The sun., 1895-01-04
The Evils of Public Mysteries.

Under the influence of wild and persistent
newspaper agitation, this community was
finally worked up into condition of hys-
terical excitement over the very sober and
practical question of rapid transit The
nervous disease took possession of the Cham
Der Of Commerce, supposedly an association
Of level-headed men who looked at all bust
ness problems and enterprises with cool
judgment; and thence it spread widely, until
at the time OF the last election great part of
the citizens of New York had become the
victims of the distressing malady.
During this period of insanity the Cham
Der of Commerce got up a crazy bill on the
subject, which was pushed through the
Legislature, with great hullabaloo raised
by the hysterical newspapers, as n
measure Of prime necessity; and peo-
pie here and at Albany, who examined
1t in their right senses and pointed
out its inherent viciousness and the
impracticability of the scheme it author
lied, were denounced by its distraught adj
vocates as conscienceless enemies of the
public welfare. The result is a selfper-
petuating Rapid Transit Commission, upon
which there Is not a single member with
any SpcCihi uthlltB WIFI
the problem, yet enjoying a power to
determine plans and exhaust the bor-
rowing capacity of the city to raise
money for their execution, provided that
the general scheme should be approved by a
vote Of the citizens Except in THE SUN
that scheme received no sane discussion
from the newspapers, and none from the
Chamber Of Commerce, which in It's hysteri-
cal disorder had made itself responsible for
the undertaking. not financially, but NOR
ally. Not a member Of that body would
put a cent Of his own money into project
upon which II boldly advised the expendi-
ture Of AN almost illimitable amount of the
public money. They had not lost their heads
20 far as that They had not forgotten how
20 count their own pennies, and they re-
membered that when previously an attempt
was made to raise private capital for sub
stantially the same project, they and all
other capitalists, here and abroad, refused
absolutely to put a single dollar into 1t, as
risk which was hopelessly bad. They were
only hysterical concerning the expenditure
of the public money upon 1t, and the strain
ing OF the credit Of the city to its extreme
constitutional limit for the benefit of a
scheme, which they themselves had rejected
as proitless, II not wholly and absurdly inn
practicable.
A special committee of this hysterical
Chamber published an appeal to the citi-
gems commencing TO them this project ridi-
culed by all private capitalists, and urg-
ing them to vote the public money for
It, on the ground that 1t was a safe
and secure financial investment, certain
TO pay back the expenditure upon
It, with handsome interestl Even the
President OF a great trust company and
the President OF bank, neither Of whom
would have dared to risk his reputation
by advising the investment OF any private
capital whatsoever in the crazy scheme,
signed this appeal so false In its pretsnces
and so untruthful In its assurances. They
signed 1t perfunctoHly without hav-
ing undertaken TO give any thought
to what they were doing; and the
Chamber OF Commerce as a whole
ratified their careless and outrageous pro
ceeding In practising deception on the peO-
pie They pretended TO the citizens that