclude that the intention was to allow all 
 that part of them which might be taken on appeal to the 
 
16 
 
 Supreme Court at Washington to be abandoned on the part 
 of the county when such an appeal was perfected. An 
 inference of that sort is absurd; the Corporation Counsel 
 has to go (without extra pay) to the remotest limits of the 
 State, at a sacrifice of time, ease and comfort greater than 
 that he has to make in going to Washington, and yet, if 
 the unjust rule you claim were to be allowed, a visit by 
 him across the ferry to Jersey City would be the subject of 
 a heavy extra charge. 
 
 As to the other part of your excuse that one of your 
 predecessors in office made a similar charge in a similar 
 case, the Association begs to remind you that you were 
 nominated for the office you now hold by this Association with 
 the solemn assurance on your part that you would administer 
 its functions in a manner totally unlike that of your predeces- 
 sors, and that you would begin tliis marked difference by economy 
 of expenditure. But the Association sees, with pain, that 
 you have closely imitated, even that one of your predeces- 
 sors whom it was forced to impeach before the Governor of 
 the State of New- York in the month of September, 1865. 
 
 The following are the chief points of that imitation which 
 require explanation : 
 
 1. Neglect, in refraining to take appeals to the higher Courts from 
 doubtful judgments rendered against the city. 
 
 2. Permit ting a vast number of judgments to be recorded. 
 
 3. Extravagance in rent and oflice appointments. 
 
 4. Patronage of frieuds by retaining them as counsel on behalf of the 
 city, on every possible occasion, and paying them enormous fees. 
 
 5. Resistance to proceedings taken to bring local officials to a proper 
 sense of their duty. 
 
 6. Furthering schemes of the Leal Government which were calculated 
 to damage the city and citizens, and eniich only the projectors and their 
 friends. 
 
 7. Overcharging for the services you performed, in violation of tho 
 law. 
 
17 
 
 8. Advising against obedience to law, a public official of the Cor- 
 poration. 
 
 9. Attendiug upon the Legislature at Albany to enlarge the appro- 
 priations for your office and yourself, and thus increase the taxes. 
 
 The Association now desires to instance the sixth of the 
 imitations enumerated above. 
 
 To - do this it is only necessary to mention those two vast 
 schemes still fresh ,in the recollection of an indignant com- 
 munity, called 11 The Widening of Ann Street" and u The 
 Church Street Extension;" both of these measures, which 
 awakened the most intense excitement ever known in our 
 municipal history, and which the Common Council hastened 
 to revoke of its own motion after the unqualified public 
 condemnation they elicited, you endeavored all in your 
 power to carry on and consummate, regardless of the pro- 
 tests of the Press and the public. While }*our fellow- 
 citizens were holding indignation meetings to concert meas- 
 ures for checking these schemes, fraught with so much 
 disaster, you steadily and ingeniously labored to consum- 
 mate them by every art and power your official position 
 afforded you. 
 
 You boldly avowed your determination to push the first 
 of them on, and when the Common Council, alarmed by the 
 public outcry, contemplated its repeal, you went to Albany 
 and sought, by introducing a special law into the statute 
 book, to make the consummation of the scheme more 
 certain. 
 
 All this requires explanation. 
 
 In the matter of the " Extension of Church Street" you 
 fought, step by step, with voluntary zeal, the citizens who 
 labored to break up that unjust measure, which imposed 
 $3,000,000 of assessments upon six square miles of property, 
 and which was unequalled in audacity and hardship by any 
 scheme from which the people of the City of Xew- York- 
 have suffered ; and your last act in relation to it. was to 
 3 
 
18 
 
 propose and defend a bill for the enormous sum of $80,000 
 for the clerical labor of making the report and surveys of 
 the Commissioners of Estimate. Of this bill the Associa- 
 tion speaks last. In it appears a charge of $28,000 for 
 writing out and copying the said report. That report con- 
 sisted of several thousand duplicate printed forms, in which 
 one or two lines of writing were filled in. The whole of the 
 printing of these blanks could be done for less than $1,000, 
 and the written filling' would be amply paid for by another 
 $1,000. For this, however, over $28,000 was charged. 
 You defended, and supported, and pressed this exorbitant 
 charge, which the tax-payers .were to bear. Your prede- 
 cessors in office attempted no such wrongs ; you have imi- 
 tated them only to surpass them ; and your record to-day 
 shows that in the twenty months you have been in office, 
 you have steadily increased the burden of the tax-payers of 
 the city, and have proportionately cost them more than any 
 official that ever held your office. 
 
 It is with more than ordinary pain and regret that the 
 Citizens' Association has been compelled, in the strict per- 
 formance of its duties and pledges to this heavily taxed 
 community, to present the above summary of your official 
 acts, and ask for such explanation as you are able to offer. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 PETER COOPER, 
 President Citizens 1 Association of New - York. 
 
 Richard M. Henry, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
(Editorial from the Tribune, Nov. 19, 1867.) 
 
 ADVICE TO OUR LEGAL ADVISER. 
 
 It appears from the letter of the Citizens' Association to 
 Richard O'Gorman, Esq., Corporation Counsel, that this 
 officer, though nominated for his present office by the 
 Citizens' Association on a Reform ticket, has proven to be 
 anything else but a reformer. We are glad that when their 
 own candidates thus turn out to be failures, the Citizens' 
 Association is as relentless in exposing their delinquencies 
 as if they were elected by Tammany or Mozart. 
 
 They charge that Mr. O'Gorman is spending too much 
 money ; that what he does expend is distributed among his 
 frienefs, more manifestly for their interests than for that of 
 the city, and that in some instances the suits under his 
 charge show lamentable failure in the law department to 
 protect the city's interests, and a suspicious acquiescence in 
 the rendition of judgments against the city, and in their 
 payment by the Comptroller. 
 
 Mr. O'Gorman appears to have drawn for his department, 
 during twenty months, the heavy sum of $152,974.32. Of 
 this he has pocketed $33,833.32 for the " eloquent and per- 
 suasive"' Richard O'Gorman himself. He has expended 
 $24,199.15 on office furniture, &c. ; he has distributed 
 $86,611.50 among his professional brethren for extra coun- 
 sel fees and clerk hire, and has used up $8,330.35 for " other 
 purposes." x^mong the extra counsel employed by Mr. 
 O'Gorman, Recorder Hackett seems to have earned, at odd 
 hours while off the bench, $21,727.50, or about two-thirds 
 as much as Mr. O'Gorman earned by the employment of his 
 whole time, and four or five times as much as the city 
 
20 
 
 deemed to be an adequate compensation for his duties as 
 Recorder. It seems remarkable that a Corporation Counsel 
 who draws more than a hundred dollars a day for all work- 
 ing days, " rain or shine/' for attending to the lawsuits of 
 the city, should need professional aid to the value of two 
 hundred dollars a day, and clerk hire to the value of about 
 seventy -five dollars more a day. Cannot the city get beaten 
 in its lawsuits at a cheaper rate than five hundred dollars a 
 day? And is it not marvelous that Eecorder Hackett, after 
 his arduous labors of the day are over, and he steps down, 
 wearied and exhausted, from the bench, can 11 assist'' the 
 Corporation Counsel to the tune of about seventy dollars 
 daily. Is not the Recorder in danger of taxing his consti- 
 tution too severely by these unseasonable labors in behalf 
 of the city " 'neath the midnight lamp.*' Such a compen- 
 sation would indicate heavy draughts either upon the u mid- 
 night oil" or the "oil of palms." 
 
 Moreover, the eloquent and learned O'Gorman, after 
 drawing on the Treasury for every Yankee notion and Irish 
 nicknack needed in his office, from Walnut desks to papers 
 of pins, (Query — What becomes of all the pins ?) and from 
 Referees' fees down to subpoena money, finds yet the " con- 
 tingent expenses of office," for nameless and unexplained 
 necessities, amounting to $8,330. No items of these ex- 
 penses, amounting to about thirty dollars per diem, are 
 given. Thirty dollars a day would buy a very exhilarating 
 supply of champagne and cigars; and, under the intense 
 fatigues incident to the office of Corporation Counsel, we 
 have not the heart to veto any little stimulants that may 
 be needed by "classic and eloquent" barristers for their 
 "stomach's sake and their other infirmities." But it would 
 be agreeable to a sympathizing public to be trustworthily 
 assured (a simple statement, not under oath, will cover the 
 point) that the learned Counsel of the City have not been 
 compelled to rob their private treasuries of money needed 
 
21 
 
 for public use, in the purchase of cigars that are smoked 
 ex-ojjicio, and champagne that is drunk by the learned 
 counsel in his municipal capacity, as the legal adviser of the 
 Corporation, and not in his individual and private relations 
 as the Hon. Richard 'Gorman. We have always favored 
 " internal improvements" as a public policy, and we would 
 be the last to charge that a judicious internal application 
 of these creature comforts at the expense of the city, whose 
 economical government, we know, is ever uppermost in 
 Mr. O'Gorman's breast, could be stigmatized as Gorman- 
 dizing. 
 
 In one instance, Mr. O'Gorman seems to have retained a 
 law firm to defend the city, w t 1io, in other cases, were en- 
 gaged in recovering heavy judgments against the city ; but it 
 is to be hoped — and by those who confide in Mr. O'Gorman 
 as a reformer, it is to be trusted — that the several suits were 
 kept distinct, and that the compensation they received for 
 defending the city did not go to pay the expenses they in- 
 curred in prosecuting it. Notwithstanding Mr. O'Gorman's 
 arduous defence of the city, judgments amounting to 
 $474,589.78 have been obtained against the city during his 
 term. Of these, the Citizens' Association attempts to show 
 that about $200,000 of judgments were obtained in defiance 
 of law, and should have been reversed on appeal, but that 
 Mr. O'Gorman advised that they be paid in full ! The 
 fact that Mr. O'Gorman certified a bill in his own favor for 
 $10,000, extra services rendered by himself in arguing the 
 case of the Taxation of Bank Stockholders, at Washington, 
 is also demurred to by the Citizens' Association. They 
 seem to think that, though Mr. O'Gorman's predecessors 
 might " certify" bills for extra services in their own favor, 
 it is slightly irregular for Mr. O'Gorman, as a reform can 
 didate, to do so. 
 
 Various other charges of expensiveness are made against 
 
the " classic and eloquent 7 ' O'Gorman, which show that the 
 Citizens' Association is seriously intermeddling in matters. 
 We advise Mr. O'Gorman to vindicate his purity as a reform 
 candidate, or the Reformers may nominate a cheaper man 
 next time. The integrity of a candidate of the Citizens' 
 Association should be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. 
 
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 
 iEx Htbrta 
 
 SEYMOUR DURST