V 

 PHASES OF STATE LEGISLATION* 



THE ALBANY LEGISLATURE 



FEW persons realize the magnitude of the inter- 

 ests affected by State legislation in New York. 

 It is no mere figure of speech to call New York the 

 Empire State; and many of the laws most directly 

 and immediately affecting the interests of its citi- 

 zens are passed at Albany, and not at Washington. 

 In fact, there is at Albany a little home rule parlia- 

 ment which presides over the destinies of a com- 

 monwealth more populous than any one of two- 

 thirds of the kingdoms of Europe, and one which, 

 in point of wealth, material prosperity, variety of 

 interests, extent of territory, and capacity for ex- 

 pansion, can fairly be said to rank next to the pow- 

 ers of the first class. This little parliament, com- 

 posed of one hundred and twenty-eight members in 

 the Assembly and thirty-two in the Senate, is, in 

 the fullest sense of the term, a representative body ; 

 there is hardly one of the many and widely diversi- 

 fied interests of the State that has not a mouthpiece 

 at Albany, and hardly a single class of its citizens 

 not even excepting, I regret to say, the criminal 

 class which lacks its representative among the leg- 

 islators. In the three Legislatures of which I have 



*The Century, January, 1885. 

 (78) 



