Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
Page 221
| him about it, that they might talk it over. They did n’t; they conspired with the party managers to bury the bill in committee in the legislature. When the Governor sent an emergency message to wake it, they tore it up. The next morning another message was laid upon the Speaker’s desk. |
| “I learn,” it read, “that the emergency message which I sent last evening to the Assembly on behalf of the Franchise Tax Bill has not been read. I therefore send hereby another. I need not impress upon the Assembly the need of passing this bill at once.… It establishes the principle that hereafter corporations holding franchises from the public shall pay their just share of the public burden.” |
| The bill was passed. The party managers “saw.” The corporations did, too, and asked to be heard. They were heard. The law was amended at an extra session, but the principle stood unaltered. Since then the Court of Appeals has declared it constitutional and good, and not only the State of New York, but the whole country thanks Governor Roosevelt for a piece of legislation that makes for the permanent peace of our land. There can never |