The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-01-26
The Board Of TRADE and other People.

In MS letter feau al tue DoaIu Oh
Trade dinner, last night, Secretary
McAdoo attempts to solve what to
most people has been an insolvable
riddle. He tries to tell, in a few
words, the reasons why Jersey City
has not taken the place to which
nature has entitled her a. n of the
most prosperous and progressive cities
on the American Continent. He
seems TO think that the prin-
cipai retardiDg force has been
a moral one. He finds it in a lack of
public spirit and local pride through
which the best citizens in point OF
honesty and intelli sence have failed
to take an active part in public af-
fairs, and to organize themselves mo
bodies for the general improvement
and advancement of the municipal
ity. He speaks in a complimentary
a of the extent to which the Board
Of Trade has discounted this evil.
He says that as representative OF this
district. both in the State Legislature
dL4A III SO4S CS9. la Aioo oOStA aAoS~
aided and encouraged by the advice
and assistance of the Board.
We cheerfully assent to both
propositions advanced by Mr.. McAdoo
but we cannot quite Gllink hat they
cover the entire ground or that either
one is altogether true. The real
trouble in this community, it has al
ways seemed to US, has been a certain
cynical tons in the public mind as re-
spects public affairs. Whether this is
the result of generations of bad gov
eminent, or whether the bad govern
nlent is in any great part a product OF
this state of public feeling we will not
undertake to say. This is not the only
city wherein we have known the
two things to go hand and hand; they
certainly foster and develop each
other. So far as jersey City is con-
cerned we can only regard it as certain
that both bad government and a gen
eral tone of cynicism respecting public
affairs exist: that they each tend to
increase the other from day to day,
and that both tend to impede tine
progress of the city. There seems to
be an all pervading spirit of opposi-
ton in our people which makes it we'll
nigh impossible to do anything new.
1t assails every idea that is projected
and every enterprise that is planned.
No matter how beneficial a project
may be, no matter how many years
the city may have longed for it, no
matter how economical and judicious
the plans for its realization may be,
no matter how pure and honorable
may be the methods of those who sup
port it, it is the inevitable destiny to
have it assaulted with dou BITS, questions
and suspicious and too often finally
overwhelmed with volumes of malig-
nifty.
Sometimes it is a dishonest news
paper which leads in the attack; some
times it is a crank Grand Jury, and
occasionally it isa body of citizens,
who ought to know better. 1t may
be a ward improvement society or it
may be a Board of Trade. but some
one always insists on seeing thievery
or jobbery in a proposed public work,
sim ply because it is new and because
it's execution involves the expenditure
of solne public money.
Mfr. McAdoo specifies three requisites
of a prosperous city. They are a
pure and sufficient water supply. an
efficient system of sewerage and well
paved streets. The paving of streets
and the construction of ewers are
matters Of slow growth. They pro-
gress bit by bit as a city grows. Later
generations find the work done-often
badly and insufficiently, but still done
i'll such a fashion a to answer ordin-
ary purposes. Finding many other
demands for the outlay Of money, the "
seldom regard it as wise to do the
whole work owe again for the
mere sake of perfection. until, indeed,
they attain the boundless opulence of
London, Paris or New York. On the
contrary, cities, when they reach the
stage in which we now find Jersey
City, usually discover, as is the case
with us, that the water supply be-
queathed to them by their ancestors
is utterly inadequate in quality or
quantity. or both. The supply of this
deficiency is a task to which they
turn with alacriry, and the people are
generally ready to provide the neces-
sary money for the enterprise. The
performance of this public duty
generally marks a new era in
municipal progress and develop
ment. Our sister city of Newark
has not only risen to the emergency,
buthas even rushed into extravaganza,
for the purpose of securing a proper
supply Of water for her present and
future needs. Jersey City, on the
other hand, after nearly twenty
years of agitation, is still, TODAY.
Us far from any conclusion on this
subject as if it had never been taken
up, and we are bound to say that the
principal difficulty has always been
tiIescynical suspicion. with which the