POORHOUSE

Since Samuel Seabury started his investigation of New York City politics, an illuminating chapter on municipal government has been drawn from the great metropolis. At first the revelations were the usual stories of graft, bribery, and corruption, which were exceptional only for the scale upon which they were operated, but since Mayor LaGuardia's inauguration the investigations have assumed a more serious aspect. The first tales about Welfare Island Prison were not surprising and in part were almost amusing, but now that Paul Blanshard has focused his attention upon the City Home for the Aged, the daily investigation reports are weighted with testimony of criminal neglect, cruelty, robbery, and assault.

Tuesday's session unearthed numerous accounts of official pilfering of inmates' bank accounts and insurance policies, activities thoroughly familiar to John Curry's boys, but which are doubly criminal when practiced on helpless invalids. The bombshell burst in Wednesday's meeting when various attendants related to the Committee a series of incidents in the happy round of their daily chores. One inmate was forced to remain in a chair for three days with a set of broken ribs before she was treated. Another woman was struck down by an attendant and is now in Bellevue Hospital. A woman who had a small finger infection was studiously disregarded until the infection had spread throughout her entire arm. An epileptic who, as the attendant put it, "stopped tipping when her money ran low," was deserted in the throes of a fit. The story runs on in this manner to tell of sick being left to die, of aged beaten into submission, of inedible food, of medication by inexperienced and brutal attendants; no horror is absent, and the fact that it is told by the attendants themselves is eloquent proof of its veracity. Tam-many's record is long, but on no page is written more blood and suffering.

The gruesome story comes into clearer light when Miss Taggart, supervisor of nurses and Tammany election captain confesses that each year a large number of people from the Home register and vote illegally. Tammany is only incidentally sadistic; as over, the fundamental motive is the aggrandizement of the Hall, a chase which hesitates at no means to achieve its end. Its long reign of power has made Tammany careless, and Mayor LaGuardia's investigations are gradually developing a complete picture of its makeup and methods. The people of New York may tolerate graft and financial corruption as unavoidable evils, but, cynical as they may be, they cannot fail to be moved profoundly by maudlin sadism.