December 29, 188»
The Record and Guide.
1047
THE RECORD AND GUIDE.
191 Broadway, N. Y.
TERMS:
ONE YEAR, iu advance, SIX DOLLARS.
Conununications should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway.
J. T, LINDSET. Business Manager.
DECEMBER 29, 188S,
V, .'t/^.S^'
The year 1883 ends somewhat gloomily. Business men generally
find little satisfaction in balancing their books. There has been an
unprecedented shrinkage in prices, not only in railway securities,
but in all products of the earth and labor. The rich ao far have
suffered the most, but the distress is now reaching the working
classes, and news comes from every quarter of the stoppage of large
factories, the reduction of wages and the throwing out of employ¬
ment in mid-winter of hundreds of thousands of working people.
The retrospect is not pleasant, but with the new year will come a
more hopeful feeling, Oura is not a people who will patiently sub¬
mit to disaster. The land is full of grain and goods, money is re-
dundent, there is no possibility of a financial iianic, as the basis of
our currency is gold and silver, and prices are very near to i£ they
have not touched bottom. The prospect is sufficiently hopeful in
wari'antiug us wishing everyone a Happy New Year,
nitiea an entirely different set of conditions obtains. The mass of
the community can know only a few prominent men. People
generally have no personal acquaintance with their immediate
neighborhood. They are of ditferent races and religions, while the
unequal distribution of wealthl creates class distinctions, which
renders associated action difficult and any responsibility on the
part of minor officials towards the community impossible. Hence
the more recent demand for Mayors and heads of departments who
shall possess both authority and responsibility. It is impossible to
tell who is to blame if a Board of Aldermen is corrupt, but if a
Mayor is responsible for the heads of departments and the laiter
misuse their power, he can be called to account immediately. In
no other way can we secure good municipal government. This was
the burden of Mayor Low's excellently conceived address. He
7 ^pointed out the fact that the citizens at large become intensely
interested when they have actual home rule. The vote on Mayor
for Brooklyn at the last election was larger than any before cast. This
lesson should be taken to heart by alt who desire to see good govern¬
ment for this city. We should reform our charter, making the
Mayor responsible for heads of departments, they to have power
over their own subordinates and expenditures, a.id then if matters
go wrong there will be no doubt as to who is to blame.
It may interest real estate people to know that in early times the
site of their proposed Exchange was a locality much infested by
bears. It seema there was quite a swampy tree-covered tract, ex¬
tending from what ia now Cedar streefc to what in the next century
was known as Maiden lane, Mrs. Martha J, Lamb, in her
"History of New York," quotes the Rev, James Wooley. who
tells of a bear hunt in this locality as late as 1679, in
which a boy distinguished himself by climbing a tree
and with some unnamed weapon wounded Bruiu in the paws
80 that the latter let go his hold and fell to the ground, where he
was dispatched by the hunters. We may add that the race of bears
are not extinct by any meaus, though they are not of the same
variety ; they are, however, large, rampant and rapacious, and now
are found further down town, where ihey haunt the purlieus of
the Stock Exchange, These unamiable animals have probably left
Liberty street forever, for the Real Estate Exchange will have
nothing to do with them, but will extend its favors to bulls exclu¬
sively, and only to such of these as are of a gentle and generous
breed.
Reporting has become almost a lost art iu metropolitan journal¬
ism. In England, the utterances of the great Liberal and Conserva¬
tive leaders, aa well as other important personages, are given ver-
batum, and this remark was true, also, of the Herald o£ this city
when it waa a great newspaper. But of late^'years the short-hand
reporter attached to our daily journals is employed in the police
courts and not in reporting tbe speeches of public men. Instead
of reducing their price the city journals should have increased their
attractiveness by reporting the great events of the day with more
fulness, and then it would have shown additional enterprise if tbey
occasionally issued supplemental sheets with pictorial representa¬
tions of the current news. The Tribune alone of the daily
journals is trying to fill this unoccupied field. It gave verbatum
reports of all the speeches made at the New Eugand dinners, at
Brooklyn and iu New York. The speakers at these gatherings
were men of national fame, such as President Arthur, Wm. M,
Evarts, General Grant, Geo. W. Curtia, Heury Ward Beecher,
Chauncey M. Depew, the Mayors of New York and Brooklyn, and
others equally notable. AU the ofcher jouruals dismiss these nota¬
ble utterances with a paragraph or two. If the Tribune contin¬
ues in the same way, New York will soon be able to boast of hav¬
ing one paper, at least, that can compare with the leading Chicago
journals.
»---------
â– Mayor Low, of Brooklyn, made a speech at the New England
Society's banquet which should be reproduced in every leading
newspaper in the country. He elaborated a point frequently made
in these columns, showing the inapplicability of the theory of the
New England town meeting to the government of a great city. In
a farming community, where everyone knows bia neighbor and all
are of the same race and rehgion, it ia wiae to disti-ibute responsi¬
bility aud create a large number of officials armed with a brief
authority, and whose salaries were a mere triflg. No more perfect
democracy ever existed, as De Toqueville pointed out, than these
New England township organizations. But ia populous commu-
Shall it be free ships or subsidized steamship lines? This is the
coQUndrum which Congress will attempt to solve before this ses¬
sion is over. The interest of New York would favor the adoption
of both projects. More ships, whether home or foreign, would add
to the businesft of this port. But why not a compromise? Why
not allow American companies to order Clyde built vessels, pro¬
vided the latter are constructed under some general plan preppred
by United States engineers, which would make it possible to use
them as cruisers in caae of war? The very few armored vessels
which it ia proposed to i'.dd to our navy would be confined
in case of war to the coaat service. American war vessels, in times
of hostilities, would be excluded from foreign porta, and we have
uo coaling stations iu any part of the world. They could not
carry a sufficient quantity of coal for a long voyage. What we
would urgently need in caae of an international conflict, would be
steel cruisers, armed with a few guns and as swift as the " Alaska"
or " City of Rome," capable of carrying large quantities of coal,
and which could make use of sails when not pursuing and cap¬
turing the merchant steamers of the enemy. Then the government
might also encourage the construction of home built vessels by
paying handsomely for the carriage of the mails. By some such
policy as this, we might iu a couple of years have a fleet of swift
cruisers at small cost to ourselves, but which would be a consfcant
menace to maritime nations who might otherwise be tempted to
pick a quarrel with us. We desire no wars, but there is no
instance in history of a great and powerful nation which has not
during its career been brought into conflict with other countries.
Against auch a contingency we should be provided; that is, we
should not be so absolutely defenseless as we are now. The Rep¬
resentatives of Congress from thia city and State should do what
they can to help build a defensive navy and a merchant marine.
The Wealth Represented in the Rea! Estate Exchange.
One of the most striking facts in connection with our newly
organized Real Estate Exchange is that its membership probably
represents more wealth than does that of the Stock Exchange,
although there are two members of the latter to one of the former.
In perusing the list such names occur aa Astor, Aspinwall, Cornell,
Gniger, Crimmins, Cadwalader, Cutting, Cram, Duggin, Degraaf,
Ely, Fish, Ford, Hamilton, Higgins, Hurlbut, Harbeck, Jay, Kings-
land, LeRoy, Livingstone, Lynch, Lounsberry, Macy, Marquand,
Morrison, Newcomb, PaiTish, Roosevelt, Sherwood, Stewart, Til¬
ford, Varnum, Willard, Wetmore, Babcock, Bernbeimer, Church,
Maclay, Minturn, Russell, Smith, White, Wilson, Cashman, Jones
and scores of-others equally notable. Then many large estates are
represented by their brokers and agents, and institutions like the
Mutual Life by trustees.
The greai ovpuers of tha railway securities are not aa a general
thing members of the Stock Exchange. The Vanderbilts, Goulds,
Huntingtons and other railway magnates do business through
their brokers; but in the Real Estafce Exchange the owners of
realty are themselves members. There are not in all over fifty
active brokers in the list, but these, of course, include nearly every
dealer of prominence. The tendency, naturally, will be to make
the list still more exclusive as time rolls by. It is safe to say that
not over 150 of the 500 could be induced to sell their shares at any
price likely to be offered; hut it is also probable that a hundred or
less will sell out during the first year; bnt in nearly every case it
is rich men and persons largely interested in realty, who will replace
those who retire. Hence the Exchange wilt every jear become
more and more the repreaentative of the large realty interests of
the metropolis.
But it may be queried, will a rich and exclusive body like this be