Chapter LVII: Section 4: provides that ‘Any difficulty or disagreement (8)

"The great drawback in Newfoundland institutions is the
disproportion between the big machinery of government and the
small population to be governed. A local politician has aptly
described it as ‘the trappings of an elephant on the back of a
rat.’"

_Edwin Smith,
The Land of Baccalhos
(Canadian Magazine, July, 1909)._

Another writer in the same number of The _Canadian
Magazine_ discusses the opposition in Newfoundland to union
with the Dominion of Canada as follows: "The political leader
who should to-day appeal to the Newfoundland electorate on the
question of Confederation would be disastrously defeated. But
on the day when the leader of a party in the Island Colony
makes up his mind to risk temporary defeat for the purpose of
accomplishing Confederation, that day brings union between
Newfoundland and Canada within the horizon of the proximate
future. That leader must—unless the financial exigencies of
the Island bring him extraneous aid—face an arduous campaign
of education, but it will be a campaign crowned with victory.

"These are the impressions left on my mind by a visit to St.
John’s made with the object of studying the political deadlock
and the causes which led up to it. … The residents of the
outports—all settlements except St. John’s are known as
outports—are opposed to Confederation because they have been
told that it would mean a heavy increase in their taxes; that
their windows, all their domestic animals and all their
personal property would be taxed. If this wrong impression
were dispelled by a campaign of education, and they understood
that instead of higher taxation Confederation would mean the
opening up of the country, bonuses for the fishermen, and new
markets for the fish in Canada and abroad through the services
of Canadian Commercial agents, instead of opponents of union
they would become its advocates."

{450}

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1909. (July-August).
The Imperial Defence Conference.

See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY AND NAVAL.

NEW HEBRIDES: Arrangement between England and France.

See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).

NEW PROTECTION, The.

See (in this Volume)
LABOR REMUNERATION: THE NEW PROTECTION.

NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY.:
Fined for unlawful Rebates.

See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1897.
Leadership in the Administrative Control of Tuberculosis.

See (in this Volume)
PUBLIC HEALTH: TUBERCULOSIS.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1900-1903.
Beginning of Tenement House Reform.

By a steady process, accelerated in the last ten years, the
congested tenement districts of New York have become one great
aggregation of sunless and airless rooms. Immense buildings
have gone up by the thousands, five, six, and seven stories
high, in which practically no provision for ventilation has
been made; and in which the occupants are undergoing a slow
process of asphyxiation. Nor are these disadvantages confined
to the submerged proletariat. The New York tenement system is
pervasive. … Two-thirds of the total population of New York,
or 2,500,000 out of 3,500,000, live in tenement houses, a
proportion which is increasing every day. …

"It was not until Governor Roosevelt’s appointment of the De
Forest Tenement House Commission in 1900 that the necessary
remedial legislation took practical shape. This act itself was
the result of many years’ struggle against corrupt
politicians,—Tammany Hall, the self-appointed guardian of the
poorer classes, has been a bitter enemy of tenement
reform,—and against vested interests. Its long delay had
greatly exaggerated the problem; for meanwhile the conditions
described had accumulated in appalling Volume. The commission,
however, was of high civic character, and was composed of men,
several of whom had made an exhaustive study of the tenement
problem. The law which was passed as a result of their
investigation was the first sweeping and effective tenement
measure since the enactment in 1867 of the first tenement
house act. The newly elected Low administration found the
enforcement of this statute one of its most important
responsibilities. The law created a new branch of municipal
service,—the tenement house department; and gave the tenement
commission, in the shape of an elaborate code of housing laws,
important supervision over the building of new tenements and
the maintenance of old."

_B. J. Hendrick,
A Great Municipal Reform
(Atlantic Monthly, November, 1903)._

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1900-1909.
Subways and Tunnels.

It was not until 1900 that the building of subways for city
transit in New York was begun. The first line, from the City
Hall to Kingsbridge and the Bronx Park, was opened in 1904.
During its construction plans for its extension southerly and
under East River into Brooklyn were adopted, and contracts
were let. The original work was executed under an arrangement
with a company known as the McDonald Syndicate, whereby the
City gave its credit to secure the requisite funds and would
acquire the ownership of the subway and road at the end of
fifty years. In 1902 the interests of the McDonald Syndicate
were transferred to a new corporation, the Interborough Rapid
Transit Company, which ultimately acquired a general control
of the city railway service, and ran a crooked career to
results of disaster, so far as the public was concerned. In
1905 the Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners, then exercising
authority in this region of municipal affairs, under the New
York State Rapid Transit Act of 1891, approved plans for an
extensive additional system, comprehending as many as nineteen
routes, with various "spurs," and the Board of Estimate and
Apportionment consented to the execution of the plan.

The East River Tunnel to Brooklyn was finished early in 1908,
and the first two tubes of four Hudson Tunnels, connecting
Manhattan Island with New Jersey was opened in the last week
of February, the same year. This first pair of the Hudson
Tunnels realized a project which had been undertaken as far
back as 1878 and which had undergone two financial failures,
in 1882 and 1892. In 1902 its remains and its charter were
passed on to a third courageous company, organized by Mr.
William Gibbs McAdoo, who became the master-spirit of bold
enterprise at New York in this engineering field. In 1903 Mr.
McAdoo organized another company for the undertaking of a
connection of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Jersey City with
downtown New York, and also for connecting the uptown and
downtown tunnels by means of a north and south line along the
New Jersey water-front, so as to connect the Lackawanna, Erie,
and Pennsylvania Railroads with the tunnel system, and thereby
be able to give to their passengers an uptown and downtown
railway delivery.

The second pair of Hudson River tubes (the downtown link)
forming this New York and Jersey City Tunnel were opened on
the 19th of July, 1909. Writing of the event a few days before
its occurrence, the New York Evening Post summed up the
existing and prospective conditions of entrance to and exit
from the island of Manhattan by under-river passages as
follows:

"Since the city entered its rapid transit boom and the
practicability of sub-river tunnels was demonstrated to the
satisfaction of the leading engineers of the world, fourteen
such tubes have been under construction here. Four of them are
in operation. The downtown link of the Hudson Company’s system
will add two more, and the remaining eight are to be opened in
the course of the next two years, according to present plans.

{451}

"After the opening of the downtown Hudson tunnels, the
travelling public will look forward to the operation of the
other eight tubes, as follows: Two Pennsylvania Railroad
tunnels beneath the Hudson River and four under the East
River, meeting in Manhattan at the great terminal station now
nearing completion, between Thirty-first and Thirty-third
Streets, along Seventh Avenue; the pair of Steinway-Belmont
tunnels, deriving their name from the originator of the
franchise and the present controlling influence, running from
Forty-second Street to Long Island City and held practically
by the same men who control the operation of the
Manhattan-Bronx subway (the Interborough Company).

"The Pennsylvania tubes under the North (Hudson) River are
practically completed, and await only the finishing of the
depot, while the East River tubes, though a little behind hand
on account of difficulties met in the form of treacherous rock
ledges, are within possibly a year of opening. The
Steinway-Belmont tunnels are completed, and will be ready for
operation as soon as the company makes a satisfactory
arrangement with the Public Service Commission."

An official party in a passenger car went through the
Pennsylvania Railroad’s tubes between New Jersey and Long
Island on the 18th of November.

Work on a Fourth Avenue Subway in Brooklyn was begun November
13.

The Hudson Terminal at Cortlaudt and Church Streets is one of
the most interesting structures in the world. Below the street
is the terminal station, where all the trains "downtown"
arrive and depart. This station is wholly below tide level. It
is surrounded by a cofferdam of reinforced concrete 8 ft.
thick, 400 ft. long, and 177 ft. wide, and is sunk 95 ft. deep
to solid rock. Forty feet below the street is the track floor.
Twenty feet below the street is the great "Concourse," where
all traffic is collected and distributed to the various train
platforms underneath. On the Concourse the Pennsylvania, the
Lehigh Valley, and the Erie Railroads have ticket offices,
where tickets to any part of America may be bought. This
Concourse, which is about 1½ acres in extent, is one of the
show places of New York. Above the street level are two great
office buildings, each 22 stories in height, and containing
approximately 27 acres of rentable area.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1901-1903.
Municipal Elections.
Tammany’s Loss and Recovery of the Government.

Tammany Hall suffered defeat in the municipal election of
1901, the Honorable Seth Low, formerly a notable Mayor of
Brooklyn and latterly President of Columbia University, being
carried into the Mayor’s office by a roused movement of reform
which fused the elements of opposition to the corrupting
Tammany power. Unfortunately the Mayor’s term of office had
been shortened to two years by the charter amendment of the
previous year, and the term was too brief for much depth and
thoroughness of reform; but the city was greatly cleansed
during those two years. When the next election came, in 1903,
Tammany had rallied its hungry forces and secured a highly
respectable nominee for Mayor, in the person of Honorable
George B. McClellan, son of the famous General of the Civil
War. Mayor Low, renominated by a second Fusion of opponents to
Tammany, experienced defeat.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1904 (June).
The Burning of the Steamer Slocum.

A catastrophe of such horror as to be historical attended the
burning of the excursion steamer _General Slocum_, at New
York, on the 15th of June, 1904. The boat left a New York dock
in the morning with a Sunday-school picnic party aboard
numbering about eleven hundred,—nearly all women and children.
While passing through that part of the East River known as
Hell Gate, within the New York City limits, fire was
discovered in the forward part of the vessel. It was then
flood tide, and the eddies and currents in those waters are
very strong. The captain decided that it would be folly to
attempt to land on either shore, or to beach his boat. He
therefore headed the _Slocum_ for an island two miles up
stream. As the boat went forward at full steam, the
fore-and-aft draught thus created fanned the flames and
hastened her destruction. On the discovery of the fire by the
passengers, the wildest panic ensued. It was found that the
life-preservers with which the _Slocum_ was equipped were
worthless. No attempt was made to lower boats or life-rafts.
The crew were engaged in trying to cope with the fire, but
their efforts were futile. Within twenty minutes, the boat
went to her doom, and of the women and helpless children who
had embarked so gaily an hour before, more than nine hundred
were drowned or burned to death. Hundreds were saved by the
heroic efforts of policemen, river men, and the nurses on
North Brother Island, the seat of New York’s hospital for
contagious diseases, where the _Slocum_ was finally
beached. Most of those who met this awful death had come from
a single densely populated district of New York’s great "East
Side." In some cases, whole families were wiped out.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1905.
Institution of the Bureau of Municipal Research.

See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: NEW YORK CITY.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1905.
The Municipal Election.

Especial excitements were given to the municipal election of
this year in New York by the appearance in it of William R.
Hearst, proprietor of several newspapers in the country which
are foremost representatives of the recklessly sensational
journalism called "yellow." The methods by which these papers
won a great circulation include much that can hardly be
described otherwise than as demagoguism, and many groups and
classes of people who are restlessly discontented in life,
whether reasonably or otherwise, had learned to look on Mr.
Hearst as a champion of human rights. This prepared material
from which to organize a personal following that took the
character, for a time, of a formidable political organization,
incorporated under the name of the Independence League; and
the great wealth which Mr. Hearst had inherited, and which his
prosperous newspapers replenished, was spent lavishly in
exploiting, supporting, and controlling the organization. His
political ambitions aimed high, and the mayoralty of New York
City, for which his Independence League nominated him in 1905,
was by no means the contemplated end.

The Tammany Democracy gave its nomination to George B.
McClellan, son of the famous General, while the Republican
party named William M. Ivins, a prominent lawyer of the city.
The canvas was a heated one, and as it progressed the League
of Mr. Hearst was seen to be dangerously large. As a
consequence. Republicans who feared its control of the City
government even more than they feared that of Tammany, threw
their votes for McClellan, giving him a plurality of about
3500 over Hearst, and leaving Mr. Ivins far behind.
{452}
Frauds were claimed and the election contested by Hearst and
his supporters, who secured, by order of a Justice of the
Supreme Court of the State, a recounting of the ballots in
four election districts, with the result of a gain of
seventeen votes for Mr. Hearst. Appeal was then taken to the
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court for an order directing
not only a recount but a recanvass of votes. Such an order was
granted, but set aside by the Court of Appeals, to which the
question went then; the court of last resort reversing, also,
the order under which the four boxes had been recounted. The
assertion of fraud was still maintained with vehemence, and
the legitimacy of Mayor McClellan’s title to the office he
filled was denied for more than a year. The Legislature then
passed an Act directing a recanvass and recount of the entire
ballots of the election, which had been preserved under seal.
This was a labor of months, performed under the direction of
Judge Lambert, of the Supreme Court. It gave a gain of 1094
votes to Hearst and a gain of 231 to McClellan, leaving a net
gain of 863 to Hearst, and diminishing McClellan’s plurality
in the total vote to 2791. The validity of his election was
thereupon declared.

A more successful and far more notable independent candidacy
than that of Mr. Hearst, in the New York City election of
1905, was conducted for the purpose of retaining Mr. William
Travers Jerome in the office of District Attorney for the
county of New York. He had been carried into the office on a
fusion ticket, four years before, and had performed its
important duties with a courage, a force, an independence and
a rectitude that were beyond praise. The machines of the
parties would not nominate him for reëlection; but an
extraordinary rally of the friends of good government in all
parties put him into the field, with an emergency organization
that sufficed to carry him triumphantly through. He was elected
by a plurality of about 16,000. So striking a proof of the
political popularity which a high quality of public service
can win has not often been given.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1905-1909.
The Undertaking of Works for a Water Supply from
the Catskill Mountains.

In 1905 the City of New York procured authority from the
Legislature to construct the works necessary for an adequate
supply of water, additional to that which had been drawn for
many years from the Croton River for old New York and from the
Ridgewood system for Brooklyn. The source determined on was
in the Catskill Mountains, including several streams, called
creeks,—namely Esopus, Rondout, Schoharie, and Catskill,—
having a total water shed of 885 square miles, and estimated
to furnish about 770 millions of gallons daily, even in dry
years. The plan of the project in its entirety contemplates
the construction of eight great reservoirs for storing and
controlling the waters derived from these streams. The first
to be built and the largest of such reservoirs is named the
Ashokan, on Esopus Creek, about 14 miles west of the Hudson
River at Kingston, near Brown’s station on the Ulster and
Delaware Railway. Work on this was begun in 1907. It is being
constructed in the form of two basins, having a united length
of about twelve and a half miles, lying between hills which
are connected by numerous massive dams. The dams necessary to
complete the enclosure of the water have a total length of
more than five miles.

In a straight line the distance from the Ashokan Reservoir to
New York is 86 miles; but the windings of the course that will
have to be given to the great aqueduct from the reservoir to
the city will add six miles to its length. The aqueduct is to
pass from the western to the eastern side of the Hudson at
Storm King Mountain, through a tunnel in solid rock, far
beneath the river bed. From Breakneck on the western shore it
will cross a corner of the Croton watershed to a filter site,
and to two final reservoirs, the Kensico and the Hill View. In
connection with both Ashokan and Kensico reservoirs the plan
of the system contemplates an aeration of the water, by
flinging it to the air in thousands of fountain jets.

In the parts of the great concrete aqueduct that can be built
in an open cut its dimensions are seventeen feet of height and
seventeen and a half feet of width. Where it traverses tunnels
the width is reduced to thirteen feet. Its delivery of water
to New York is calculated to add 500,000,000 of gallons daily
to the water supply of the city. The undertaking as a whole is
claimed to be the greatest that any city has yet engaged in,
while the engineering work involved is said to be second only
in magnitude to that of the Panama Canal.

_Alfred D. Flinn,
The World's Greatest Aqueduct
(The Century Magazine, September, 1909)._

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1907 (April).
Great Peace Congress.

See (in this Volume)
WAR: THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909.
Unearthing of Corruptions in the Custom House.

See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909 (June).
The Wall Street Investigation, so-called.
Report on the Operations of the Stock Exchange and
other Exchanges.

See (in this Volume)
FINANCE AND TRADE: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909.
Renewed Struggle against Tammany, with Partial
but Substantial Success.

Although Tammany elected its candidate for Mayor in the
municipal election of 1909, its domination was practically
overthrown by the defeat of its nominees for all other offices
of importance in the City Government. A coalition of the
Republicans with anti-Tammany Democrats and other
organizations had presented a fusion ticket headed by a
prominent and much-trusted business man, Mr. Otto T. Bannard.
William R. Hearst entered the field again, as an independent
nominee, and Tammany named Judge William J. Gaynor, who had
been one of its opponents, as a Democrat, in the past. Judge
Gaynor was elected by a plurality of 73,016, the vote cast for
mayor being: Gaynor 250,678; Bannard 177,662; Hearst 153,843.
The City Comptroller, four of the five borough presidents, and
the President of the Board of Aldermen, were elected by the
Fusionists. By the election of Mr. McAneny to be President of
the Borough of Manhattan (the old New York City), a very
eminent political reformer and one of great force, was brought
into the City Government. As president of the energetic City
Club, which became a power in reform politics under his lead,
and as secretary of the National Civil Service Reform League,
Mr. McAneny had given abundant proof of his capacity and his
earnestness in work for good government.

{453}

By controlling twelve of the sixteen votes in the important
Board of Estimate, the opponents of Tammany stripped that
organization of all power over public "jobs." As the fact was
expressed exultingly in one of the journals of New York on the
day after election, "after January 1 Charles F. Murphy and his
associates no longer will say who shall have public
franchises; they, too, will no longer fix the budget, sell the
city’s bonds, and pay political debts with salary increases.
In other words, the Tiger has lost his grip on the city’s
purse-strings, and this fact, perhaps, more than any other,
has turned his den into a cavern of gloom."

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909.
Proposed New Charter, not acted on in the Legislature.

See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: NEW YORK CITY.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909-1910.
The Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike.

See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909-1910.

NEW YORK LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY:
Legislative Investigation.

See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE, LIFE.

NEW YORK, NEW HAVEN AND HARTFORD RAILROAD CASE.

See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1899-1909.
The Barge Canal under Construction.

On the 8th of March, 1899, Theodore Roosevelt, then Governor
of New York, appointed a committee of private citizens, for
service without pay, in studying and reporting on the policy
to be adopted by the State of New York in dealing with its
canals. The appointed chairman of the committee was General
Francis Vinton Greene, and the following account of the
recommendations made by the committee is taken from a paper on
the subject contributed by General Greene to Volume XIII. of
the Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society, published
in December, 1909:

"The other members were Major Thomas W. Symons of the Corps of
Engineers, United States Army, then stationed at Buffalo in
charge of river and harbor improvements, Honorable Frank S.
Witherbee of Port Henry in the Champlain district, Honorable
George E. Green, State Senator from Binghamton in the southern
tier of counties, Honorable John N. Scatcherd of Buffalo, and
the two state officials most intimately connected with the
administration of canals, viz., Honorable Edward A. Bond,
State Engineer, and Honorable John N. Partridge,
Superintendent of Public Works.

"The request of the Governor was simply that we should study
the canal problem and advise him. … We devoted the greater
part of the year 1899 to a study of the subject, and made our
report to the Governor under date of January 15, 1900. … The
Governor promptly transmitted the report to the Legislature,
adopting the conclusions and recommendations which it
contained, and advising that legislation be enacted to carry
them into effect. This was done in successive years … ;
finally the project was ratified and adopted by an
overwhelming vote of the people in the election of 1903. …

"As to our conclusions and recommendations, the first question
to be decided was whether or not the canals should be entirely
abandoned. It was claimed by many that canal transportation
was antiquated and altogether out of date; that ‘the
railroads, with their large capital and scientific management,
their durable roadbeds, powerful locomotives, larger cars,
greater train loads, greater speed, and more certainty of
delivery, will be able now or in the early future to reduce
the cost of transportation below what is possible on the
canals.’ If it should seem probable that the railroads could
accomplish this, then it would be manifestly unwise and
improper to expend any more public money upon the canals.

"From a consideration of all [the] facts we reached our first
conclusion—which, like all the other portions of our report,
was unanimously adopted—to wit, ‘That the canals connecting
the Hudson river with Lakes Erie, Ontario and Champlain should
not be abandoned, but should be maintained and enlarged.’

"The next point to be considered was, to what extent should
they be enlarged, what size of vessel they should be adapted
to carry, and what would be the estimated cost of
construction.

"As to the proper size of the enlarged canal, widely different
views were held by engineers and by economists. Some contended
that the nine foot canal authorized in 1894 was sufficiently
large; others brought forward the supposed advantages of a
ship canal large enough to carry ocean-going steamers without
breaking bulk from Duluth to Liverpool, or any other port;
others contended that a canal of intermediate size would be
found to be the most economical, would cost the least amount
of money for the results produced, and would, in fact, produce
a lower freight rate than either the small canal on the one
hand, or the ship canal on the other.

"To these questions we gave the most careful study. The ship
canal had many glittering attractions, and there was a large
sentiment along the lakes which had found expression in Deep
Waterways conventions, which had been held in recent years and
had advocated a water route of either 21 or 28 feet depth from
Lake Erie to the Atlantic ocean. … But a careful examination
of the facts led us to the conclusion that while a ship canal
of 21 or 28 feet depth would cost enormously more than a barge
canal of say, 12 feet depth, it would not produce as low a
freight rate. …

"Having rejected the ship canal project, we had then to
consider what size of enlarged canal we should recommend. In
any event, we were satisfied that the route of the canal
should be changed so as to use the waterways of the Seneca and
Oneida rivers, Oneida lake and the Mohawk river in place of
the present route; but the question was whether the depth of
the canal should be 9 feet, capable of carrying a boat with
cargo capacity of 450 tons, or a depth of 12 feet, carrying a
boat with a cargo capacity of about 1,000 tons. With such data
as we could obtain in the short time at our disposal, and
without adequate surveys, we estimated the cost of the smaller
project at a little more than $21,000,000, and of the larger
project at a little less than $59,000,000.

{454}

"Our conclusion was in these words: ‘In our judgment, arrived
at after long consideration, and with some reluctance, the
State should undertake the larger project on the ground that
the smaller one is at best a temporary makeshift, and that the
larger project will permanently secure the commercial
supremacy of New York, and that this can be assured by no
other means.’ …

"We made a fourth recommendation in the following words:

"‘That the money for these improvements should be raised by
the issue of eighteen-year bonds in the manner prescribed by
the State Constitution, and that the interest and principal of
these bonds should be paid out of taxes specifically levied,
for benefits received, in the counties bordering in whole or
in part on the canals, the Hudson river and Lake Champlain;
such taxes to be levied in proportion to the assessed
valuation of the real and personal estate in such counties.
These taxes will amount to about 10 cents per $100 of assessed
valuation annually during the period of eighteen years.’

"Our object in making this recommendation was to disarm the
opposition of the non-canal counties. … We also submitted
statistics in tabular and graphic form showing that the
valuation of the river and canal counties was 90% of the
entire valuation of the State. In any event, they would bear
90% of the expense, and it was thought wise to suggest that
they bear the entire expense so as to remove every ground of
alleged injustice in taxing the counties which claimed to
derive no benefit.

"This recommendation was not adopted by the Legislature, nor
submitted to the people. …

"At the election the non-canal counties voted against the
project by large majorities, St. Lawrence county, for
instance, being 12 to 1 against it, and Steuben county, 10 to
1 against it; but, on the other hand, the canal counties voted
in favor of it by almost equally large majorities, New York
being 9 to 1 in favor of it; Kings, 8 to 1; Queens, 5 to 1,
and Erie, nearly 5 to 1. For some unexplained reason Monroe
county, in which Rochester is situated, and Onondaga county,
in which Syracuse is situated, voted against it. The
overwhelming vote, however, in the counties at the two
terminals, New York and Buffalo, made a majority of 245,312 in
the entire State in favor of the project, and a total vote of
1,100,708.

"Our fifth and final recommendation was as follows:

"That the efficiency of the canals depends upon their
management quite as much as upon their physical size, and that
no money should be spent for further enlargement unless
accompanied by measures which will accomplish the following
results:

"(a) The removal of all restrictions as to the amount of
capital of companies engaged in transportation on the canals,
and the encouragement of large transportation lines for
handling canal business, in place of hampering them, as has
hitherto been the case.

"(b) The use of mechanical means of traction, either steam or
electricity, in place of draft animals; and the use of
mechanical power in place of hand power for operating the
gates and valves, and moving boats in locks.

"(c) The organization of the force engaged on the public works
of the State on a more permanent basis, so as to afford an
attractive career to graduates of scientific institutions,
with the assurance that their entry into the service, their
tenure of office, and their promotion will depend solely on
their fitness, as determined by proper and practical tests.

"(d) A revision of the laws in regard to the letting of public
contracts by the State, so as to make impossible a repetition
of the unfortunate results of the $9,000,000 appropriation.

"Legislation has already been adopted to carry into effect (a)
and (c); the adopted plans for the canal are in accordance
with (b); and the specific form of contract which we
recommended in connection with (d) was not adopted, but
another form of contract was adopted which will practically
accomplish the same result.

"It only remains to speak of the cost of the project. With
such data as we had available and with such surveys as were
possible during the year 1899, we estimated the cost of the
project we recommended at $58,894,668 for the Erie Canal and
$2,642,120 for the Oswego and Champlain canals, making a total
of $61,536,788. This contemplated a canal with 12 feet depth
and suitable locks for carrying a barge of approximately 1,000
tons capacity from Buffalo to the Hudson river, but as to the
Oswego and Champlain canals, it recommended only the
completion of the work already undertaken to provide for boats
of six feet draft. … It was ultimately determined to enlarge
the Champlain and Oswego canals to the same size as the main
canal between Buffalo and the Hudson river, and also to
include the dredging of a 12 foot channel in the Hudson river,
which we had anticipated would be done by the Federal
Government. This enlargement of the project very materially
increased the cost, and in the interval between the time of
our report and the completion of the detailed report of the
State Engineer, the prices of labor and materials had very
largely advanced. In order to cover all possible
contingencies, the State Engineer carried his estimate to
$101,000,000, and this was the amount appropriated by the
Legislature and ratified by the people at the election of
1903."

_Francis Vinton Greene,
The Inception of the Barge Canal Project
(Buffalo Historical Society Publications, Volume 13)._

The first six contracts for the construction of the Barge
Canal were let in April, 1905. The state of the work at the
end of the year 1909 was announced by Governor Hughes in his
Message to the next Legislature as follows:

"The contracts in force for the Barge Canal improvement amount
in total price to $48,229,467, and the contract value of the
work performed to December 1, 1909, was $15,821,275. It is
estimated by the State engineer and surveyor that during 1910
work will be completed amounting to $16,000,000, and it is
expected that the work for the entire length of the Barge
Canal system will be under contract by April 1, 1910. At the
present rate of progress, it is said that it is not
unreasonable to expect that the Barge Canal system will be
completed by the end of the year 1914. It is further stated
that the work is being carried on within the original
estimates. This enterprise should be pushed to completion as
speedily, as economically, and efficiently as possible."

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1901-1909.
Legislation developing the Parole System
of dealing with Convicts.

See (in this Volume)
CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY: INDETERMINATE SENTENCES.

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NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1905-1906.
Legislative Investigation of Life Insurance Companies and the
State Superintendency of them.
Startling Disclosures.
Remedial Legislation.

See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE, LIFE.

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1906-1910.
The Epoch of Governor Hughes.
The Special Significance of his Administration.
His Exemplary Fidelity to Fundamental Political Principles.
His Public Support against Hostile Party-Managers.

The election of 1906 is likely to be marked in the political
history of New York as the introduction of an epoch,—the Epoch
of Governor Hughes. The State has had a number of very notable
Governors, in both early and late times,—Governors who left a
deep and lasting impression of themselves on its history, and
who have been large contributors to its prestige and influence
as the Empire State of the American Union; but Governor Hughes
is of a type so different from any of his predecessors, and
his conduct of the Governor’s high office has been so
distinctive in principle and method, that his administration
can hardly fail, in the retrospect, to take on a special
significance of its own.

As counsel to the Legislative Committee which investigated the
scandals of life-insurance management in 1905-1906 (see, in this
Volume, INSURANCE, LIFE), the conduct of the investigation by
Mr. Charles Evans Hughes drew public attention, and made him
known so favorably that when in the autumn of 1906 the
Republican Party of the State had special need of a personally
attractive candidate for Governor, an unmistakable expression
of popular opinion directed the choice to him. The
Independence League which Mr. William R. Hearst had rallied
and organized, and which had served him the previous year in
his candidacy for the mayoralty of New York (see, above, NEW
YORK CITY: A. D. 1905), had been recruited so successfully
throughout the State, and had absorbed so much of some
elements of the Democratic Party, that the latter made terms
of combination with it, and adopted Mr. Hearst as its
gubernatorial nominee. The combination was one which the
ordinary forces acting for the Republican Party could hardly
hope to overcome; but the recent prestige of Mr. Hughes might
call out reinforcements that would save the day. It was not
willingly that the professional managers of the party
consented to his nomination, and it was not willingly that he
accepted it. He was heartily a Republican in politics, but
never active in its affairs, being devoted to his profession
and plainly reluctant to be turned aside at all from the
career it had just fairly opened before him. But he yielded,
as the party managers did, to a call from the public of the
party, and the result of the election afforded proof of the
reality and sincerity of the call. Hughes alone on the State
ticket of the Republicans was elected; Hearst alone on the
ticket of the Democratic-Independence-League combination was
defeated. Governor Hughes was thus placed, on the 1st of
January, 1907, at the head of an administration in which every
other elective office was filled by his political opponents.

This political aloneness of Governor Hughes in his office
would have mattered very little, however, if his own party
surroundings in it had been friendly and sympathetic; but very
quickly it was seen that he had conceptions of official duty
which those who controlled the machine-like "organization" of
the party, with consequent powers of influence over its
representatives in the legislature and in other official
places, could in no wise comprehend. With a degree of
precision and decision hardly matched by another executive,
this Governor had studied, constitutionally and ethically, and
had defined to himself, the obligations and limitations of his
office, and had resolved them into principles of action from
which he never swerved. In one particular, especially, this
held him to a course which some former governors had adhered
to in the main, but none, perhaps, with a consistency as firm.
In the use of two powers confided to the Governor, that of the
veto in legislation and that of appointment to many State
offices, there had always been more or less of giving and
taking between the Executive, on one side, and the Legislature
and the controlling leaders of party organization on the
other. A Governor actuated by personal motives, of ambition or
other self-interest, would use these powers freely, in
bargaining for or enforcing his desires; and a Governor who
cared for public interests alone would sometimes feel driven
to secure measures needful to that end at some price of
concession in appointments and in the approval of bills, or
some coercive use of the veto whip. Governor Hughes would do
neither, and his attitude in this matter stands out so
conspicuously as to mark in itself an epoch of great example
in the right exercise of executive power.

No Governor has ever interested himself more earnestly in the
work of the Legislature, with a watchful eye to the needs,
interests, and rights of the public and to the demands of good
government on every side. No Governor has ever taken a more
active and effective part in the production of important
legislation, and none has ever put his stamp on more of such
legislation within the same time. But all that he has done in
that line of executive duty has been strictly by
recommendation and by argument, addressed first to the
Legislature and then to the public behind it; never by any
other means. Legislatures have been coerced irresistibly into
compliance with his recommendations, by public opinion,
wakened by the Governor’s voice; never directly by him. There
has been no departure from the principle of action which he
stated once in these words: "I have not attempted, through the
use of political patronage or political machinery to coerce
anybody, and I don’t propose to do so. But under the
constitution, it is my privilege and my duty to recommend
legislation. If I mean what I say when I recommend, I ought to
be able to tell why it is recommended, and my constituency is
not the Legislature, and not any particular part of the
people, but my constituency is the people of the State, and I
propose, therefore, whenever I make a recommendation, and
there is any question about it, to tell as forcibly, as fully
and as frankly as possible why I stand for it. If it is wrong,
you will know it all the sooner; if it is right, you will give
it the support it deserves. I call that American government,
and if we had a little less trading, a little less wirepulling
and bulldozing, we would prosper to a far greater degree."

{456}

The Legislature of New York has been honored by this
highminded and respectful treatment of it, which the
highminded among its members have appreciated; but these have
been at most times a minority. The majority, obedient to
resentful party "bosses," have acted sullenly with him when
the lash of public opinion has driven them to his side, and
defiantly against him when they dared. His obstinate
antagonists have found a reflection hard to obtain.

The most signal showing of the attitude of the public toward
antagonists of Governor Hughes in the Legislature occurred in
connection with a bill, recommended by the Governor in 1907,
for the amendment of a disgraceful existing law relative to
race-track gambling. The State Constitution, as revised in
1894, prohibits all forms of gambling, and declares that "the
Legislature shall pass appropriate laws to prevent offenses
against any of the provisions of this section." In 1895 an
Act (known as the Percy-Gray Law) was got through the
Legislature, professedly in obedience to this mandate of the
Constitution, which verbally prohibited betting on races, but
penalized it only by providing that the loser of a race-track
bet might sue the winner and recover twice the amount of his
bet, while betting and gambling in other places were punished
heavily by imprisonment and fine. This scandalous favor to the
race-track interests carried a bribe at the same time to the
farmers of the State, in the form of a cunning provision of
the Act, which appropriated five per cent. of the gross
receipts of racing associations to the benefit of agricultural
societies. Repeated attempts to correct so contemptuous a
violation of the Constitution had failed; but Governor Hughes
renewed the attempt, with a feeling of reverence for Law and
for the honor of the State which could not tolerate defeat.
When the amending Bill that he recommended was put in suspense
by a tie vote in the Senate, the Governor called a special
session of the Legislature, and brought the question before
the people in speeches which made a mighty stir. The racing
interests in the State were so powerful that they almost
defied defeat, and all their influence came into play.
Meantime a special election to fill a vacancy in the Senate
was pending in Western New York, and the issue on the
race-track gambling bill was fought out there, with the
Governor in the field, contending for an honest enforcement of
the constitutional law of the State. The result of the
election gave support to that contention, and when, at the
special session, the Bill in question was again called up in
the Senate, as it could be, it was passed by a majority of
one. The Republican senators who voted against it were most of
them retired to private life by their constituents at the
senatorial elections of the ensuing fall.

Almost everything of importance in New York legislation since
Governor Hughes entered office has had its origin in his
recommendations, and has been carried by the weight of public
backing which belief in him calls out, against resisting
influences that would ordinarily have prevailed. This was
notably the fact in the case of the Public Service Commissions
Act of 1907 (See (in this Volume) PUBLIC UTILITIES), which
established an effective supervision and regulation of
corporations engaged in public services, by placing over them
two commissions, appointed by the Governor, one with
jurisdiction in New York City, the other in the remainder of
the State, both armed with large powers. The services covered
are those of railways, gas and electric light and power
companies, and the authority established over them extends not
only to their rates, but to their capitalization, their issues
of stock and bonds, their franchises, the labor conditions
under them, their equipment, and the sufficiency and quality
of the service they render. The excellence of the Act has been
proved by its working, in the hands of the commissions
appointed by Governor Hughes.

In the checking of improper legislation by his vetoes,
especially against encroachments on local rights of
self-government, and against special enactments that intrude
on general laws, Governor Hughes has been a teacher of
political principles, as importantly as in the legislative
advice which it is part of his constitutional duty to render.
He taught a great lesson to every legislative body and every
executive in the Union, when he disapproved a highly popular
bill which prescribed a fixed rate of railway passenger fares
at two cents per mile, on the ground that it was not a matter
to be dealt with summarily,—without careful investigation and
determination of the facts involved. So consistent, so
forceful, so effective a teacher, in fact, by precept and high
example, of the fundamentals of principle in political action,
has rarely appeared in any country.

That Governor Hughes was renominated and reelected in 1908 for
a second term was again by reason of a public insistence which
neither he nor the hostile manipulators of caucus-work in his
party could resist. If the election had not been coincident in
time with a presidential election the "bosses" of the party
would have refused the nomination to him at any cost. They
were able to secure a convention of delegates that would
eagerly have made that refusal; but when the Governor was
persuaded to say that he would accept renomination, they dared
not imperil the national interests of the party by flouting
demands which came from every quarter of the land. He had
become so national a figure that interest in his reelection
was nation-wide.

On the powerful movement in New York to break down the
practical exclusion of the people from the choosing of
candidates for office, which Governor Hughes inspired.

See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES:
DIRECT PRIMARY NOMINATIONS.

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.
Work of Reforestation.

See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1907.
The Gift of Letchworth Park.

A noble gift to the State was made in January, 1907, by the
Honorable William Pryor Letchworth, a gentleman of distinction
in benevolent work, officially as president for many years of
the State Board of Charities, and privately, at the same time,
as a profound student of and writer on, some of the gravest of
the problems of philanthropy, especially that of the treatment
of the insane. The home of Mr. Letchworth for many years has
been on a great estate which embraces the finest and most
famous scenery of the Upper Genesee River, lying on both sides
of the cañon [canyon] down which the river plunges in three
successive falls.
{457}
The thousand acres of the estate enclose all three of the
falls. This magnificent domain, preserved in all its natural
beauty and improved with careful taste by half a century of
Mr. Letchworth’s care, has been conveyed in trust to the
State, under the future custody of The American Scenic and
Historic Preservation Society, to be forever, after the death
of Mr. Letchworth, a Public Park. A generous citizen has thus
saved from destructive uses a piece of scenery which has
hardly its equal for picturesque and varied beauty in another
part of the State.

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1907.
Enactment of the Public Utilities Law.

See (in this Volume)
PUBLIC UTILITIES.

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1907-1909.
Creation of the Probation System.

See (in this Volume)
CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY: PROBATION.

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909.
Gas Company’s Refund.

See (in this Volume)
PUBLIC UTILITIES.

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909.
Historical Commemorations.
The Champlain and the Hudson-Fulton.

Three notable events of the far past were notably commemorated
in New York during the summer and autumn of 1909. The
tercentenary year of Champlain’s discovery, in July, 1609, of
the Lake which bears his name, was signalized by a week of
historical pageants, fêtes, and gatherings for speech and
ceremony, on and around the lake, beginning on the 4th of
July. France, England, Canada, and the United States were
represented in the addresses and exercises of the occasion, by
the British and French Ambassadors, the Postmaster-General of
the Dominion, President Taft and ex-Secretary Root, Governor
Hughes of New York and Governor Prouty of Vermont. A large
number of Indians took part in the pageants, occupying a
floating island constructed for the occasion on the lake, and
representing scenes of Indian life and warfare, the story of
Hiawatha, and other reminders of the time when men of their
race were the lords of the region of Lake Champlain. The
occasion was made one of great interest.

Still more of interest was given to the double commemoration,
in September, of Hendrick Hudson’s exploration of Hudson River
and of Robert Fulton’s first practically successful
undertaking of steamboating, on that river. The celebration of
the event first named was timed appropriately on its third
centennial anniversary. That of the second was belated by two
years; but the two were most fitly connected. The people of
Holland joined heartily in the Hudson commemoration, building
and sending over to New York an exact replica of Hudson’s
little ship, the _Halve Maen_, or Half Moon, in which his
voyage was made. Fulton’s steamboat, the _Clermont_, was
also reproduced for the occasion, and the two small, quaint
vessels, strikingly in contrast with the monster battle ships
and ocean liners that surrounded them, lent a singular
interest to the affair. Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy,
the Netherlands, Mexico, Cuba, and the Argentine Republic
accepted invitations to take part in the naval parades which
formed a grand feature of the celebration, and an imposing
assembly of great ships of war was shown. Eight days, from
Saturday, September 25th, until the following Saturday, were
filled with church services, school exercises, historical
exhibitions and processions, military and naval parades,
aquatic sports, carnival doings, aeroplane flights, banquets
to foreign guests, etc., at New York City, after which the
_Half Moon_ and the _Clermont_ proceeded up the
river and the celebration was continued in various towns.

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909.
Defeat of the Direct Primary Bill.

See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES:
DIRECT PRIMARY NOMINATION.

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909-1910.
Munificent Gifts of Land on the Hudson
for Park Purposes offered.

In his annual Message to the Legislature, January 5, 1910,
Governor Hughes announced the details of a munificent project
of gifts proffered to the State for the purpose of creating a
noble State Park on and near the Hudson River. Mrs. Mary W.
Harriman, widow of the late E. H. Harriman, offered to convey
to the State a tract of about ten thousand acres of land in
Orange and Rockland counties, to be held in perpetuity as a
State park; offering further to give the State $1,000,000 in
trust, to be used for the purchase of land lying between the
tract mentioned and the Hudson River, so that the park may
have the advantage of a river frontage. Other gifts for
similar purposes amounting to $1,625,000 were announced as a
result of the activity of the Palisades Park Commission, from
residents of New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. John D.
Rockefeller and J. Pierpont Morgan each subscribed $500,000;
Margaret Olivia Sage, William K. Vanderbilt, George F. Baker,
James Stillman, John D. Archbold, Frank A. Munsey, Henry
Phipps, E. T. Stotesbury, E. H. Gary, and George W. Perkins
gave $50,000 each: Helen M. Gould and V. Everit Macy
contributed $25,000 each, and Ellen F. James and Arthur C.
James jointly gave a similar amount. These subscriptions were
secured upon conditions stipulating, among other things, that
New York State shall appropriate $2,500,000 for the acquiring
of land and the building of roads and general park purposes;
that the State of New Jersey shall contribute a fair share,
and that the State discontinue work on the new State prison at
Great Bear Mountain in Rockland County, where preliminary work
on the site for a new $2,000,000 structure has been under way
for several months.

NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1886-1893.
Extension of the Suffrage to Women.

See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1896-1908.
Twelve Years of Local Option.
The working of the Law.
Warning to the Liquor Trade.
The Vote of Women.

See (in this Volume)
ALCOHOL PROBLEM: NEW ZEALAND.

NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1902.
Colonial Conference at London.

See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE.

NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1903.
The Maori King a Colonial Minister.

The old fierce conflict of the Maoris with the English
colonists in New Zealand would seem to have been effectually
ended, since the Maori King accepted a seat in the colonial
Cabinet, as a responsible Minister, in 1903.

{458}

NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1905.
Government Ownership and Long-leasing of Land.
Its working.
Government Loans to Farmers.