August 7, 1888





The Record and  Guide:





993





THE   RECORD   AND   GUIDE,

Published every Saturday.

191 BroadTArav, KT. "X'-

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Vol. XXXVIII.





August 7, 1886.





No. 960.





A volume lohich shoidd be in the hands of every huilder, con¬
tractor, architect, and oioner and dealer in real estate, is now
ready and can he procured at the offlce of The Recced and
Guide. It is a new edition of the law relating to huildings in
the City of Neio York, with added matter, marginal notes and
colored engravings to illustrate the subject. It contains the law
limiting the height of divelling-houses, also ihe existing Mechanics'
Lien Law. Tliis work is edited by William J. Fryer, Jr., lohose
original and well-thought-out comments give it a special value.
The volume will also contain a complete directory of architects
in New York, Brooklyn, Jersey City, Newark and Yonkers. The
book is handsomely hound in cloth, and is sold at the low price of
seventy-five cents, by mail eighty-five cents.





Tlie week closes with a buoyant feeling in the stock market,
which reflects very fairly the general temper of the business public.
Elsewliere we have commented on the remarkable increase of busi¬
ness in real estate circles, which is the more legitimate as it is
accompanied by a building movement unprecedented in the history
of the city. The same fact is also true of other centres of popula¬
tion. There is to-day more houses in the process of erection in every
State in the Union than in any previous month of August. If the
amount of money spent in house construction throughout the
Union could be accurately given it would surprise everyone.
Unfortunately we only know what is taking place in the largest
cities, for these only furnish the statistics. The activity in the
smaller places, it is impossible to state in figures, although the
building activity is known to be equally great. It follows that the
consumption of brick, lumber, building stone and metals is unpre-
cedentedly large. The outlook in all the great industries is well
expressed in the following extract from the Shoe and Leather
Reporter: "Traffic is animated, prices are strengthening some¬
what, payments are regular and prompt, most manufacturing
industries are flourishing, and confidence seems to be largely
restored. If prices are still low, producers, at least, have reached
the point at which they will consent to no further reduction, and
consumers appear to recognize the fact."





The Congress which has just adjourned did very little creditable
work, while it left undone many things it ought to have done.
It is difficult to see what cry the Democrats will have in the coming
fall election. Still the Republicans cannot afford to take them to
task, for the last Congress they controlled madeaveiy poor record.
It now looks as though the Prohibitionists and the labor people
will have a good deal to say in the next Congressional canvass,
though probably they will do more in the way of supply¬
ing issues than in getting candidates of their own elected. The
greatest disappointment is in the failure of any measure to provide
fortifications to defend our seaport cities. It would take eight or
ten years and a large expenditure to make us safe in this respect,
and the failure of a Democratic House to heed the timely warnings
of  Mr.   Tilden   on  this subject  is   as   unaccountable   as  it is

reprehensible.

.-------•-------,

The future historian of American politics will be puzzled to
account for the prominence of Samuel J. Tilden towards the close
of his life. He made his money as a railroad lawyer, and. played a
very subordinate roje in the local politics of his State until he was
sixty years of age. It was the earnestness he displayed in attacking
the Tweed and Canal rings, at a time when official corruption was
rife, that made him Governor of the State and finally the candidate
of the Democratic party for the Presidency. While the Democratic
party has millions of adherents who believe in political purity, as
well as illustrate personal integrity in their own persons, yet some¬
how it has not been the f ortune^pf that brganization to develop
leaders who were prpnounced reformers. It was this fact,
rather than his abilities or party services, which made Mr. Tilden
the standard bearer of his party in 1876. Had he taken his seat in
the White House we believe he would have disappointed his party
and the country, for he had no experience as an executive officer





except when Governor of New York at an advanced age. He was
a skillful technical lawyer, a wise'counsellor to embarrassed corpora¬
tions, and his speeches and writings showed breadth of view and
the possession of many statesmanlike qualities. But his chief
mental infirmity was an inability to make up his mind and to act
promptly. It was said that when Governor he was always behind
hand when he was called upon to make appointments or transac

official business.

_------«--------.

This timid, procrastinating habit of mind saved the country from
a great peril in the dispute which followed the Presidential elec¬
tion of 1876. Had Mr. Tilden been a soldier like General Dix, a
stormy aggressive politician like Stephen A. Douglass, or even an
enterprising, ambitious merchant like our present Mayor of New
York, civil war would have broken out as the natural result of our
extremely defective machinery for electing Presidents. It would
have been absurd for the Democratic party to have contested that
election in the field with such a leader as Mr. Tilden. Our lawyer
legislators were to blame for the legal chaos which brought us so
near a civil war in 1876. Their delay in not reforming that system
up to the present time is little less than criminal; but we have to
thank the lawyers for the device of the Electoral Commission and
for the professional idiosyncrasies of Mr. Tilden which saved us
from the horrors and misery of civil strife for four years. Tbe
country is greatly indebted to the very defects of Mr. Tilden's
character for the years of peace and national recuperation which
wrought such blessings for the country between 1876 and 1880.





President Cleveland deserves credit for signing the River and
Harbor bill. It calls for an expenditure of but little more than
$14,000,000. The appropriation really ought to have been for about
$60,000,000, To deepen the channel in the lower bay of New York
to the uniform depth of thirty feet will cost from five to six million
dollars. We then coulu hope in three years time to have this
extremely necessary work completed; but the appropriation is only
$750,000, and it will doubtless take eight to ten years before the
large steamers can enter and leave our harbor fully loaded. A
Washington dispatch in the Smi says of this River and Harbor bill:

General Newton, whose knowledge of the condition of the present works
and the necessities for the future was based on reports made to him by the
Engineer Corps of the army, assured the President that of the items in the
bill, all except eighteen, comprising less than one per cent, of the amount
appropriated, were meritorious beyond question, and, while he in no manner
condemned those, he was unable to give a positive opinion because of lack
of complete information concerning them. The President made as thorough
an examination of these items as possible, and although with such reports as
were at hand he had been unable to thoroughly satisfy himself as to their
character, he found that all appeared to be for the continuation of work
already begun and now in course of construction.

Yet the Sun has got so ia the habit of lying about River and
Harbor bills that it calls it one of the worst and most shameles.s
jobs ever passed by Congress. The most reprehensible appropria'
tion indorsed by Congress was the $76,000,000 for pensions. This
really is an outrage on the people. Ten million per annum would
be an exorbitant sum to pay a quarter of a century after any war
to disabled soldiers.





In view of the applause—as we thought Undeserved in many
cases—which was bestowed on Mr. Grover Cleveland for his vetoes
when Governor of this State, we surmised that he would pursue
thesame course pn the questionable bills passed by Congressy and
so it has proved. President Cleveland has vetbed more enactments
twice over than did all his predecessors, from Washington down*
The majority of our Presidents contented themselves with declining
to give their assent to a few measures of prime national import-^
ance or touching which there was some constitutional objection ;
but President Cleveland has made a special point of keeping track
of private pension legislation, and has devoted valuable time to
inquiring into the exact physical condition of the diseased and
crippled old soldiers who were to be benefited. Undoubtedly the
general pension bills passed by Congress were reprehensible, in
that they distributed vast sums among pension agents and lobby¬
ists which should have been devoted to internal improvements
or the proper defense of the country. It is exasperating to see how
meekly the majority in the House have followed Randall and
Holman in cutting down appropriations for carrying on the
government, paying our foreign consuls or improving pur navy,
while at the same time throwing away hundreds of millions upon
pension agents and ex-soldiers abundantly able to take care of
themselves. But these innumerable vetoes by the President of
wretched little pension bills to relieve individual sufferers by. the
war is preposterous from beginning to end, as the total sum
involved would not be over $100,000, and,. the time of our Chief
Executive could be much better employed in looking after the
larger affairs of the nation. The suspicion grows that Mr. Cleve¬
land is only a dull, narrow, small, plodding lawyer, and that the
only State paper which bears his name that was his own was his
first message as Governor, one of the most puerile documents ever