The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-09-20

ignored. Mr.. STILES and the Sargent com
mittee were sustained unanimously by the
press Of New York city. The Fine Arts Fed
Grafton protested vigorously against the
threatened outrage, but nothing would stay
the obstinacy and the vanity Of the spirit
OF business. Years Of patient effort to
establish q rule that could raise and pre-
serve the standard Of New York's public
art were to the headstrong leaders OF the
Botanical Society an III known or a de-
spised chapter In Dur municipal history.
And here the difference between the busi-
ness man In Office and the trained official was
displayed with impressive clearness. TIL
A b Q Of public works requires that
the amateurs clothed with final power
shall build under the authority of pro-
f%cssional knowledge. The business man
may make his w plans, but not so the
public official. The reports of experts are
the red tape which insures the reasonable
application of skill In the expenditure of
public money. The experts signature to
a plan gives to the public the guaran-
tee Of a professional reputation.
In the Botanical Garden, however, the
political method was rejected and the
business method, in so far ms the bust
ness man Is law unto himself and respon-
sible to no one, was adopted In its stead.
The plans for which the Society have
had the temerity to ask the Financial
Board Of New York to give 1t money
are without the stamp Of the approval
Of an expert retained to protect the city's
interests. Only the extreme technicality
Of the law which, relying upon the good
faith Of public officers, is not in the habit
of prescribing regulations as to experts, can
enable the Botanical Society to get hold of
the money desired, against the opposition of
knowledge, experience, and public opinion.
The hardihood with which the society per.
sists in defying all protests is applicable
only by Grass inability to perceive the fun
damental objection to their conduct, or by
personal pique sufficient to rob them Of all
sense Of propriety.
Under these circumstance the scheme
reached its present stage in the Boardso of
Estimate and Apportionment.
There the Mayor showed again and still
more amazingly how different the ways
and thoughts of the pure-bred business
man can be from those of a public
officer familiar with his functions, con-
scious of his duty, and thoughtful of the
- Neo ~ ~ puoAiS SoIlC
thing must be lone at once" said the
Mayor, cor 1925, 900 promised conditional
ly to the Board of Managers will lapse at
the end of the year." The sum of 1925 900,
or the $25O,OO subscribed all told by the
Botanical Society, is a pocket-piece COM
pared to the millions which the city of New
York Is to devote to the Botanical Garden,
II that be destined to flourish. To the
business Mayors eye that 1925, 900 was
enough to make him write q letter to the
Park Board urging them to adopt, with or
without examination, plans that were to
stand for all time and please or disgust
future generations. This comparatively
petty sum was enough to sink the Mayors
common sense under his impotence. Men,
tioning Messrs. SARGENT, OLMsrED, and
HASTINGS, the Mayor continued: "They
may be experts in laying out landscapes,
but not one of them has ever had any ex-
perience in making botanical gardens.
They do not know near so much about the
making Of a botanical outfit as some of the
gentlemen connected with this Society,""
This gives a ludicrous air to the defence of
the Society's plans which it Is unnecessary
to waste time in discussing.
1.-THE experts cannot make up their minds
now as to just what ought to be DONE"
said the Mayor. This view might be held
by some old woman knitting stockings in a
tenement house on Avenue A. II the Job
should change into such a shape that the
Sargent committee should be asked to say
positively what ought to be done, there need
be no anxiety as to the promptitude or
adequacy Of the reply.
Ruf the Mavor,a lovalty 70 bto b,e;no..
friends drove him wilder still. Hear
him! Two of these experts are from
Boston," says he. "They may be inter
ested in holding up the plans"
One OF these experts, as Is well known, Is
Prof. CHARLES S. SARGENT, a gentleman
of national renown in his vocation, a man
of wealth, and known by all who know
anything of him, to be as high an ex-
ample OF the ~unbending devotee of learning
as any scholar In the country. The other
Boston expert Is a son Of Mr.. FREDERICK
LAW OLMsTED, whose mark has been put
upon almost every city in the Union pos.
sessed of a great pleasure ground. And this
Mr.. JOHN OLMsTED but completed the work
begun by the late Mr.. WILLIAM ELIOT, a
son OF President ELIOT of Harvard, whom
all lovers of park.making had seen grow into
one of the most hopeful opponents of the art.
These are the two gentlemen whom the advo-
cate of the Botanical Garden plans in the
Board of Estimate and Apportionment
charged with petty local spite and preju.
dice in the discharge of their trust. Again,
however, we incline to pronounce the
Mayor only half guilty. We feel that the
impulse to this coarse and vulgar attack
upon Messrs. SARGENT and OLMsTEp had
been put into his head by some business
mar connected with the Society.
We hear a great deal about good govern
ment, and of reverence for the public In
terest. This Botanical Garden affair, In
volving as it does the new disciple of good
government, Mr.. SETH Low, and repre-.
sented as 1t was in the application before
the Board of Estimate and Apportionment
by a professor In Columbia College. the