**Testimony of**

**Leonard A. Zax**

**Partner**

**Latham & Watkins LLP**

**on behalf of the**

**New Jersey Community Development Corporation**

**The Paterson Great Falls National Park Act of 2007, S. 148**

**Senate Subcommittee on National Parks**

**U.S. Senate**

**September 27, 2007**

Chairman Akaka and Senator Burr:

On behalf of the New Jersey Community Development Corporation (NJCDC), I
am honored to testify in support of the Paterson National Historical
Park legislation. My colleagues in our firm's New Jersey and Washington
offices and I take special pride in our *pro bono* work for NJCDC, a
private nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the quality
of life for Paterson's citizens.

NJCDC joins many national organizations---including the National Trust
for Historic Preservation, National Parks Conservation Association,
NAACP, and the Sierra Club---that support the Paterson National
Historical Park. Also supporting a Paterson National Historical Park are
former Cabinet members who served in the Administrations of Presidents
Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and
George W. Bush. (Exhibit 1 lists supporters.)

Leading newspapers have published many editorials that support making
the Paterson Great Falls National Historic District a part of the
National Park System. The *New York Times* just published its third
editorial endorsing the park.

The list of individual supporters includes the preeminent Hamilton
biographers of our time, renowned former Smithsonian curators, the
former chief of the National Park Service Historic American Engineering
Record, professors at every university in the Ivy League, N.Y.U., Duke,
Williams---and at state universities from Massachusetts to Michigan and
Arizona.

Three generations of my family came of age in Paterson during the
twentieth century. My grandparents settled in Paterson in the early
1900s, coming to America from Eastern Europe to seek freedom and
opportunities. One of my grandfathers worked in a silk mill at a time
that Paterson was known throughout the world as the Silk City. My other
grandfather built modest housing for immigrant families, including his
own---and also including Senator Lautenberg's family. My father, a
lawyer who chaired the local bar association committee on immigration,
for many years presented a copy of the Bill of Rights to new citizens
who left other countries and came to Paterson seeking a better life for
their families.

**[Alexander Hamilton and the Paterson Great Falls]{.underline}**

At the Great Falls in Paterson, Alexander Hamilton began implementation
of his far-reaching plan to achieve the economic independence that
secured America's future and launched the American dream.

At the Great Falls Hamilton began to create an economy requiring not
slavery but freedom, rewarding not social status but hard work, and
promoting not discrimination against some but opportunities for all.

On a special Bicentennial visit to Paterson, President Gerald R. Ford
proclaimed the unique place of the Paterson Great Falls in American
history:

> The industrial history of the Great Falls goes back to the very first
> years of our United States, and this engineering achievement embodied
> our most basic political and economic goals---independence and
> prosperity.

In 1792 Hamilton announced to Congress and the American people that at
the Great Falls in New Jersey he would found the City of Paterson as the
first major step in his ambitious plan to secure the new nation's
economic independence and begin transforming a rural agrarian society
based in slavery into a modern economy based in freedom.

Though today we often take America's economic power and liberties as
given, in Hamilton's time neither was guaranteed. Political independence
proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence and won in the
Revolutionary War did not secure economic independence. Long after the
British surrendered, America remained heavily dependent on England for
virtually everything from clothing to military supplies.

Hamilton believed that political independence was only the first step
toward achieving economic independence. He wrote that America would
never be free from Britain, nor from any other foreign oppressor, so
long as our nation remained dependent on foreign manufacturers.

Hamilton alone among America's Founders championed the spirit of
enterprise and opportunity that would transform a Third World nation
into the greatest economic power ever known.

**[Paterson Great Falls National Historic District]{.underline}**

Although Hamilton's economic and political legacy is now secure, the
fate of the Paterson Great Falls Historic District---so central to that
legacy---is much less certain.

More than 25 distinguished historians, city planners, and historic
preservation experts have analyzed the unique resources and narratives
that a national historical park in Paterson would add to the National
Park System.

These scholars conclude:

\(1\) Hamilton's vision of economic independence and economic
opportunity is a critical theme of American history not adequately
represented in the National Park System or anywhere in the United
States.

\(2\) The Paterson Great Falls National Historic District is the best
place to present and interpret Hamilton's vision of economic
independence and of economic opportunity for all Americans.

**[Unique Combination of Natural and Cultural Resources]{.underline}**

The Great Falls provides not only stunning natural beauty for a National
Park Service unit in Paterson. All of the members of the New Jersey
Congressional Delegation point out in a letter to the Secretary of the
Interior that "New Jersey's Great Falls is the only National Historic
District that includes both a National Natural Landmark and a National
Historic Landmark." (Exhibit 2)

And the National Parks Conservation Association points out, "No other
natural wonder in America has played a more important role in our
nation's historic quest for freedom and prosperity." (Exhibit 3)

During the Revolutionary War, Hamilton met with the Marquis de Lafayette
and George Washington at the Great Falls, where General Washington
established his headquarters for a time. After the war, Hamilton chose
to begin implementing his industrial plan at the Great Falls to use the
awesome force of the Great Falls to provide power for future factories.
Hamilton commissioned Pierre L'Enfant---who had just completed the plan
for Washington, D.C.---to design an unprecedented water power system in
Paterson.

As the President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation,
Richard Moe, writes in a letter to the Director of the National Park
Service, "Scholars have concluded that Pierre L'Enfant's innovative
waterpower system at the Great Falls---and many factories built
later---constitute the finest remaining collection of engineering and
architectural works representing each stage of America's progress from
Hamilton's time to the twentieth century."

L'Enfant's water power system in Paterson is the only one in America
that is directly linked to the Founding Father who set America on the
path of its industrial development. The Great Falls was central to
Hamilton's plan for a nation whose security would be bolstered by its
economic independence, and whose modern economy would provide
opportunities for immigrants.

The distinguished former Smithsonian curator Robert Vogel writes:

> Paterson is the one place in America where it is possible directly to
> connect the 18^th^ century vision of a great manufacturing nation,
> articulated by one of our Founding Fathers, with the actual fruits of
> that vision in the following centuries.
>
> Paterson's Great Falls Historic District includes a combination of
> natural resources and buildings not represented anywhere else in
> America. In Paterson there is a Pantheon of important historical
> events in American industry: the Great Falls that inspired Hamilton,
> the L'Enfant plan of hydraulic raceways harnessing the power of a
> major river, the initial Colt Revolver plant, the Holland submarine,
> the greatest grouping of locomotive builders in America, and the
> largest silk-producing center in the world.

**[Hamilton's Success in Paterson]{.underline}**

Hamilton's vision of an economically independent America with
opportunities for all succeeded in Paterson before any other place in
America.

Ron Chernow, author of the acclaimed biography of Alexander Hamilton,
explains that Paterson "became the home for this industrial laboratory,
this futuristic city, this model of what America could be."

Hamilton wrote the charter for the Society for the Establishment of
Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.), the first corporation in New Jersey.
Because Hamilton recognized that the S.U.M. likely would suffer losses
in its first manufacturing experiments, Hamilton's charter endowed the
S.U.M. with broad powers to continue encouraging industries in Paterson
through successive generations and economic cycles.

Harvard University Professor Joseph Stancliffe Davis wrote in the
definitive history of the S.U.M. that "the Society's stock became a
highly profitable investment." Professor Davis wrote in 1917 that the
S.U.M. "is one of the very few companies of the time to survive the
vicissitudes of a century and maintain an unbroken existence down to the
present day."

Over one hundred and fifty years after Hamilton founded the City, the
WPA Federal Writers Project concluded that Paterson "is one of the few
American cities that have turned out almost exactly as they were
planned."

**[Hamilton Achieved Economic Independence with Paterson
Manufactures]{.underline}**

Hamilton wrote the *Report on Manufactures*, his great report to the
Congress in 1791 explaining that the United States must produce its own
goods to avoid dependence on foreign products, particularly for military
supplies.

In the first decades of the nineteenth century, John Colt, Deputy
Director of the S.U.M. in Paterson, invented a form of cotton cloth that
did not mildew and contributed to America's military self-sufficiency by
manufacturing the sailcloth for every ship in the United States Navy.
Samuel Colt invented and first manufactured the Colt revolver in
Paterson.

Paterson was the birthplace of the world's first motorized submarine,
and the City's role in the forefront of manufacturing for war and peace
would continue well into the twentieth century. Paterson's factories
produced nearly 140,000 aircraft engines, surpassing all other American
cities. During World War II, Jimmy Doolittle raided Tokyo in daylight in
planes powered by engines made in Paterson, and the *Enola Gay* bomber
ended the war on a flight with Paterson engines.

Paterson produced a wide variety of goods securing America's economic
independence and helping make the nation a leader in international
commerce. Paterson represents Hamilton's vision of diverse manufactures
and economic independence in a way that no other place in America does
or can.

**[Hamilton Created Opportunities for All in Paterson]{.underline}**

Hamilton worked to create an economy in Paterson driven by the labor of
free men and women rather than slaves, and a society that rewarded hard
work rather than inherited privilege. As Ron Chernow observes in his
bestselling biography of Hamilton:

> His America would be a meritocracy of infinite variety, with a
> diversified marketplace absorbing people from all nations and
> backgrounds . . . Hamilton's ideal economy is devoid of the futile
> barbarities of the Southern plantations. Hamilton's list of the
> advantages of manufacturing has a quintessentially American ring:
> "Additional employment to classes of the community not ordinarily
> engaged in the business. The promoting of emigration from foreign
> countries. The furnishing of greater scope for the diversity of
> talents and dispositions which discriminate men from each other."

Paterson is the best place to interpret Hamilton's industrial vision
because---in sharp contrast to the New England mill towns built by the
wealthy elite called the Boston Associates---Paterson actually provided
the very opportunities that Hamilton sought.

True to Hamilton's fervent desire to end slavery, some Paterson
manufacturers were among the local visionaries of the larger national
movement that became known as the Underground Railroad. Frederick
Douglass wrote in his autobiography of escaping through Paterson
following the John Brown uprising in Harpers Ferry.

The Paterson industries not only provided entry-level jobs but also gave
poor immigrants a genuine opportunity to rise to the top of society. The
noted social historian Herbert Gutman systematically studied the leading
mill owners in Paterson and concluded that "the rags-to-riches promise
was not a mere myth in Paterson."

Building upon the research from a series of articles in *Scientific
American* in the nineteenth century, Professor Gutman wrote:

> *Scientific American*, groping for a simple sociological
> generalization about these men, praised Paterson's early enterprisers
> in these words: "In the eastern states, flourishing cities have been
> built up by corporations of wealthy capitalists . . . . In Paterson,
> it was different. With few exceptions, almost every manufacturer
> started, financially, at zero, enlarging his establishment as the
> quicksilver expanded in his purse." *Scientific American* was not
> guilty of mouthing abstract rhetoric or just putting forth a paean of
> traditional tribute to an invisible hero, the "self-made man."
> Instead, it accurately described the successful locomotive, iron, and
> machinery manufacturers of the era, and what it wrote applied as well
> to a group in 1840 and 1880 as in 1859.

**[Hamilton Achieved Diverse Manufactures in Paterson]{.underline}**

By 1816, Paterson was already a national leader in the production of
many of the goods Hamilton listed in the great state paper he submitted
to Congress, the *Report on Manufactures.* Just as Hamilton urged,
Paterson avoided excessive dependence on any one industry and became an
extraordinary center of invention and a major producer of a wide variety
of goods.

The author Christopher Norwood writes:

> In Paterson people did not just invent; they tried everything---a
> repeating revolver, a submarine, an airplane that could fly across the
> Atlantic. And Paterson did not just manufacture; it produced articles
> that redefined the limits of life. It is impossible to think of any
> other city whose products cut so deeply into the texture of the United
> States and not only transformed its national character, but
> revolutionized American relations with the world.

**[Changing Role of the United States in the World
Community]{.underline}**

In addition to interpreting Hamilton's economic vision of independence
and opportunity, a Paterson National Park would be a place to feature
other important supporting stories. The allotted time permits me to
mention only one such supporting story that speaks directly to the times
in which we live: the Silk City and the Silk Road today.

National Park Service policies require that studies of potential new
national parks analyze the "multiple layers of history encapsulated
within each resource." The NPS policies emphasize the importance of
potential new national parks that represent "the interaction between the
United States and the world community."

Hamilton recognized the opportunity that silk production presented to
American economy. His *Report on Manufactures* encouraged silk
production, a recommendation that would increase America's involvement
in international commerce.

As early as 1794, the S.U.M. authorized the culture of mulberry trees in
Paterson to promote the cultivation of silk. In the nineteenth century,
industrialists would make Paterson the Silk City---the largest
manufacturer of silk goods in the world.

Silk holds a very special place in history. Paterson's central role in
silk manufacturing formed a connection between America and the Asian,
Middle Eastern, and European cultures that also cherished silk.

As Richard Kurin of the Smithsonian Institution explains, "Silk both
epitomized and played a major role in the early development of what we
now characterize as a global economic and cultural system."

In the late nineteenth century, historians began to describe the old
routes of the global trade of silk as the "Silk Road." In recent years,
historians at the Smithsonian and universities around the world have
expanded the traditional view of the Silk Road and have recognized that
the historical connection between East and West exists to this day.

In 1998 the cellist Yo-Yo Ma created the Silk Road Project, celebrating
how people shared art and music along the modern Silk Road and promoting
continuing cultural collaboration between Asia, Europe, and the
Americas. The Aga Khan, Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims and
direct descendant of Muhammad, has contributed generously to the Silk
Road Project, particularly in the Muslim nations.

The Smithsonian organized---and the Park Service cosponsored---the 2002
Folklife Festival to celebrate the modern Silk Road. The Aga Khan and
Yo-Yo Ma joined Secretary of State Colin Powell in opening the festival.

During the Folklife Festival, Richard Kennedy of the Smithsonian
Institution observed:

> The Silk Road has extended to the United States and, since the tragic
> events of September 11, understanding that connection clearly has
> become more important. There is no better time, then, to learn more
> about the roots of this vital connection and to celebrate the
> long-standing relationships that have existed between east and west
> and north and south.

A Paterson National Historical Park would preserve and present a station
on this contemporary Silk Road, providing a unique opportunity to
connect with other cultures and build trust between cultures of the
global Silk Road. Mohamed El-Filali, a leader of the Islamic community
in Paterson, writes that a national park in Paterson would help
Americans "reach out and attempt to understand how other cultures can
affect and enrich America's culture."

The National Parks Conservation Association points out that "Paterson
can become the first NPS unit with strong Muslim American support in a
city that has the second largest number of Muslims in any American
city."

Dr. Alvin Felzenberg, a political scientist and an expert on New Jersey
history, explains that Paterson is a station on the Silk Road not just
because of its history as the Silk City but also because "large numbers
of Islamic citizens continue to work in Paterson textile businesses,
coming from places like Damascus to Paterson because of textile
manufacturing in both cities." Dr. Felzenberg, who also served as the
Principal Spokesman for the 9/11 Commission, writes that a Paterson
National Park would create a connection between Muslims and the Park
Service, while promoting valuable cultural interchanges between Muslims
and other Americans.

This supporting story of the modern Silk Road in a Paterson National
Park would help prepare new generations of Americans for global
citizenship.

**[Civic Engagement]{.underline}**

Many citizens who today feel little or no connection with our national
parks and the Founding Fathers will find much greater meaning within
Paterson's authenticity and diversity. The proposed Paterson National
Park legislation has captured the imagination and spirit of a diverse
group of citizens.

-   [Latino citizens]{.underline}---who make up more than half of
    Paterson's population---support the Paterson National Park because
    Hamilton was the most forceful advocate among the Founding Fathers
    for the view that immigration strengthens the nation. They also seek
    to celebrate Hamilton's role in helping to spread the cause of
    freedom to the Spanish colonies in the Americas.

-   [African-Americans]{.underline}---who make up over one quarter of
    Paterson's population---recognize Hamilton's vigorous fight against
    slavery was an essential part of his inclusive view of how all
    Americans would benefit from the growing modern economy that he
    began in Paterson. African-American leaders also note that
    Hinchliffe Stadium---the landmark home of the N.Y. Black Yankees and
    the N.Y. Cubans in baseball's Negro Leagues---was sited and planned
    by the renowned Olmsted Brothers firm right next to the Great Falls.

-   [Arab Americans]{.underline} ---who make up more than one-tenth of
    Paterson's population---support the Paterson National Park as a
    continuation of the Silk Road that united their homelands in Central
    Asia with China and the West.

**[Need for National Park Service in Paterson]{.underline}**

The record clearly supports the need for a National Park Service unit in
Paterson. The Park Service's own cost estimates demonstrate that the
\$10 million assistance from the State of New Jersey is *not* sufficient
funding to preserve the Great Falls Historic District and present its
resources to the American people.

As Governor Jon Corzine writes to the Secretary of the Interior: "The
State of New Jersey alone cannot preserve and protect the Great Falls
National Historic District and properly present it to the public without
a National Park Service unit in Paterson."

**[The Park Service Study]{.underline}**

Despite opposition from the Administration for budgetary reasons, both
the House and the Senate passed legislation by unanimous votes directing
the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study of whether the Paterson
Great Falls National Historic District should become a part of the
National Park System.

Five years after President Bush signed the legislation into law, in
November 2006 the National Park Service finally published its Paterson
Study and invited comments from the public. As the House Resources
Committee emphasized in its Report on this legislation, distinguished
scholars sharply criticized the Study in detailed letters drawing from
seminal texts and recent research.

Here are typical phrases that some of America's most distinguished
scholars use to describe the Park Service Study's conclusions: "misreads
the historical record"..."seriously deficient"..."truly
absurd"..."demonstrably wrong"..."false"\..."a serious misreading of the
historical record"..."again, judging by the results of recent
scholarship, the Study is wrong"..."analytically flawed and violates
fundamental principles that professionals use in studying historic
resources."

A former senior Massachusetts official who worked on the creation of the
Lowell National Historical Park and the Blackstone Valley National
Heritage Corridor writes that the Study "creates a false account that
destroys the integrity of our nation's history."

The scholars dispute every supposed fact that the Park Service Study
uses to conclude there should not be a Paterson National Park, including
the Park Service claim that Hamilton's economic vision was first
realized not in Paterson but by the Boston Associates at what is now the
Lowell National Park.

Historians find the Park Service's claim about Lowell reflects a
fundamental misunderstanding of history because Hamilton's economic
vision included two fundamental principles:

\(1\) no tolerance for slavery; and

\(2\) opportunities for poor immigrants lacking any social pedigree to
rise to the top of American society.

Historians point out that in many respects Lowell represented the
precise opposite of Hamilton's vision. The Boston Associates were
members of what Professor Robert Dalzell of Williams College called the
"Enterprising Elite"---wealthy families of Boston's high society whose
primary mission was to achieve "for both themselves and their
descendants, what had always mattered most: a secure and remarkably
durable position at the top of the social order."

Contrary to the Park Service Study's argument, the Boston Associates---a
group of wealthy Boston families connected through interlocking
corporate directorates and marriage---never sought nor achieved
Hamilton's vision of opportunities for all.

Unlike Hamilton, the most ardent opponent of slavery among the Founding
Fathers, the New England mill owners played a role in attempting to
quell the Northern anti-slavery crusade. United States Senator Charles
Sumner of Massachusetts spoke of the "unholy union . . . between cotton
planters and flesh mongers of Louisiana and Mississippi and the cotton
spinners and traffickers of New England---between the lords of the lash
and the lords of the loom."

Even the NPS Handbook for the Lowell National Historical Park
recognizes:

> When an anti-slavery speaker came to Lowell in 1834, he drew an angry
> stone-throwing mob. Mill owners and workers depended on Southern
> cotton, and anyone who threatened the system was unwelcome.

The testimony from scholars provides more details on the numerous
serious errors and flaws in the Park Service Study. The Study distorts
and disregards crucial evidence of Paterson's role in American history,
violates Park Service policies, and makes unsubstantiated conclusions in
the face of direct and compelling evidence presented by distinguished
scholars to the contrary.

**[Conclusion]{.underline}**

S. 148 is the Senate version of H.R. 189. The House Report on H.R. 189
responds to concerns the Administration raised in the House National
Park Subcommittee hearing and repeats in the Administration's prepared
testimony for today's Senate hearing. The Senate could support an
amendment of S. 148 to reflect the amendment of H.R. 189 as reported by
the House Resources Committee.

National and local support for the Paterson National Historical Park
continues to grow. Latino and African-American, Muslim and Jewish,
Catholic and Baptist citizens support a national historical park in
Paterson. Corporate executives and laborers, environmentalists and
property rights advocates, bankers and community activists, scholars and
schoolchildren, historic preservationists and developers support this
cause.

We live today in the economic world Hamilton envisioned and---starting
at the Great Falls in Paterson---played a major role in creating. We
urge members of this Subcommittee to support the legislation to create
the Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park.