Chapter XIV: International Politics--Rapid Transit (2)

"My judgment is that your father had no business reasons for going
to Iceland. Really the trip was a sentimental adventure. Mr. Field
had been a profound student of the North Atlantic, and was familiar
with the fact that Iceland is but nine hundred miles from Scotland
and Norway and three hundred from Greenland. 'It seemed so near,
and yet so far.' ... In the spring of 1874 Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus W.
Field visited Cincinnati, and at a reception given by Mr. Probasco
Mr. Field said to me: 'Come and go with me to Iceland; it is the
millennial year of the settlement of the island. It would be very
interesting. The King of Denmark is to be there, and the whole
affair will be extraordinary.' I asked how one could get to
Iceland, and Mr. Field had evidently made the subject a close
study. He said there were monthly boats from Copenhagen touching at
Leith, the port of Edinburgh, and we should sail from Scotland, and
Iceland was about a thousand miles from Scotland.

"Mr. Field must have gotten his impulse to go to Iceland from his
familiarity with the North Atlantic during the anxious years he
spent in studying it with reference to the cable. He was struck by
the narrowness of the ocean between Greenland and Norway, with
Iceland between just below the arctic circle. He had, of course,
contemplated a cable by way of Greenland and Iceland to Scotland if
it should be found impracticable to cross the Atlantic between
Newfoundland and Ireland. When it became known that Mr. Field was
going to Iceland there were conjectures that he thought of a cable
to the island; but that was a mere fancy. There was not a chance
for business over the line. There would be no news except of
volcanoes and the price of codfish. If there should ever be a cable
connection with Iceland it would be for the weather reports.

"I was thinking of a trip to Europe in the summer of 1874, when Mr.
Field spoke to me, and a few weeks later decided to go. Mr. Field
was going earlier than I could, and just before he sailed I
telegraphed, asking on what date it would be necessary for me to
meet him in London in order to go with him to Iceland. His reply
was, 'July 9th.' On my arrival at Southampton by the Bremen boat I
remembered the day was the 9th of July, and that night about ten
o'clock I found Mr. Field at the Buckingham Palace Hotel, and he
said he had been expecting me, and was waiting to see me before
going to bed. That, I suppose, was a joke, but it was not all a
joke. I found in London Bayard Taylor, going to the Icelandic
millennium for the New York _Tribune_, and Dr. I. I. Hayes, the
arctic explorer, going for the New York _Herald_; Dr. Kneeland, of
the Boston Institute of Technology, and Professor Magnussen, of
Cambridge University, an Icelander by birth. I resolved to go, and
we chartered the steam yacht _Albion_, Captain Howland, sailing
from Leith. Mr. Field and I made a tour through the Highlands, and,
passing Balmoral and the Earl of Fyfe's hunting and fishing lodge,
found the rest of the party at Aberdeen, where it was necessary for
us to enlist as British seamen, and we were paid a shilling each
for our services during the voyage, which was one of great interest
and considerable hardship. We halted at the Orkney, Shetland, and
Faroe islands, at the latter place falling in with the king's
fleet. Our Icelandic experiences are familiar, as Mr. Taylor and
Dr. Kneeland published books on the subject. Mr. Field's Iceland
party, for he was our leader, attracted much attention--almost as
much sometimes as the king's procession. We rode across the lava
beds to the geysers, saw Mount Hecla--and the Great Geyser would
not spout for the king."

It will have been observed, in the course of this narrative, that with Mr. Field, so inexhaustible was his energy, rest was only a "change of motion."

When he sought relaxation from exhausting business cares he found it in fatiguing journeys, and he preferred that these should be as difficult and adventurous as possible. This was the case in his journey to the Andes with Mr. Church in his earlier manhood. It was the case with the excursion in ripe middle age beyond the "furthest Thule" of the ancients. He was now again, thanks to his own exertions, and after years of struggle and of doubt that to others meant despair, independent in circumstances, and, as it seemed, beyond the power of fortune, and he was nearing his sixtieth birthday. Most men would have regarded this condition as an occasion to "rest and be thankful." But it was in this condition that Mr. Field undertook a new and arduous enterprise, for which he had had little specific training. It is evident that its very difficulty, as in the case of the Atlantic cable, was to him an element of attractiveness. But there was this difference between the Atlantic cable and the elevated railway system of New York. He was the pioneer, the projector, of the former. The latter had already been undertaken, and practically, it may be said, to have failed. Indeed, there was no "system" of elevated railways. The fragmentary roads that were in operation or projected were unrelated to each other in ownership, management, and traffic. Financially and practically they were languishing. It will be seen from the letter which will presently be given that the company with which he proposed to ally himself, the New York, which possessed the franchise for Third Avenue, had been so far from successful that sixty cents on the dollar was held to be a fair price for its securities. It may fairly be said that the elevated "system" is due to Mr. Field. Whoever remembers the conditions of transit in New York before 1877, and indeed for some years after, must own that the creation of this system has constituted a public benefaction. Many millions have been transported, with a loss of life that has been infinitesimal in comparison with the volume of the traffic, at a cost no greater than that of the conveyances which the system has superseded, and at a rate of speed that has built up the new and large cities, one on the east and one on the west side of Manhattan Island, which before it went into operation were outlying districts, practically inaccessible to busy men for purposes of residence. It was on May 16, 1877, that Mr. Field made this entry in his diary:

"Bought this day a controlling interest in the New York Elevated
Railroad Company and was elected president of the company."

Some of the conditions on which he had made this investment and venture are set forth in the following letter to his friend, Mr. John H. Hall:

"NEW YORK, _14th May, 1877_.

"_My dear Mr. Hall_,--It is possible that I may purchase a majority
of the stock of the Elevated Railroad, but _before deciding_ I wish
to ascertain whether, if I do, you will remain in the board with
Mr. David Dows, myself, and some other gentlemen of character and
financial strength, and also whether you will take bonds at sixty
cents for the debt now due you. If I have anything to do with the
company I want it free from _all floating debt_, and everything
purchased at the lowest price for cash.

"Mr. Dows has told me this morning that he will remain in the board
and will take bonds for the $25,000 due him, provided I make the
purchase and accept the presidency of the company.

"Will you have the kindness to see our mutual friend, Mr. A. S.
Barnes, and ascertain whether he will take bonds for the debt due
him and remain as a director. If I go into the concern I shall be
willing to be president, but _without salary_, for the enterprise,
to be a success, must be managed in every way with the greatest
economy.

"An early answer will oblige. "Very truly your friend, "CYRUS W. FIELD."

His promptitude and energy are shown in the fact that on June 4th, less than three weeks after he took charge, a public meeting in favor of rapid transit was held.

"_The Evening Post_, "NEW YORK, _June 4, 1877_.

"TO CYRUS W. FIELD, Esq.:

"I cannot be present at the meeting to be held this evening at
Chickering Hall, but I am heartily with you and your friends in
the object of the meeting. I hope that a decided expression will be
given to the conviction that an absolute necessity has arisen of
instituting some method of conveying passengers between the upper
and lower parts of the city which shall unite the greatest
convenience with the utmost possible speed.

"Yours faithfully, "WM. C. BRYANT."

Mr. Charles O'Conor wrote on the same day to the chairman of the meeting:

"I much regret my inability to attend the meeting in favor of rapid
transit, the state of my health not admitting of my doing so. I
fully sympathize, however, with the objects sought to be obtained,
and here repeat the remarks which I made in closing my address
before the New York Historical Society at the Academy of Music on
the 8th of last month:

"'It is said, and doubtless with truth, that the great cities have
hitherto been destroyers of the human race. A single American
contrivance promises to correct the mischief. The cheap and rapid
transportation of passengers on the elevated rail, when its
capacity shall have been fully developed, will give healthful and
pleasant homes in rural territory to the toiling millions of our
commercial and manufacturing centres. It will snatch their wives
and children from tenement-house horrors, and, by promoting
domesticity, greatly diminish the habits of intemperance and vice
so liable to be forced upon the humbler classes or nurtured in them
by the present concomitants of their city life.'"

On the 26th of September of this year the new president wrote:

"I believe that the early completion of the New York Elevated
Railroad from the South Ferry, passing Wall, Fulton and Catharine
Street ferries up the Bowery and Third Avenue to the Grand Central
Depot, will be a benefit to the three great railroads the trains of
which start from the depot."

And on the 1st of November, 1878, he was able to report to the directors:

"It is not eighteen months since I purchased from some of your then
directors a majority of the stock of your company at such a price
that to-day it sells for more than five times as much as it cost
me; and at the same time I bought from the same parties a very
large amount of bonds, and to-day they sell for more than double
what they cost me, including seven per cent. interest to date. The
above stock and bonds I purchased on the express condition that the
contracts of the company with certain parties to build this road
for one million two hundred thousand dollars per mile ($1,200,000),
payable one-half in stock and the balance in first mortgage bonds
of this company at par, should be cancelled. The amount that has
been saved to this company by the cancelling of this contract you
all well know."

William O. McDowell, in _Harper's Magazine_ for June, 1893, writes:

"At the time of the strike of the engineers on the elevated road in
New York I had a part in bringing the representatives of the
engineers and the late Cyrus W. Field, a director in the elevated
company, to a meeting that resulted in a quick understanding
between the conflicting interests and an ending of the strike. Mr.
Field was so pleased with the fairness of the committee
representing the engineers with whom he had to deal that he invited
them at once to dine with him at Delmonico's, an invitation which
their representatives declined for them, fearing that its
acceptance might be misunderstood. Mr. Field, however, continued to
feel that he wished to extend some social courtesy to the employés
of the elevated road, and at a later date, when he was all-powerful
in that corporation, he issued a formal invitation to the employés
to a reception at his house. To a large number the initials 'R. S.
V. P.' on the lower corner of the invitation were a great mystery,
and, as the story goes, the invited compared notes and sought an
explanation of them. At last one bright young man announced that he
had discovered what they meant, and he explained to the others that
'R. S. V. P.' stood for 'Reduced salaries very probable.'"

This story is true, but the end is not given. The men accepted the invitation, enjoyed their supper, and listened with great interest to a speech made by Mr. Peter Cooper, which lasted over an hour. Mr. Cooper told the men of New York as it was in 1800, and the story of his life.

Dean Stanley preached in Calvary Church on Sunday evening, October 7, 1878. He came to Mr. Field's home at Irvington the following morning. Soon after breakfast on Tuesday the family realized that their guest was more familiar with the history of this part of the country than they were. It was just above Tarrytown that Major André had been captured; he was executed across the river. That was enough to excite the curiosity of the visitors, and at dinner on Tuesday evening it was proposed to the dean that the next morning he should cross the river to Tappan and find the spot. This was not easily done; no one knew the exact place. There was Washington's headquarters, and he had closed his shutters so as not to see André hanged, so that the scene of the execution must have been near that house. At last an old man of over ninety came and said that in 1821, when André's body was removed to England, he had stood by and had seen the grave opened; and that the roots of an apple-tree, which he pointed out, were twisted about the head of the coffin. The drive had been so long that it was past three o'clock before the party returned; and not until dinner did they tell that their search had been successful. It was then that Mr. Field said: "Mr. Dean, if you will write an inscription I will buy the land and put up a stone, and then the place will be known." His idea was simply to mark an event in the history of the country; but a part of the press insisted that an American had erected a monument to a British spy, and this was reiterated far and wide, and flew from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Dean Stanley felt this keenly, and wrote:

"If you find that there is really a feeling against it, pray do not
think of it. The game is not worth the candle. Poor Major André,
engaging as he was, is not worth the rekindling forgotten
animosities."

The monument was twice injured by explosion of dynamite. After the second of these, on November 3, 1885, Mr. Field refused to replace the stone. He said that the spot was now sufficiently marked. On the stone were these words:

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|Here died, October 2, 1780, |
|Major John André, of the British Army, |
|Who, entering the American Lines |
|On a Secret Mission to Benedict Arnold, |
|For the Surrender of West Point, |
|Was taken Prisoner, tried, and condemned as a Spy. |
|His Death, |
|Though according to the stern code of war, |
|Moved even his enemies to pity, |
|And both armies mourned the fate |
|Of one so young and so brave. |
|In 1821 his remains were removed to Westminster Abbey. |
|A hundred years after the execution |
|This stone was placed above the spot where he lay |
|By a citizen of the United States, against which he fought,|
|Not to perpetuate the record of strife, |
|But in token of those better feelings |
|Which have since united two nations |
|One in race, in language, and one in religion, |
|With the hope that this friendly union |
|Will never be broken. |
| |
| ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, Dean of Westminster. |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the signing of the first cable contract was remembered on the evening of March 10, 1879. To use the words of the New York _Evening Post_:

"It was a notable anniversary which Mr. Cyrus W. Field celebrated
last night, with the assistance of a multitude of his
fellow-citizens, many of them eminent in various departments of
public life. The obvious sentiment of the occasion, and the words
with which everybody would describe it, are contained in the
telegraphic message sent from Westminster Abbey by Dean Stanley,
who calls it the 'silver wedding of England and America,' and says:
'What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.' The event
which was commemorated is scarcely more remarkable than the rapid
advance of all nineteenth century events which the recollection of
this one suggests. It is only twenty-five years since a determined
effort was made to realize what had been wildly dreamed of; it is
considerably less than twenty-five years since the dream became a
reality; yet already instantaneous communication between the Old
World and the New has been consigned to the commonplace book of
history. It has become one of those familiar things which we forget
all about because they are familiar, but which are also
indispensable, as we would be sharply reminded if we should lose
them for a day, or an hour--things which are of the highest value,
but of which it is hard to speak without talking platitudes. With
this great event the names of Mr. Field and other men of business
whose intelligence, liberality, and energy make the work of Morse
and other men of science a practical triumph will be always and
honorably associated."

A short extract is given from the speech of Rev. Dr. William Adams:

"I have no intention of saying a word in laudation of the Atlantic
cable. The time for that has passed. 'He is of age: ask him: he
shall speak for himself.' Though the ear catches no articulate
words passing along its quivering strands, yet this polyglot
interpreter is speaking now, with tongue of fire, beneath the
astonished sea, in all the languages of the civilized world."