I02 Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 



some thirty thousand votes, told the Legislature that the school 

 law mu^t not be repealed, and the system of education, free to all, 

 must be continued." 



The pursuit of the almighty dollar was rebuked even in those 

 days, but from a different angle than in recent times, viz. : " I tell 

 you, while you are pursuing, catching, hoarding money, Jesuitism, 

 i. e., Popery and Despotism, is filling your green fields, your 

 valleys, your mountains, with its schools . . . and if ye pay not 

 more attention to the education of your children, in the right 

 place, and less to traffic, ye will spend your profits beneath a 

 monarchy, and be led to the altar of forms and ceremonies of 

 Romanism, by your offspring." 



Economic conditions, and the relation between producer and 

 consumer, were sources of concern for the future at that time as 

 they are today. The teachings of Malthus and anxiety in regard 

 to unrestricted immigration form the basis of more than one 

 article, of which the following abstract is an example: "It is 

 true that we have milhons of unploughed acres — sufficient to 

 make our country the garden and granary of the world; but if 

 these acres are made to teem with human beings, most of whom 

 must, of necessity, become consumers instead of producers, (be- 

 cause the ratio of productive land necessarily lessens with the 

 increase of population,) it follows that, instead of feeding the 

 world, we shall ourselves be dependent for sustenance on other 

 nations. And to this condition it is possible to arrive in eighty 

 years, unless, like the Chinese, we consent to feed on rats and 

 offal. . . . Our population ... is doubled every twenty years, 

 whereas immigration has, for several years past, more than 

 doubled every five years. The deleterious effects of this cease- 

 less avalanche of ignorance and superstition, upon our social and 

 political existence, are already seriously felt . . . ," etc. 



The necessity for nonpartisanship in municipal affairs was 

 urged, as in our campaigns of a couple of decades ago, by the 

 Good Government and Citizens' Union parties. Under the cap- 

 tion A Municipal Party the editor says " this is something that 



