"No Surprise"

STATES & CITIES

Only two officials of New York County have ever been removed from office by Governors of New York State. In each case the Governor was a Roosevelt. Thirty-two years ago Theodore Roosevelt ousted a district attorney, not because he was charged with inefficiency, but because he declined to assist in prosecuting local election frauds. Last week T. R.'s fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, removed from office burly Sheriff Thomas M. Farley.

Sheriff Farley, a Tammany pillar and close friend of Boss John Francis Curry, lost his job not because he had been charged with incompetence, permitting gambling in his political club and retaining interest on litigants' money, but because he was unable credibly to explain a personal fortune of $357,000 which, taken from a mysterious tin box, far exceeded his gross public salary (TIME, Feb. 29 et ante).

The Sheriff-eject received word of the decision at a Manhattan hospital where he was recuperating from radiator burns. "It is no surprise," he told newsgatherers. "My temperature has lowered since I heard the news from you gents. I was awaiting it."

Ominously silent was Tammany, of whose support Governor Roosevelt may be in grave need when he goes before the national convention seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in June. Silent, too, was fun-loving Mayor James John Walker of New York City, whose business agent has been missing for months, at the prospect of further investigations by the Legislative Committee into the private finances of the city's officialdom.

Two days after Sheriff Farley's removal the man who unearthed the evidence against him, Counsel Samuel Seabury of the Legislative investigation, went to Cincinnati. Addressing the City Charter (Reform) Committee, he took a thrust at Governor Roosevelt for failing to oust Farley sooner, flayed Tammany corruption, sounded a national note which some observers interpreted as a non-partisan bid by Inquisitor Seabury for the Presidency. "[Tammany] now reaches out," said he, "to use its influence in support of some candidate who will be friendly to it, if indeed, he does not openly wear the stripes of the Tammany Tiger!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.