Defalcation Part 2, Morally Corrupt & Abandoned!

Even more juicy details! Here's a more readable transcription.

Auburn Journal

Wednesday, October 6, 1852

Bad Example-—A Premium for being Dishonest .

Canal Commissioner FOLLETT certainly has many sins to answer for. The high hand which he has carried in conducting affairs on his section of the canals, during the past summer, should bring upon him the severest denunciations of the Press and People. It seems that he determined, at the opening of navigation, on the Canals, last spring, to take the responsibility upon himself of acting as his disordered sense of propriety and justice might dictate, without reference to the opinion of the People or the interests of the State.

Among the most disreputable proceedings on the canals under his control, we think that of giving employment to S. A. HOOPER, on the Mt. Morris Dam, should be classed. We arc informed, by reliable authority, that HOOPER has been paid TEN DOLLARS PER DAY, during a portion of the season, for superintending the work on the Dam. 'This HOOPER is the identical man against whom charges of fraud were preferred and sustained before a select committee of the Assembly of 1846, appointed to investigate the frauds in the expenditures of the Public Moneys upon the Canals of the State. On page 125, of the report of the committee, made that year, we find the following interesting facts: "Soon after the public exposure of the frauds committed by Hooper and Reynolds, indictments were found against both of them, and Hooper for a time absconded. During his absence from the Genesee Valley, he staid a considerable length of time at the house of Dr. F. L. Harris, in Buffalo. This was probably in August and September, 1845. While there, Dr. Harris had a conversation with him in relation to the amounts of the defalcation, with a view to ascertain the amount of the liability of Hooper, as Superintendent. Hooper then told Dr. Harris that the amount of the whole defalcation was from $3,000 to $5,000, about $5,000. (See deposition of Francis L. Harris, No. 89, in Rep. of Com.) However morally corrupt and abandoned Hooper may have become, he could have no motive to state the amount greater than it really was, but on the contrary, every motive to state it at the lowest possible sum, consistent with a desire to bo believed."

It will thus be seen that a man who has proved a defaulter to the State, and who, to avoid being removed from the office of Superintendent in 1845, reigned, has been kept in employment during some part of the past season, at an expense to the State of $10 per day, while hundreds of men who are known to be honest and upright in their business transactions, and who are far more competent to superintend the work on the Mount Morris Dam, have not been favored with work, because it was supposed that their political influence, in favor of FOLLETT, would not be exerted to the extent that HOOPER'S would.

There are other disgraceful circumstances connected with the Dam improvements. It is said that while HOOPER has been receiving ten dollars per day, for superintending the work, others have been paid six and eight dollars per day for the name service.

There have already been expended, on the Mount Morris Dam, thirty eight thousand dollars, but the work has been so miserably done that competent judges, who have seen it, have predicted that the first rise of water in the river, of any magnitude, will sweep away the whole structure. It is thus that the Public Money is squandered, and men encouraged who have proved themselves defaulters.