Year: 1872

| Prosperity - the city.


The municipal election in this city assumes
its chief importance from the fact that it is
identical in spirit with the growth Of the me-
tropolis. Our next Mayor ought to be man
as active and progressive in his ideas as the
city is lusty and vigorous in its growth. There
must be no failure in the development of the
material interests of New York on account of
slow and imbecile municipal administration.
We want honesty and capability, but these fall
short of the full measure of our requirements.
A close-6sted policy will not do for growing
maritime municipality. The spending Of money
is as necessary in making great city as are
proper regard to economy and wise discrim-
ination in its distribution. Much as we may
sigh for the good old times when Mr.. Have
meyer was Mayor, and when the city govern
ment did not spend tithe Of what it spends
to-day, we cannot forget that the city has
changed while Mr.. Havemeyer was growing
old. That was more than quarter of CEN
tury ago, and then the Central Park and
other gigantic works of recent years were
only among the possibilities of the future.
quarter of a century has witnessed a
growth only rivalled by the growth of
London, and an improvement in streets and
avenues and public and private buildings
which is nowhere equalled except in the Paris
which the two Napoleons gave to France.
Even parsimonious city government could
not stop the rapid strides of the metropolis,
but it could retard the progress of New York
oxl o,,I &c
great city. All this is apparent from what we
have seen in the last year. A system Of COM
prehensive and necessary improvements, not
alone along our magnificent river front. but
in the parks and highways of the city, has
been languishing because of q stinted and un-
generous policy. To reform is not to retard
and to be honest and economical is not to
stand still while the world moves. Young
blood is required in our municipal administra-
ton, and our next Mayor must be man as
capable Of appreciating the wants and require
ments of the city as in rendering just
account Of his stewardship. Such man is
presented in Mr.. William Butler Duncan, and
we have urged his nomination and election
because these considerations are bound up
with the progress and prosperity of the city


Our readers will remember the glowing pic
ture which Macaulay drew of the growth of
London since the time of Charles II. AS
vivid parallel might be drawn between the
London of Lord Macaulays time and the
even more wonderful London of to-day. It
is but few years since the great historian
lived and wrote and yet the great capital
which he loved to explore would now be new
and strange to him. The underground rail-
way from Paddington the Thames tunnel, the
Holborn Viaduct, the bridges at Westminster
and Blackfriars and the grand and broad
streets which have opened up a new city in
| the heart of the old would be to him as a rev.
eation. A narrow and ungenerous policy,
mistaking parsimony for economy, could have
prevented this growth and dwarfed the grow
ing London, on which the world looks with
admiration not unmixed with ave. New
York is to-day in danger Of making the mis-
take which London avoided. Where there was
prodigality before there is baleful econ
omy now. Dulness takes the name
Of honesty and narrowness is mis-
taken for economy 1t is even doubt
full whether we are to have the new system
Of docks and piers, with the grand wide river
streets running round city imperial in its
proportions and great in the magnifcence of
private enterprise, which has been promised
us 50 long. If the policy of parsimony
triumphs the requirements of commerce will
be set aside and the progress and prosperity of
the city disregarded The river front will
continue as unsightly and inconvenient as
before, and the ragged and broken wharves
will be allowed to buffet with the waves while
our shipping seeks the Jersey shore. Nothing
will be done for rapid transit through the
island while New Jersey and even Connecticut
swallow up our population. The age of sloth
will have set in and the city will grow old and
begin to decay before its time. How would
such policy and such fate compare with
the glorious growth of spreading and roaring
and rattling London? dwarfed future will
be the result Of dwarfish policy, and it is the
fear of this which makes us anxious that
mistaken notion of reform shall not intervene
against the true interests of the city.


That New York has future as glorious as
has been her past no one can doubt Most Of
us have seen it reaching out like the tendrils
of young and vigorous vine and covering
with great storehouses and palatial mansions
what few years ago were only the resorts Of
vice or the outskirts of growing but CON-
paratively insignificant city. Now we see no
end to its growth and no limit to its grandeur,
if the people of New York are true to them
selves What matters the spending Of money
if it is spent judciously and with the certainty
of making US greater and richer? Only the
miser boards and grows poor by boarding.
The population Of New York can afford to give
of their abundance to make their city great