Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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[R64 Record and Guide. December 14, 1889 everything, eewers, water pipes, gas pipes, subways for wires, pneumatic tubes and connections can be placed, with room for access for repairs and examination. Such tunnels in some form are in use in Europe and they must be introduced here. The pave¬ ment of our principal thoroughfares should be laid upon iron girders, which should rest on walls of masonry along the line of the cm-b. Underneatli, anyone who has a permit might burrow and excavate until it -was all hollowed out like an under-cellar. There is the same reason and more for an under-cellar under the sti-eets that there is for one under the houses. The pavement would then remain undisturbed, except a hartchway here and there. One col¬ lateral advantage of this system would be its healtbfulness. Now it is thought sufficient to bury anything nauseous, and under every street our broken sewers and gas pipes leak imtil the whole soil is satui-ated with poison. This is apparent at every excavation. Under the new system the opening under the street would be clean and ventilated. It is an improvement that is not to be defeated because it is expensive, and now is a good time to try the experi¬ ment. There are many other subjects within the domain of the Department of Public Works on which Mr. Gilroy's observations will be valuable and of permanent advantage to the growth aud prosperity of the city. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------•----------------------------------------------------------—■ There seems to be a misapprehension as to tbe time when the Exposition of 1893 will take place. It arises from the disposition of some persons to celebrate an anniversary before the date arrives, or to insiit upon its celebration during the summer months only, because that season was chosen in Paris. Columbus sighted land on the 12th and landed on the 14th of October, 1492. The event to be commemorated will have that date, and the ceremonies should be then inaugurated and not before. Literary exercises, thanks¬ givings, sermons, historical meetings aud orations should then be held, especially at the place where the Exposition is located, and as well in every city and village of the country, as Thanksgiving Day is celebrated. After that, and not before, should begin the Expo¬ sition. All that is within buildings can begin at'once and be earned on through the winter. In the opening spring the horticultural exhibits and all out-door celebrations can commence, and the Fair can last all s-ommer if desirable. The climate of Washington, if tbe Fair should be held there, is altogether favorable to a winter celebration. Midsummer would be one objection. The climate of New York is almost equally favorable for a winter celebration. Here tbe permanent buildings would be centrally located. The works of art and of applied art, of science, mechanics and indus¬ tries would alike be accessible during the winter. This is the cor¬ rect time for the commemoration, and that it affords more time for preparation incidentally is an advantage. The bill sent to Congress by the Committee on the Exposition for 1893 pi-f'sents a simple solution of the legal questions involved in the successful organization of the Fair. It provides for the incor¬ poration of a company which shall have the general control and management. It will be formed of delegates from each State of the Union, to be appointed by the President, and of the four commit¬ tees of twenty-five each who have done the preliminary work in this city. This body will not be too large, for it must represent and reflect the views of the whole country and hold the interest of every State. Its administrative duties can be committed to a working body or a much smaller number. It can be composed of men who are in accord and can give their whole time to it. The Legislature of this State will be called on simultaneously to give power, under our laws, to this corporation to execute their duties, principally to acquire and hold land and to take it by right of eminent domain. So much as the city shall furnish, in taking laud aud erecting permanent buildings, it will ask power for from the Legislatm-e, and forthe residue, the company can be empowered. The legislaiivG basis will thus be very simple and effective. The fact that Senatef Edmunds has been talking about intro¬ ducing a bill for the foundation of a national university has been made the subject for a great deal of newspaper discussion. It has been objected to the scheme that there is no need of it; that we have too many colleges and universities already, aud that the addition of another would simply be taking on a useless number of feet to our Eiffel tower of educational facilities. An argument of tbis kind may be compared to the objection of a Philistine father to the literary aspirations of his son: " We have enough poets and pottrj already," said this father. In truth, perhaps, we have enough colleges, if by colleges we mean the ordinary academies whicii grace the country towns in every State of the Union, just as we have enough poeta, if by that term is meant merely a versifier. But I'ae very fact that there are so many colleges that afford ordin¬ ary facilities makes the creation of a truly great university desu-a¬ ble as the coping of our educational system. None of the larger colleges at present existing fuifiU this function, for all of them are Kmlted, just as the smaller colleges are limited, by a lack of funds, End consequently by the impossibility of supplying the beet possible facilities. It is that and nothing else that a national university sbould aim to give, for such an aim alone would justify its exist¬ ence. Our military and naval academies turn out experts each in its own department; our national academy would try to turn out the perfectly cultured man—the expert at large, instead- of merely the specialty' expert. The plan outlined by ex-President Wbite, of Cornell, is tbe one that should be followed. The uni¬ versity should be solely for the use of graduate students, and there should be a system of scholarship which would permit the poorer students to work on an equality with the richer ones. Moreover, such an institution could he made of direct as well as indirect ser¬ vice to the government. Work could be undertaken in the course of their studies which would be of aid to the different departments; commissioners could be sent out under its auspices to study the present institutions all over the country, and the smaUer colleges would have a bureau to apply to if tliey needed thoroughly qualified instructors. It could, in other words, be made an agent for spread¬ ing throughout the country the advantages of the highest eriu- catiou ; it would raise the standard of American scholarship ; it would quicken the ardor of American students. A Proposed Solution of the Silver Problem, Tlie National Silver Convention which met recently at St. Louis adopted resolutions calling for the free coinage of silver for private owners of bullion, in addition to our compulsory coinage by the government, as at present. There has also been a rumor afloat that Secretary Windom intended to recommend the issue of silver certi¬ ficates on deposits of bullion. But no such signs as these were needed to warn no that the coming Congress will be urged to tinker with the currency. We can even be pretty certain that if the turn of the bullion markets had not made it possible for the silver men to take aggressive action, such action would have been taken hy the demonetizers. Geology and politics vie with each other in making the monetary situation uncertain. The same class that at one time wished to demonetize gold because it was getting too cheap, has since succeeded in partially demonetizing silver for a siinilar reason. Equity between creditor and debtor is thus merely a football to be kicked hither and thither in tbe unreasoning play of geology on the one hand and of credit on the other, whde Con¬ gress, dominated by a self-seeking lobby, serves as an ill-qualified referee. It has been estimated that the fall of prices between 1874 and 1880 effected a gratuitous distribution among Enghsh consol holders of about £115,000,000 worth of the necessities of life. President Andrews, of Brown University, says that " between 1870 and 1S84 the debt of the United States decreased not very far from three- quarters of a billion dollars ; yet if -we take beef, corn, wheat, oats, pork, coal, cotton, and har iron together as the standard, the debt not only did not decrease at all but actually increased not less than 50 per cent." The same writer, iu his paper '' An Honest Dollar," receutly pub¬ lished by the American Economic Association, proposes a plan for the regulation of the coinage of silver that is designed to secure greater permanency of money values than is possible under the present system. This plan calls for, first, the official ascertainment of prices ; second, the use of some form of subsidiary full legal tender money ; and third, tbe injection of a portion of this into circulation or the withdrawal of a portion of it therefrom, accord¬ ing as prices fall or rise. Obviously the ascertainment of prices is the essential and the most difficidt part of this plan. A list of a large number of staples priced from time to time in the great markets of the world is to be used in determining whether or not general prices have fallen or risen, Supposed a fixed quantity of each of one hundred carefully chosen staples will, at a given time, exchange for $30,000 of legal tender; if at the end of a year it be found that the same aggregate of commodities wiU exchange for §32,000 it is inferred that a slight excess of money is in circulation, and some is accordingly with¬ drawn. Should the same bill of goods invoice at $19,000, it would be concluded that more money was needed, and somewhat more of the subsidiary legal tender would accordingly be put in ■} circulation, Andrews believes tbat by such an arrangement general prices could be kept at any point they may have reached at a given time ; that is, that the exchange value of money may be rendered staple by a systematic vai-iation of the supply in accordance with the variation in demand. The subsidiary money which he suggests is silver, circulating in the form of paper certificates of deposit. Gold would continue to be coined without restriction. If then gold should continue to appreciate more and more, silver certificates would be thrown into cu-culation. Should new mines or new chemical or mechanical processes cheapen .gold, the silver surro¬ gates would be withdrawn ; perhaps even until we should have a monometallic currency. To eliminate politics in the arrangement of the commodity schedule, Andrews proposes the appointment of a commission of, eay five, of whioh the Secretary of the Treimry, tha Dirditor of