November 9, 1901.





RECORD AND   GUIDE.





607







il®l.





ESTABUSHED ^ WRPH SVT^ 1868*
Dr/oTfl) TO Real Estate , BuiLoif/o ApcKiTEtmiRE ,t{ousDloiD DEem^flimL
Rn-^Lir^ii i^^^Ty^:MES0FGEl4ER^ IjflERpST.

PRICE PER. YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX   DOLLARS

fubtished eVers Sattiriap

Commuiiicatloiia should be addressed to
C. 'W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, New YorK





J. T. IiINBSEY, Business MB,iiager





Telepbone, Cortlandt 3157





'Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as seeond^class matter.'





Vol. LXVIII.





NOVEMBER 9, 1901,





No. 1756.





FOR the first time for months there was good commission
buying in the stoclt marliet this week. There ia a decided
preference for railroad issues, both bonds and stocks, but there
is also some demand for promising Industrials. The buying of
railroad securities is encouraged by the continued increase of
earnings reported by all but a comparatively few properties. The
increases are not as large as they were last year, and the de¬
creases, although individually small, are more numerous; but
seeing that they the increases are piled upon increases, it is no
wonder that they invite capital into the railroad investment field
and create besides the best impression of the general business
situation, of which after all the railroad reports are the best
gauge. It is evident, too, that an agreement has been reached
among the handfull of men who really dominate the railroad
world which cannot be without good influence on prices. An¬
other feature of the situation which cannot be overlooked is the
positively gorged condition of the iron and steel industry, which
appears to be only restricted in its activity hy the ability of the
railroads to carry away its products. This ought to react favor¬
ably on iron and steel stocks, and doubtless will do so. There is
apparently ahead of us another speculative movement of con¬
siderable proportions in which money may be made by the
prudent and sprightly. Whether this movement is Justified by
the probabilities of a future not exactly near nor yet far we are
not saying. While our affairs are thus moving so satisfactorily,
from Europe comes the old lugubrious complaint of dulness and
want coupled with a precarious money market that must check
all development until the close of this year at least, and which
may prolong its obstructive influence into the nest.





IN the view of the property owner one of the most important
appointments the new Mayor will have to make is the
Tenement House Commissioner. The charter under which this
appointment is to be made requires no technical qualifications
in the appointee, and the Mayor therefore has free and unre¬
stricted choice. Yet the gentleman selected for this office ought
to he a man of administrative experience and capacity, because
he has to create and put into running order a new department;
he ought also to have practical knowledge of tenement-house
construction, and of the economic conditions pertaining to the
housing of two-thirds of the city's population and a much larger
proportion of its poor. 0£ all things he should not—the negative
qualification is perhaps more to he insisted upon than the positive
ones—be a man of extreme views. A dispassionate, unprejudiced,
capable man will be able to avert much of the litigation and fric¬
tion that is obviously impending between many of the property
owners and the city over the provisions of the tenement-house
law applicable to old tenements, while so directing his depart¬
ment that tbe dwellers in the tenements shall be benefited and
property interests and consequently the public revenue pro¬
tected.





HOW much longer is Commissioner Shea's report on the
Manhattan approach to the New East River Bridge to be
delayed? The Commissioner ought really to consider the anxiety
all the Bowery, Grand, Broome and Delancey street property
owners have been in since last summer, when the various sug¬
gested lines of approach were referred to him for report by the
Board of Public Improvements. A couple of weeks ago word
went out that his report was to be presented at the very next
meeting of the Board, hut although the meeting took place there
was no report. For some reason or other the Commissioner re¬
considered his determination and extended the public suspense.
It is taken for granted that the present administration will
decide this matter before their term is up, and all sorts of rumors
are going the rounds as to what their choice will be. It is
generally believed that, if the direct westward approach along
Delancey street ia adopted, It will end at the Bowery, and so be





shorn of its Spring street end; and it has even been asserted
lately that it has been decided in official circles to abandon the
Delancey street plan and make the approach along Broome
street. If the latter is their decision the authorities may expect
a storm of protests and opposition that they will find it hard to
meet, because not only would such an approach be in itself
inadequate, but it could not give the bridge traffic the various
lines of dispersion that it will require.





The Fusion Victory and After?

T^ OR the second time in the history of the city the people of
^ New York liave reached an unequivocal decision that they
want an administration of their municipal affairs on non-partisan
lines and for reform purposes. This decision was undoubtedly
the proper decision to have reached under the circumstances,
because an admicistration on partisan lines, and for "organiza¬
tion" purposes, had proved to be a distressing failure. Tammany
made a distressing failure, not because its administration lacked
men of ability, not because its positive and constructive policy
was ill-conceived, but because its appointees owed feaky to the
organization flrst, and to the public interests only in a secondary
degree; and the business of no municipality can be efticiently
and economically conducted on the basis of sueh a divided
allegiance. The reform administration will start unhampered
by any similar temptation to prefer the interests of a faction to
the interests of the city. It will start, moreover, with the
support of almost every important metropolitan newspaper and
with that of the majority of its intelligent inhabitants. And,
flnally, if it proves to be any kind of a success, it will possess a
good chance of keeping its control of the public offices, for
under normal conditions a majority of the inhabitants of the
greater city are apparently opposed to Tammany,

What must the reform administration do and avoid doing to
be a success? This is a question which the example of the late
Mayor Strong's administration affords some assistance in
answering; and the answer in general is that it must not apply
its reform ideas in a pedantic and rigorous spirit, but whenever
it takes any corrective measures, it must see they have for their
basis some end that is positive, constructive and stimulating—at
once to the material and social interests of the greater city.
If it adopts a policy of mere interference, of an inflexible
determination to put the narrowest and most illiberal construc¬
tion of existing laws, it will exasperate large and important
sections of the city's population, injure business, and arouse an¬
tagonisms that will accrue only to the benefit of Tammany Hall.
Of course a reform administration must attempt a reform; it
must apply the standards contained in its platform both to the
Police Department and to all the other departments in the city;
but it must not apply them as they were applied to the
saloons and to the Building Department six years ago. The
new city officials must work with and not against the commer¬
cial and business interests with which they come into contact,
for if they do not they will justify the Tammany election cry
about the dangers which threaten personal liberty under a
reiorm rule. The reform administration must not turn the city
into a reformatory.                                                                      . |   j

Take, for instance, the case of the Building Department and
the building law. Everyone in the trade knows that there are
abuses to be corrected in the way the building laws are at
present executed, and no one not directly interested will object
to the reform of these abuses; but the application of a statute
that necessarily leaves so much to the discretion of the officers
who execute it is an extremely difficult matter, requiring a
combination of firmness and flexibility, of tact and determina¬
tion, of absolute honesty and skilled technical knowledge, which
will be difficult to flnd. The execution of the law touches one
of the most important trades of the city at a thousand tender
spots, and might, without anything worse than a very illiberal
construction of its provisions, cause builders and architects an
amount of loss which would not only exasperate them but
which might seriously diminish the sum total of building
operations. The Building Department has, no one will deny,
certain police functions, and these police functions must occa¬
sionally be administered in a way that will make enemies; but
at bottom the head of the department is not a chief of con¬
structional police. He has to deal not with a set of law-breakers,
but with the heads of important industry, which spends more
than a hundred million dollars a year, and employs thousands
of skilled laborers. His office must not be run, as it was under
the former reform administration, in a way that will make these
builders the determined enemies of anything that smells of
reform, but in a spirit that will promote good feeling wherever
possible, and which will secure the department the support of





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