The New York herald., 1876-10-01
The Mayor OF New York.

among otner people wnom we are W eieo.
in November is a Mayor for the city Of New
York The Presidential contests so exciting
that the Mayoralty of one Of the three most
important cities in the world, while it does
not precisely 60 begging. is yet, in the popu-
lar mind. a minor Office. Yet the population
whose chief executive officer the Mayor is
makes up a fortieth of the whole population
of the United States. and though his patron
age is less than that of the President it is
far from contemplate and Mayor of New
York, if he were something besides third
rate politician and kind of gilt-edged justice
Of the peace /; if he were man proud Of the
city, intelligently desirous to increase its
prosperity and greatness, and familiar, as
such an officer ought to be, with its wants,
might make himself great name-much
greater fame, in fact than some of our Presi-
dents enjoy in history.
There are not many spots in the world
where q man of statesmanlike intelligence
and courageous honesty could plan out
so great career as is open to Mayor of
New York. Our city is one of the three great
commercial capitals of the world. Into its
port flows the greater part of the trade of
the continent. Here is gathered greater
wealth than on any similar area in the
United States Nature has given us an un-
equalled situation ; commerce has drawn
hither n population on the whole as in
genious, enterprising and industrious as that
of any city in the world, except, perhaps,
paric
lures and people we have-and not much
else except heavy debt. If we had among
us citizen with the ambition to recreate
New York, as it ought to be recreated-a man
who wished to be Mayor, not for the salary
or the petty honor Of the place, or because
it fattered his vanity to be the dispenser
Of patronage, but because he wished to help
make New York what it ought to be-what
would be his dream? He would see at his
hand enormous forces of wealth and popula-
ton, working in almost chaotic confusion.
He would see laboring people more wretch
edly lodged than any equal number Of men.
women and children in the world, and yet
lot He would see commerce prosecuted
daily under difficulties and charges which
would drive it away from any less favored
city. He would see streets ill paved and
dirty; piers and docks unfit for the accom-
mediation of ships; insufficient warehouses,
needlessly distant from the ships; every
where mismanagement, waste of effort and
means in attaining the everyday objects
Of life; distances made unnecessarily great;
living costly and inconvenient to an extreme
which drives thousands away from the city
yearly.
And yet he would see that all this waste,
inconvenience costliness, is unnecessary;
that New York ought, by reason of its Won
derful natural advantages, to be one of the
cleanest, most convenient aud cheapest
cities in the world. He would see that with
two or three rapid transit roads the greater
part of our tenement house population, now
SO abominably lodged that its death rate is
nearly double that of the uptown popula-
ton, could easily be drawn to the upper end
of the island, where it would live in decency
and comfort. He would see that the ware
houses of great port need to be connected
with the shipping by convenient railroads;
that the markets of a great city ought to be
ply them and to the people who must use
them, and ought not to be kept in slums,
where purchasers visit them ut the risk of
their lives. He would know that with the
growth of this great city careful plans are
needed for the location of steamships, of
railroad depots, of fleets plying in the differ
ent trades. and that we can no longer go on
in the haphazard way in which we have been
living.
In fact, he would see that, SO far as organi-
zation goes, New York is yet a village, and
waits for some citizen with genius, persist
ence and devotion to make it q city. 1t is
huge village, which has squandered seventy
millions in a vain, because ill-regulated, dis
orderly and extravagant attempt to become
a city. 1t has a court house which is a mon
ument of the most audacious theft of modern
days. 1t has magnificent park lying out
of the convenient reach of the greater part
of it's people 1t cultivates commerce as
though the object of commerce was to afford
a prey to a few favored robbers. 1t has q
government which is so much sham
that the rights of the poor to free
air and decent lodgings are utterly
neglected, the laborer works under
greater difficulties than anywhere else on the
continent, and the traveller enters the city
through slums which offend his nose in the
summer time and his sense of decency at
all times. Is there any other city in the
world where cartman may spend eight
hours in transporting trunk twelve blocks
from ferry landing to a steamer dock? or
where draymen rise an hour earlier to get
into queue. and wait half day for chance
to unload their goods? or where, after