The highway improvement acts have put a further burden upon the State, and there have been appropriated this year for the State's share toward town and county roads $3,413,100, which is additional to $1,054,500 contributed to the Highway Sinking Fund. Το The number of wards of the State, whose care and maintenance it has assumed, is increasing at the rate of 2,000 a year. accommodate these and for other governmental purposes it has been necessary to enlarge several State institutions and to build. new ones, for which appropriations of upward of $3,000,000 have been made this year. The increasing population and growth of the institutions of the State, carrying on, as it does, vast public improvements involving the expenditure of millions of dollars, unavoidably necessitate large increases in State expenditures annually, which must be met by increased revenues, if the State government is to continue in providing adequately for the demands made upon it. OF THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK EXTRAORDINARY SESSION, JUNE 20, 1910 ALBANY J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS No. 1. IN SENATE EXTRAORDINARY SESSION JUNE 20, 1910. The Governor's Message. STATE OF NEW YORK. EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, ALBANY, June 20, 1910. To the Legislature: I have convened you in extraordinary session in order that appropriate action may be taken with regard to matters which I believe to be of first importance to the interests of the people of the State. First. I recommend for your consideration the subject of the amendment of the law relating to primaries, the making of suitable provision for direct nominations of candidates for public office, and, in connection therewith, provision for representative and responsible party management. The people are dissatisfied with existing conditions and demand a change. Whatever may be said of imperfections in the laws relating to this matter in other jurisdictions, there can be no question but that these laws reflect a wholesome sentiment which is country-wide and cannot be denied. That sentiment is that the instrumentalities of party management shall not be so arranged as to facilitate the purposes of those who would subvert government to their selfish advantage. It is a sentiment that demands for the members of political parties simple and direct methods by which they can exercise their just rights in determining party choices. It insists that the work and preferences of party managers shall be brought to the test of party opinion freely expressed, to the end that leadership that dishonors the party may be more readily overthrown, and that it may be easier to give effective support to honest party management in the public interest. The people in this State, as well as elsewhere, are not disposed to tolerate a continuance of a system which experience condemns because it fosters an alliance between business and politics and tends to make departments of government the servitors of those they are intended to control. The need is to give this sentiment proper expression in well-devised measures. The essentiality of parties in the working of our system of government, and the necessity of strong and capable party organization, make it of first consequence that these instruments of democracy should not be used against itself. The more loyal one is to his party and the stronger his conviction of the importance of his party's principles and policy, the more keenly must he resent perversion of its counsels and deprecate the alienation by reason of their resentment at despotic control of those who form. the strength of its electorate. This applies to all parties, for the greatest danger to any party is to lose the moral support and enthusiasm of its rank and file and the cordial interest of its intelligent and unselfish members who cannot make political activity a vocation. Methods that produce and support oligarchy are destructive of the party health. The wider the extension of governmental work, the more important becomes the question of its quality, its economy and efficiency. The larger our outlays, the more important is it to secure disinterested service and to relieve the public officer from obligation to those who would use the departments of government as a base of supplies in maintaining control of party machinery. The more complete the supervision of the exercise of public |